By the time the news reached Idaho, it was several weeks old. Communication in those days was pitifully slow and, what’s more, it was the unlikeliest of news anyways, especially in these parts.

Without the benefits of YouTube and instant messaging, no-one had the opportunity to verify what they heard or read in the newspapers anyways.

Seth, on hearing that there was now a ‘flying machine’ over on the East coast, was more than dismissive. He had twenty acres of potatoes to plant and such fripperies that those two boys in Carolina had been wasting their time on, was simply an irritant.

At the town store, he was quick to make his point.

“How crazy are they, wasting their time on such nonsense,” he quipped with two of the other good ‘ol boys over a cup of coffee, “There’ll be trouble over it, mark my words.”

No-one was going to argue with Seth in that mood, that was for sure. So, feeling slightly chilly in mind as well as body, he picked up his stores and set off back to the farm.

“There’ll be trouble over it,” he mumbled again as he drive along the dusty Main Street on his way out of town.

“Flying up in the air, well, if we was meant to do it, The Lord would have provided us with wings.”

These were his final words on the subject and he settled back to his meandering thinking that was his normal way, as he drove back to the twenty-acre field and it’s planting.

***

When Joe heard the news from his father, later in the day, he felt much differently. Joe was a different generation, you see, and was a different boy too. For Joe had a ‘cup half-full’ mentality.

With Joe, ‘If you can dream, you can,” was his motto, yet he was troubled that his father would not see such possibilities for the opportunities they might offer.

Joe was able, despite his father’s conservative views on life, to see that in years to come, some of the challenges that not just farmers faced, but everyone in Idaho faced, might just become easier.

He was cheery boy, who dug in and helped the farm be as productive as it could be; did all of his cores well, despite the grinding workload. For an Idaho farmer was not the route to a fortune, he knew that. There was a belief in loyalty to family that would desperately try to hold him there, come what may.

When father came back with the news that supposedly two young men had taken flight in a machine, he felt justified, for Joe had always believed that flight was possible.

Much to his mother’s (and father’s, for that matter) dismay, Joe could be seen from time to time ‘flying’ round the farm, flapping his arms like the geese that passed through in the Spring and Autumn.

He had an innate understanding of how ‘lift’ worked and saw in the birds that flew – and the geese especially (because of their size they were easier to see), how they formed shapes with their wings that helped them glide in, as well as how they used their tails and wings to direct themselves.

Surely, man must be able, in all the smartness they have, to be able to do that with the understanding of machines they had nowadays?

Joe had tried to make paper models that copied what the geese did, but that wasn’t quite it, he was sure, for there needed to be some input from the flying object itself. They could not fly by themselves, for they needed to adjust their shape as they flew to make it work.

The news from the East was only what Joe had, in his wildest dreams imagined . And now, it seemed, it had been done.

Over the ages, it was clear that only progress happened. There would be one step forwards and it would be hazardous. Then there would be more. People would crowd into an innovation and try more things in more ways and it would improve.

It was the nature of things that the development of something new would happen, more and more.

And Joe knew this. And, for a while, at least, felt more alone than he ever had, for he wanted to be there; to be a part of the new technologies that would come along.

To be excited and, he knew, disappointed sometimes, when things didn’t quite go to plan. In the moment that he recognised what his father was talking about, he knew he would, one day be part of that new growth in the world.

Be it on their farm, in the middle of Idaho, with its potatoes and all, or be it somewhere else, he knew not.

But for Joe, change would come and he would be in there, a part of it.