I KNEW THOSE WRIGHT BROTHERS WERE CRAZY!

A firsthand account from one of the first people to hear-and initially dismiss-the news of a breakthrough that heralded the dawn of a new era

- BY Alpheus W. Drinkwater

ONE MORNING in late November 1903, I left Currituck Beach Lifesaving Station and drove my one-horse beach cart down the shore to the forsaken dunes of Kitty Hawk. There was a break in the telegraph wire there and it was my job, as telegrapher and line repairman for the US Weather Bureau, to fix it. The Bureau had full Coast Guard duties then, and upon that line might depend the fate of ships driven ashore on North Carolina's treacherous Outer Banks.

As I spliced the line I waved indifferently to two figures over on the dunes. They were the Wright brothers-two eccentric bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio, who believed they were going to make a horseless motor carriage fly like a bird. They were crazy, of course.

By now all of us native islanders knew Wilbur and Orville Wright by sight. For four years now they had come to camp on this lonely expanse of sand and experiment with what looked like a clumsy kite of wood and cheesecloth. Now they came up the beach and stood watching me work.

"Flown yet?" I asked, hoping the irony wasn't too transparent.

"Not yet," Orville Wright said quietly. "The hurricane last month tore up our camp, and that gale the other day ripped it apart again."

"What with all the delays, we're just beginning to assemble our aeroplane," Wilbur said," but we'll be trying it soon. We'll let everybody around here know when we're ready. I hope you can come."

"I hope so," I lied politely, "but I have to stay at the Lifesaving Station practically 24 hours a day. It's my job to sight any ships in trouble and telegraph Norfolk. My telegrams bring the tugs down to grab ships before they can go on the shoals."

"Really?" said Orville, with what appeared to be genuine interest.

"I have to be where the big news breaks. That's why I can't afford to spend much time away down here."

"I see," said Orville. "Well, good luck."