by: Janice Kortkamp

date: September 10, 2018

So much to report on about Syria but had to take a break for a moment and share a personal story after seeing the remarkable and enjoyable indie film “Bagdad Café” the other night – and man, did that bring up memories. From the haunting song track to the weathered buildings and characters that film struck so many chords of remembrance. Thank you Mark Williams for the recommendation!

In my late teens, early 20’s I ended up in the middle of a dry nowhere just as the main character of the movie did though under very different circumstances. My “Bagdad Café” was the El Mirage Glider Port, in the Mohave Desert of California. I can still feel my thrill at seeing it for the first time, driving way out of town (I lived in Apple Valley at the time), down a long washboard dirt driveway and entering into the almost deserted World War II glider pilot training air field. Not much had changed on it since the 40’s except of course it was well-weathered. In that part of California, the high desert, the wind almost always blew and sand blasted buildings, vehicles and people constantly.

I was young and confident with a fresh new pilot’s license in my pocket and wanted to live, eat, drink and breathe flying so I wanted a job at an airport, a small airport with big character, and El Mirage was perfection. I knew it was home instantly and asked the owner for a job – and got the job and one of the rooms of the two-room motel on the field! Started almost immediately as the chief cook-dish washer-waitress in the small café there; my specialties were eggs flipped to order and old-fashioned patty melts (like a grilled cheese sandwich with fried onions on rye bread – a real heart stopper!)

Days spent on the grill and evenings out on the porch where we had a line of old airliner seats and pilots and locals would sit out until late at night drinking beers and talking flying , telling jokes and stories – some real and some tall tales – mostly about flying of course. It was magical.

After a while I got a part time job with the local ultralight flight school – ultralights are powered hang gliders – and began teaching people how to fly those modern barnstormers. I had to get up at 4am to see if there was a breath of wind in the early morning which meant more to come; if there was any wind, flying lessons were canceled for the day as it added too much complexity for students. The days flew by 😉 training folks in the morning then taking over the café in the afternoons.

It’s always people that cut the deepest trenches in my memory and there were plenty of characters to get to know. Living on the field were the owner/manager and his wife. They also ran the aircraft graveyard, which was acres of planes, helicopters etc that had been in accidents or retired that they stripped and sold for parts. There was Eddie, a middle aged former rodeo clown turned Hollywood talent scout and agent. His claim to fame was being the agent of a girl on The Love Boat. Eddie became a dear friend, a wiry, small and slight man who used to drink cokes and iced tea with 10 packs of sugar in them and smoked non-stop. He rented the other room of the motel and died in it soon after I left. He loved ultralights and had his own and would go flying with us all the time. Then there were Dave and Julia in a somewhat real house (though only one room) on the grounds. They kind of adopted me a little as their daughter which was nice. Dave was a pilot too of course and a machinist as well – he actually built his own ultralight.

Other people came and went. Once the Soaring Championships were held there and we were invaded by mostly German glider pilots; ironic since the field was built to train pilots to fight the Germans. Much more fun to have them there drinking beer and singing biergarten songs all night long! Folks would fly in from other airfields for a cup of coffee or a meal and we would often fly to a minimart in a small town nearby which was great fun because people would see us circling then come watch as we landed and got our coffee and asked us all kinds of questions about the cool little planes.

Of course the flying students coming out were sometimes fascinating and sometimes infuriating. Doctors were almost always obnoxious and hard to teach for some reason. Had a couple of cool actors come out from Hollywood to learn and they enjoyed the ambiance and the hanging out after the lessons. All kinds of folks.

On the field at that time were the three runways though only one was in good enough repair to use; a large hangar from WWII days; the café and tiny motel; a few out buildings like Dave and Julia’s house; and a corral for the owners’ horse. That was about it. When we needed a change of scenery we’d drive down the long driveway and across the street to the Lazy 3 café complete with dead flies in the window sills and an older lady waitress who showed us her shingles one time as she served up our meals. But oh, they could cook a steak to die for.

I left after about a year or so but those times are burned into my brain and I’m so thankful. I thought El Mirage would always be there to go back to but nothing stays the same I guess and El Mirage got sold to perhaps the first drone manufacturer. Eddie had died by then, everyone else had to move, but the owners kept the graveyard of broken planes. The airfield is surrounded by high fence topped with razor wire and public access gone forever it seems. Syd and I went back once and they let us see inside a little bit but I didn’t like it and wanted to leave.

Anyway, I ended up with only one photo of my time there, the one of me with a student. The others are off a website devoted to abandoned airfields in California. They included a poem about El Mirage and here is part of it. It’s a good way to end this story:

“But now again it lies dying
not of age & wind, but loneliness
The world incessantly gnaws at its border
and the souls who care cannot look without tears
But I have been here, to this magic place
before it is ended
I have felt the emotion of its spirit, and mine has become stronger
It has given me a gift, and let me learn
and it can therefore never die . . . but
if only El Mirage could talk”
(Requiem for an Airfield by Bill Berle 1984)