(The following is an excerpt from my book, Prelude to a Super Airplane. It can be purchased by clicking on any of the roughly 400 banners adorning this site, or by clicking here. It’s also available on Amazon.

I’ve posted the first 20 chapters (roughly 55 pages of PTSA) on this site. Links to each of those are at the end of this post, or you can download all of them as a pdf by clicking here.

Somehow Senator Joseph Piperbraum had never been in this particular airplane station goods shop before, despite his many important Senatoring travels.

That’s what made his purchase of items at the airplane station goods shop so exciting. It was exciting because it was new. His arms were bursting with a variety of items – some he needed, some not as much, and some he had no use for at all.

Senator Piperbraum brought his mother on this trip, and she noted that the prices here in this airplane station goods shop were higher than in other goods shops, such as the regular one, near her home in a suburb just outside of Akron, Ohio.

“Mother, please,” he had a way of chiding her that was both loving and warm. “I’m a United States Senator now.”

“Senators don’t worry about money?” she had this same loving and warm demeanor, and it was clear he had inherited it from she, as they were related.

“Senators don’t have their mothers telling them how to spend the money they have, be it a little or a lot.”

He winked at her. She winked back, and they both laughed. His mother had raised him alone, and thus Senator Piperbraum had a special bond with her. It was special because he didn’t have this bond with anyone else. Just with her, his mother. He was a Senator.

They winked at each other for forty-five minutes, alternating eyes each and every time.

An airplane station goods store employee noted this – first with amazement, then annoyance.

Senator Piperbraum had in his hands the airplane station goods store’s last copy of that week’s Entertaining Weekly, and several customers had asked for said periodical. There was a shortage of the issue nationwide, as the cover story was all about the fifteenth, and final, reading book in the Andreanna Marsupial series.

The airplane station goods store employee tapped the Senator on the shoulder.

The Senator turned his head to this uninvited guest to his world slowly, and with a squint in his eyes that conveyed anger and confusion, and an amazement to be in this situation. It was not unlike what Bruce Willis would have done in one of his many famous movies.

“Mister, you gonna buy that EW or what?”

The Senator’s mother began to speak, but her son was quick to hush her with an ever-so-slight wave of his hand. Being a Senator brought perks, such as this air of natural authority. Joseph Piperbraum liked to think he was singularly unique in this way, but of course, there were one hundred and five other Senators in These United States of America, as well.

“I’m a United States Senator. Show me your finest airplane neck stabilizing cushion, and I shall purchase it today.”

He hesitated, and it was effective.

“Without hesitation.”

Senator Joseph Piperbraum was enjoying this airplane station goods store indeed. He would be coming back to this place, and he would bring his mother with him, because they had a special bond, and he knew this bond would never be broken.

No matter what.

Brad Radby’s Foreward, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 31