Flights of Fancy

Larry and I attended the Sauk County Historical Society's annual banquet where we heard historian and author Michael Goc tell about the early days of aviation in Wisconsin.  One aviation pioneer, Nels Nelson, paid a visit to the Sauk County Fair in 1911 with his flying machine.  As I listened to Mr. Goc, I thought of the many times I watch the birds, floating on the currents high in the sky, wondering what it must be like to be so free and to have such a vantage point of things below.  I can only imagine how the Sauk County Fair audience must have felt in 1911 and others in Wisconsin in that era who witnessed those newfangled things called aeroplanes.  What must they have thought as they saw such a huge contraption carrying human beings into the sky, taking flight, just like the birds I watch each evening?  Today, we take such technology for granted, but at one time, Nels Nelson and other aviation pioneers were introducing something unfathomable and thrilling to Wisconsin's rural audiences.  Thanks to them, transportation would never be the same.