Death By Starling
Speckled brown clumps of feather and gristle were inches from my freckled face.
I was 11 years old. Muddy jagged airplane parts crowded the deck of the heavy salvage barge where I stood.
Looming over me was a giant Lockheed L-188A Electra turboprop aircraft engine. I squinted, looking closer at damp feathers as morning sun reflected off the riveted engine cowling.
Dripping 35 millimeter in-flight movie film drooped over the engine. I recognized Burt Lancaster in a frame.
Delivering a fire and brimstone sermon, he warned of judgment day, portraying a womanizing preacher in “Elmer Gantry.”
This was a cruel judgment indeed. A disaster from an unlucky chain of events re-wrote airline history.
Death had washed over Winthrop, Massachusetts with the fury of a Nor’easter slamming Shore Drive sea walls.
“Don’t touch anything,” Dad said as a motor launch ferried us from the Cottage Park Yacht Club that morning. The barge’s giant crane swung lazily on gentle ocean swells.
I kept my hands in my pockets.
We carried a wooden woven picnic basket with sandwiches my mother made each day to feed the awaiting salvage crew.
