Odd Is My Copilot

Foliage at twelve o'clock

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if a stranger tells you that you "might" encounter "incidental nudity" at his house, you will, in fact, see him naked from the very first moment you meet. This holds true even if—perhaps especially if—the house in question is a decommissioned 727 in the Oregon woods. We went to such a house en route to a Hillsboro Hoops Hops game last August. It's taken me a while to write this, because, as we well know, it is possible to overthink a thing. To be fair, though, it is also possible to badly, badly underthink a situation and find yourself constantly risking powerful electric shocks or engulfment by bees, when all you wanted was to live a quiet life in a stratofortress.

There are certain moments in our travels that have become definitional touchstones. There are others that slip right past. This was one of the former, and we discussed it at great, great length afterward. But after extended parsing of the many details of our visit, Rob helped me come to the clarifying conclusion that a man who lives in a 727 in the woods (and the 727 itself) doesn't mean anything; he simply is, and it simply is. If by "simply" we mean not simply at all.

(Rob's exact words are lost to my bad memory and the ether, but they were something like, "We said we were going to go visit a strange man who lives in a plane, and we did. Does there have to be more to it?" It reminded me of a high school teacher I had who told us of a history class he himself had once taken. The final exam included the directive, "Explain the significance of World War I and World II in American history." His answer, for which he said got top marks, was, in its entirety, "Two wars.")

No one speaks for the man in the plane better than the man himself. So I strongly encourage you to sample his own entirely forthcoming and accurate-to-the-experience writings yourself—perhaps starting with his visitor information. I could not possibly paint a more convincing picture. Speaking of pictures, though, here are a few. None of them, I am happy to say, feature the requisite nudity.

For scale, THAT IS A REAL PLANE.

Why is there a "real" spider on one of the few seats inside the home? I'm absolutely sure that I cannot explain. I will say, though, that two seats down, there's another one.

I am not a structural engineer, and I kind of would like one to size this up.

I think the real question underlying this whole experience is "Y not?" Photo by Rob. 

Anticlimactic? Perhaps. But some things are simply proof of themselves. And unlike the All-Star Game, this did happen.