I made this visit to Honeyoe Falls on one of those late autumn days when the world is very obviously preparing to go to sleep for the winter. It was a profoundly calm morning that was just a day or two ahead of a blast of winter air which howled into the area with 55MPH winds.

The story seems to talk more about runways than little towns and their little airports, but that's why breakfast was only incidental to the experience. The big places are built and maintained at great expense to cookie- cutter conformity and exact specifications. They are central facilities and everyone stands in line for access.

The trip from home to a big airport is often aggravating, and the aggravation only intensifies within the terminal. Passengers are squeezed into a schedule that matches the coming and going of the airplanes. Workers scurry around to load and service the plane and launch it on time. Even a short stay at an air- carrier airport can manage to defile every one of your senses. They are crowded, noisy, and smelly... and they give airports a bad name.

The airport at Honeyoe Falls is like most all the other airports where my friends and I fly our planes. It is nothing more than a swath of grass, no different than the stuff we grow around our houses, except that I have never seen a Chemlawn truck at an airport. From time to time an airplane rolls onto it or rumbles off of it, but for the most part these little airports aren't much different than the greenswaths that are incorporated into "properly planned" communities.

Birds sing... bugs buzz, click, and crick... and the breezes ruffle the longer grass and the leaves of nearby trees. I visited a sweet little airport next to a charming town... Why can't everyplace be so pleasant?