Lindbergh’s crate raises spirits high

You could say that Larry Ross of Canaan started thinking outside the box even before that phrase became a cliche on the motivational-speaking circuit.

In his case, the box just happens to be a real box, and a historic one at that. It’s the 27-foot-long, 12-foot-wide and 9-foot-tall wooden packing crate in which Charles Lindbergh shipped his Spirit of St. Louis airplane back to the United States from Paris, after it carried him on the world’s first, nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927.

When I first spoke with Ross about 12 years ago, he had recently become the proud owner of the faded but famous pine crate.

Soon after Lindbergh’s flight, Ross explained to me then, the commander of America’s European fleet, and a friend of the celebrated young aviator, had taken the crate to New Hampshire and transformed it into his rustic little cabin in the woods.

But the once-pretty dwelling had become run-down over the decades, and the new owner of the property on which it stood, a real estate developer who knew the crate’s well-documented past, decided to sell it before the relic rotted into oblivion.

When Ross and a friend disassembled the cabin and hauled it back to Canaan, the Concord Monitor ran a front-page story under the headline: “Maine man pays $3,000 for Lindbergh crate.” As the men crossed the bridge into Maine, the song “Living in the USA” by Steve Miller came on the radio. The announcer dedicated the song to Ross and his strange quest.

“It struck me as a charming but eccentric piece of Americana when I saw it,” Ross told me at the time. “As for its condition, well, let me put it this way: Only a person with vision would even look at it twice.”

But Ross had vision, all right, and he quickly started infusing it into the quirky piece of aviation memorabilia that now sat on a slab in his rural back yard. He spruced up the box, repaired its door and windows, and restored the original cottage roof and porch. He filled it with photos from the U.S. Navy archives of the crate being loaded onto a ship in France, and with scrapbooks of pictures, letters and news clippings that amounted to an intimate record of early aviation.

On May 21, 1992, the 65th anniversary of Lindbergh’s flight, Ross invited some local elementary schoolchildren to visit the restored cottage that he had come to think of as “a repository of memories.”

Ross, who teaches fifth- and sixth-graders at the Margaret Chase Smith School in Skowhegan, has been holding a “Lindbergh Crate Day” on the last Friday of the school year ever since. He uses the event as a teaching tool of sorts, an inspirational symbol of what the children could achieve one day if, like Lindy, they develop a vision, a plan, a team to help them, and the focus to make their loftiest dreams into reality.

And while the little crate-turned-cottage hasn’t changed much over the years, the event surrounding it has grown in ways that even Ross could not have imagined.

Military aircraft from bases throughout New England fly over the site each year. Ross also invites people from around the country who have done something that he believes embodies America’s can-do spirit.

At last Friday’s crate day, several of them showed up in Canaan, including a North Carolina artist featured in Life magazine for building a huge steel sculpture from the wreckage of the World Trade Center, and a Vermont Air National Guard pilot who patrolled the skies over Manhattan in his F-16 after the Sept. 11 attacks.

And by the time the day was over, Ross was convinced that Lindbergh’s old packing crate had become the conduit for an extraordinary convergence of events that had been taking shape for nearly a year.

“I really think something magical happened there that day,” he told me Wednesday.

It began on the morning of Sept. 11, 2002, when Ross and 35 students carried a 30-by-50-foot American flag to the summit of Cadillac Mountain to observe the anniversary of the terrorist attacks. The flag, the first in the United States to greet the sunrise that day, along with two students and a teacher, was flown to a school in Yardley, Pa., the hometown of a pilot who died when his plane was flown into one of the towers.

The flag then traveled to San Diego, where the “Spirit of St. Louis” had been built, and then on to New York City, where police officials allowed Ross to fly it briefly on the viewing ramp overlooking ground zero.

During the war in Iraq, he and his students were stunned to learn that one of the Marines killed in a helicopter collision in March was Maj. Jay Aubin of Skowhegan, who had attended the Margaret Chase Smith School.

Ross decided to honor Aubin at the next Lindbergh Crate Day, along with British Royal Navy flier Thomas Adams, who also died in the collision. When Ross wrote to the families to get their approval of his plans, he was surprised to hear from Adams’ father that his son and Aubin were buried side by side at Fort Roscrans National Cemetery in San Diego.

Ross then wrote to the cemetery administrators to ask if they would send him 3,031 flags, which he planned to display in Canaan in honor of each of the victims of 9-11. Like most people who listen to Ross’ story, they were glad to oblige.

As this year’s Lindbergh Crate Day approached, Ross spoke with Aubin’s squadron leader and arranged to have a Marine helicopter fly to the event. He also got a large group of school kids to plant the 3,031 flags in the ground near the crate museum, and raised enough money to buy two memorial stones that were etched with the names of Aubin and Adams.

Last Friday, all of the many elements came together at Ross’ humble little back yard attraction. Jay Aubin’s mother, Nancy Chamberlain, and several family members were there, as were 135 local schoolchildren and 13 invited guests from around the country.

Surrounded by the large flag that had earlier traveled from Maine to California and a sea of smaller ones that fluttered across the grounds, the gathering looked on with emotion and pride as several military aircraft, including two Marine helicopters from Johnstown, Pa., roared overhead. One of the helicopters then hovered over the crowd as the crew waved Aubin’s cemetery flag out the window in honor of their fallen comrade.

“That’s just a piece of the remarkable and unforgettable moment that took place out there,” Ross said. “Yes, I suppose some people might think of the crate as just an old box, and I sometimes wonder if people question why they’ve driven all the way to this little Podunk town to see it. But when they leave they all say how grateful they are to have been a part of it. To me, it really is a symbol of the human spirit and a repository of memories, old ones and new ones, too.”