I know I've seen that plane before

Friday morning I woke up too early. No way I could go back to sleep. I can't wait to go to Cub Haven. Coffee. I put ice in a little cooler for some drinks to go. I didn't check the weather. Fog is lifted and T-Storms could always happen. Roll out the Cadet and off we go. It's really hot in that greenhouse of a cabin under that canopy. My air vents are inop and I swear again to myself to work on that repair. The sun is beating on my head, and I don't feel like opening the canopy because I want to do some navigating around Class B, C, and Restricted airspace. I grab a sectional I'm not using. It is Cincinnati. I grab my masking tape. I tape the sectional completely across the top of my canopy. It was really a relief. Now my cockpit was a shady cool place. You ever use masking tape in the cockpit? It's a great tool for your flight bag. You can tape up a sunshade anywhere. You can tape over a noisy air leak. you can roll up a piece of tape for a double sided panel sticker and stick your pencil. or glasses, or mints, or approach chart, or anything to it. You can tape your headset wires up out of your way. I had a choice going by Harrisburg. Climb up over 6K and get over Class C and have a headwind, or slog around down low and go under and around Class C. I'm in no hurry and I want to stay cool and not have to talk to anyone. I took the headwind. So I made 68kts. Piper Memorial was a beehive. I edged up behind a cub and landed on the grass. Got directed into the boonies, but at least I was with the old planes and not banished to the FBO. There was maybe 100 planes there, or more, and I went up and looked at every one. A rain shower cooled us all off and I ducked under the wing of a 195. I registered. I ordered fuel. I ate Pennsylvania food. I checked out the fly market. I got a free "Trade a Plane". I got a free T-shirt. This is just about the nicest fly-in you could go to. I headed out to my plane to visit my cooler and my chair, and on the way I saw this beautiful white and yellow Alon A-2. It was exactly the kind I had flown as a kid. Even the paint scheme and N number looked familiar. I noticed an empty parking space next to it. I quickly found the guy with the wands. "Hey Mr. Parker, you think I could move my little Ercoupe thing way down there, up next to this Ercoupe thing right here?" "Don't see why not" Soon these Ercoupes which were not Ercoupes were side by side. The Alon's owner "Ed" was a great guy and we talked about each other's planes. His Alon is an original and a real pretty showplane. The original 42 yr. old interior. I could really compare the differences in our planes especially the turtle-back and tail. I came to realize why his airplane seemed so familiar to me. He told me the history of his plane as was told to him when he bought it ten years before. The plane had been wrecked when it was brand new. Then the guy Ed bought it from had had it for 30 years. Then Ed looked at me like I was crazy because I had just said, "I think I wrecked this plane when I was a seventeen year old kid back in '66". Aviation is a small world and a lot of planes don't go very far from home. My mind was reeling. Something had gone full circle in my life because of seeing that little Alon. I went back to fly-in center and saw my friends Roger Thiel and Mike Streeter. Then a guy beat up the field for a while in an L-39 Czech Jet which was lovely. The Alon left in a flight of four. They went to another Fly-in. Then a storm came breezing and thundering at us from the north. For the longest day of the year it was getting dark. I took off on the grass runway and headed south as soon as I could get over the town and over the mountain. I had a tailwind and a sunset and a swirl of memories as I headed home. G.A. Informal