Calvin Ross, Mystery Events

  Calvin Ross

A machine the size of a VW van unrolled, cut, and stamped out large sheets of heavy-duty plastic, each suggesting the shape of a canoe. We watched the nascent forms move along an assembly line for more canoe features. A shiny metal label with Coleman in bold red letters was finally affixed, certifying the canoe’s readiness for rivers, ponds, and lakes throughout the world. High overhead across from the canoes, conveyor lines carried coolers and freshly green-painted lanterns and camp stoves in various stages of production.

On this afternoon my wife Nancy and I and our two young sons, Dan and Brian, were inside a huge production building of the Coleman Company in Wichita where I had arranged—I think with our classmate Jim Schiefelbein—a personal tour as a family mystery event. These events were surprise adventures which I would secretly arrange two or three times each year for our children, hopefully for fun — and maybe to learn something.

During our Wichita years, some mystery events involved airplanes. One was circling in a Mooney plane over Wichita. Another was piloting ourselves at the cockpit controls of a Gates Learjet flight simulator. The most memorable, though, was a morning flight piloted by a friend, Lee Spaulding, an executive at Cessna. At the Cessna airfield, we boarded a plane, fastened our seat belts, and took off on a fifteen-minute flight to Beaumont, KS. We landed there on a dirt and sparse grass runway. No other person was in sight. The only structure was a building resembling an outhouse with a windsock on top.

Lee taxied the plane to the end of the Beaumont runway and then, carefully avoiding clipping trees with the plane’s wings, he turned right onto the hard, clay-packed county road. In a few minutes, we came to an intersection with two stop signs, a higher one for planes, lower one for cars. Taxiing diagonally across the intersection, we entered a parking lot for a restaurant, planes on the left and cars on the right. 

Inside the restaurant, we enjoyed a breakfast of fruit juices, omelets, and pancakes. All around us we overheard interesting conversations of other pilots and passengers who had stopped on what sounded mostly like flights along the Nebraska-Texas corridor. After eating, we walked outside to board the plane. Lee taxied us back to the runway for our return flight to Wichita.

Fast forward to the next generation and another location. I’m now arranging mystery events for grandkids in Tennessee. The most recent was a short day’s outing at a safari park near the Great Smoky Mountains. The main feature of the event was a slow drive through a natural habitat for such critters as ostriches, deer, bison, donkeys, buffaloes, camels, and

 zebras. Stopping our car at various places through the reserve was a cue for animals to amble over to stick their heads through our unrolled windows for food pellets and corn from our flat hands or from the food morsels we dropped on their tongues. One ostrich must have thought my left shoulder looked tasty, for he gave it a quick peck! Thankfully, grandsons Charlie, Taj, and Dev were unscathed—except for a buffalo that sneezed on them.

For an upcoming mystery event, I’ve secretly arranged with son Dan, an ER physician, to guide us on a brief tour of a local hospital, highlighting his workspace and equipment he uses with patients.

This mystery event should go better than one a few years ago with grandson Charlie, who was six at the time. I had thought he would enjoy the front seat experience of a long pull through an automated car wash with waves of suds sliding down the windows and big spinning rollers slapping leather straps all over the car. When we got there, though, Charlie realized what was up, looked chagrined, and said, “This isn’t a mystery event. This is a car wash!”

Finally, in August I’m planning an end-of-summer picnic for the entire family on a pontoon boat on nearby Lake Watauga. You’re welcome, by the way, to keep this secret and to join us. For lunch on the boat or an island in the lake, I’ll order plenty of Pizza Hut supreme, pepperoni, and cheese pizzas. So grab your sunglasses and sailing hats and come to Tennessee. I can’t promise you a turn at the wheel to steer the boat. That duty will be taken over entirely, I’m sure, by the crew of grandkids.