Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 85

85 Where idols come home to earth wwajKAMri "w'MMWMtyi EDMONTON JOURNAL, Saturday, Swpt. 1974 By LYLE S1NKEW1CZ Southam News Services OTTAWA Huddled between three dilapidated hangars, noses pointed tentatively toward the runway, are four old workhorses of another era, a Canadair North Star, a McDonnell Banshee, a DC-3 and a Vickers Their skin Is no longer bright silver and the once-colorful markings are washing atvay with the changing seasons. The pavement underneath is cracked and has heaved with the escaping frost of many springs grass and weeds are poking through where they can find the room. These old idols of the air seem ready to give it another try, but they'll probably never leave the ground again. They are waiting now only for a new coat of paint and a place inside hangar 66, 67 or 68.

They'll be in pretty good company. Already inside are some of the most famous aircraft in the history of aviation, all members of the National Aeronautical Collection. Next to the Smithsonian Institution in Boston and the Musee de l'Air in Paris, this is the best collection of aircraft in the world. The collection is housed in three This Sopwith Snipe, in the National Aeronautical Collection, wears the markinss vf Ma, ft Ihiil.er when he iron the Mctoria Cross in 19111. It was used in the movie Hell's Angels in 1926.

1 or Natalie Wood Wagner, times have never been heller than now. She and Robert apier have brought to their second marriage the benefits of the growth period experienced apart. Ifs smooth sailing second time around 1 ItlW grey, asbestos Second World War hangars at Rockcliffe Airport, on the eastern outskirts of Ottawa. The 92 aircraft and more than 200 engines in the collection, most of them beautifully restored, are a tribute to the men who played such an instrumental role in Canada's development. Suspended from the rafters at the entrance of the first hangar is a replica of the A.E.A.

Silver Dart in which J.A.D. McCurdy made his historic flight from ice-covered Bad-deck Bay. N.S.. on Feb. 23, 1909.

It was the first powered flight in the British Empire by a British subject. Nearby are the remains of the Curtiss HS-2L floatplane "La Vigilance" which crashed while taking off from Foss Lake in Northern Ontario on Sept. 2, 1922. The wreckage-remained on the bottom of the lake for 46 years until it was recovered by divers in 1968. Epic battle Only a wirgtip away from the.

Silver Dart are the planes flown in the "wing and a prayer" days of the World War One when Barker, Collis-haw and Bishop terrorized the German enemy and became household words. There is a Sopwith triplane a replica of Collishaw's "Black Maria" and a Sopwith Snipe wearing the colors of Major W. G. Barker when he won his Victoria Cross in an epic air battle against overwhelming odds. The snipe was used by actor Reginald Denny in the movie Hell's Angels.

A Neiuport 17. in the markings of the aircraft in which Billy Bishop won his Victoria Cross, is now being flown in airshows across the country, along with a Sopwith Pup. Of ail the aircraft in the collection, there is no. doubt about which is the favorite of the museum's six-man staff. It's the Curtiss Seagull used by the Dr.

Hamilton Rice Expedition to explore the headwaters of the Pari-ma River in Brazil in 1924-25. It took A restoration technician works on the Curtiss Seagull used by the Dr. Hamilton Rice Expedition to explore the headwaters of the I'arinui River in Brazil in 1924-25. 6,000 man-hours of blood, sweat and tears to restore this historic flying boat to its original factory condition. Many thousands of specially-made brass screws had to be turned by hand into the rich mahogany fuselage.

The restoration work was so painstakingly done that even the slots in the screws are pointed at exactly the same angle. The result is brilliant. The second section of the hangar is devoted to some of the early heroes of aviation in Canada, a Lockheed 12-A, a Fairchild FC2-W2. a Stearman 4 EM, a Noorduyn Norseman VI, a Boeing 247D, a Junkers W-34 and a Bellanca Pacemaker. It was these old reliables that wrote bush flying history and carried the first humans and the first mail to many parts of the country.

Hangar 67 is the home of the machines that made their name during World War Two, but they share the space with their faster offspring, the post-war jetfighters. Here are the big boys that pounded German industry and the grand-daddy of them all is the huge Lancaster its bomb bay open and machi-neguns covering every approach. Old reliables Dwarfed by the big bombers are the famous fighters that knocked Goering's Luftwaffe out of the sky the legendary Spitfire, the Hawker Hurricane, the Mustang IV and the Curtiss Kittyhawk which served with six Canadian squadrons and wears the markings of No. Ill squadron at the time of the Aleutians campaign. A few steps away is a Westland Lysander UJ, too slow and too poorly armed to tangle with Messersch-mitts, but ideally suited for ferrying secret, agents, messages and supplies into occupied Europe.

The Lysander on display was restored with components from three British and a policy of taking its aircraft to the people wherever and whenever it can. Besides the old First World War aircraft that fly at airshows across the country, the museum senris planes to just about any place the public will come to see them. More than 160.000 people visit the collection every year, and they come from all over the world. There would be many more if the planes wore not housed on an abandoned air base in .1 remote area of the city in described by museum officials as a "fire trap." There are plans to build a new f.i-cility at Uplands Airport a mortem building of about 500.000 square feet capable of sheltering the whole collection, including the Viscount, the DC-3, the Banshee and the North Star that arc now taking a hrri ing out in the cold. Canadian aircraft as a Centennial project of the Canadian Armed Forces Base in Winnipeg.

The machine has the markings of aircraft R9003, which served overseas with 110 Squadron RCAF in 1939. Half of hangar No. 68 is known as the "yellow home of the trainers familiar to most Canadians. There is a Fairchild Cornell II. and Avro Anson, De Havilland Tiger Moth, a Harvard and a FairW Battle II reminders of the wartime pilot training programs at airfields across the country.

The other half of the hangar is used as a Workshop a place to store engines, nose sections, tail sections, wings, wheels and the thousands of other parts and tools that are needed to restore aircraft. The National Aeronautical Collection, operating as part of the Museum of Science and Technology, has Geraniums head list of seasonal priorities By MARILYN BECK "You might say that R.J. and I have had to surmount some stormy spas this second time around," laughed Natalie Wood. She could afford to laugh, for her current marriage to Robert Wagner has been blessed by extremely smooth sailing. The storms the couplg has encountered have been limited to those they've run into on several oceangoing cruises.

"They really weren't all that fun-try," she said, the smile still upon her face. "The first one happened before our second marriage, when R.J. and I were sailing to Europe aboard the Queen Mary II. They said it was the worst storm in decades: 65-foot waves; 100-mile-an-hour winds!" "After that," she giggled, "the experience we had this summer seemed like nothing. R.J.

went along with me for 20th Century Fox location shooting of Fat Chance aboard a Caribbean cruise ship. There was a storm at sea, but we were such seasoned hands, we slept through most of it!" Where once her conversation revolved around show business and her next film assignment, now Natalie Wood chatters on most eagerly about her home and children. And most of all, about the man known to film-goers as Robert Wagner, and known to the woman who loves him as R.J. She made it clear that stormy misadventures were hardly throwing cold water on their plans for additional high-seas outings, and bubbled, "We're buying The Rambling Rose the yacht we were married on in 1972. It's a beauty: a 57-foot cabin cruiser.

R.J. and I had a boat the last time we were married, you know, and we've always loved that sort of life." The sort of things that cast their first union assunder in 1962 are better off left for the Hollywood history books. Why taint what's re-emerged as one of Filmland's most appealing love stories with reminders of problems that were? Unhappy then Suffice it to say that Robert and Natalie Wagner have matured a lot in the past 17 years. She was a bride of 19 when she met him, a Hollywood golden girl who had actually known no life but show business since she appeared on the screen at the age of five in Tomorrow is Forever. In many ways, she was still a child after she became a bride.

"I was in my early 20s." she recalled, "when I began to realize things were terribly wrong. I didn't know how to carry on a conversation that wasn't connected with show business. I had no friends, no interests that weren't show business. I lived my life for my career. And I was terribly unhappy." She began a period of psychoanalysis that was to stretch on for the next eight years, and as she plunged deeper into resolving inner conflicts found herself turning against the career she had once loved.

"At first it was simply a matter of not wanting to accept an assignment that would take me away from my analysis. Later it became a matter of needing to reject my image as a star. I wanted privacy and thought the best way to gain Hjwas to resign from show business." She laughed again, that merry sound that acceits so many of her statements these days. "My plan didn't work." she said. "I learned that I was still regarded as a public personality whether I worked or not so I figured I might as well get paid for it.

It took me a long time to realize, though, that the situation didn't have to be black or white, retirement or career. I could work as an actress without making a way of life out of it. I take things more in stride now. I suppose that comes from being happy from knowing when the good times are." She and Wagner have brought into their second marriage the benefits of the growth period experienced apart. She married filmmaker Richard Gregson, became the mother of a daughter four years ago and brought an emotional, abrupt end to that union in 1971.

R.J. took Marian Donen for a bride after the pain of first losing Natalie ebbed, a marriage that fell apart by 1970. "We never actually lost touch," the once-and-now Mrs. Robert Wagner told me. "We always remained friends.

And when we both found ourselves single again in 1971, well, we just naturally began to drift back together." Drastic changes She finds the transformation that took place in each of them during that lost-to-each-other period fascinating to examine, considers it close to miraculous that in some areas they both changed drastically but similarly. "For instance," she outlined, "during our first marriage we both loved Japanese modern furniture, and filled our home with it. After our divorce, my taste changed to antiques and to impressionist art. Oddly enough, R.J.'s taste has changed exactly the same way." The important things remained constant, however, according to Natalie. "R.J.

has the same qualities now that first attracted me to him: kindness, consideration; a marvelous sense of humor." "As for me. I think the difference has been learning to take things in stride throwing out the rules and living by the heart." Because her heart these days is where her family is. she's accepting few acting assignments. "I won't say I won't work," she said. "But I won't take on a picture that would take me away from R.J.

and the girls." The only reason she accepted her co-starring stint with Michael Caine in Fat Chance, she explained, was because her husband was making Towering Inferno for 20th at the time, "and I thought we would be at the studio together each day. Our daughter. Courtney, was only two months old at the time, and I even planned to take her to work with me so I could continue her breast feeding schedule, and have a nurse watch over her in my dressing room on the lot" Times never better That laugh again, that marvelous, from-thc-heart laugh, as she revealed. "As things turned out. Fat Chance had.

exactly one day of shooting at the studio the rest of the production was done on Los Angeles street location. So much for planning schedules, so much for setting down rules." Natalie's learned that rules ar-pn't all that important not as long as she knows when the good times are. And for Natalie Wood Wagner, the times have nn-fr been better than now. JL a' pliliSIll if- 4 Tlxirty-three examples of the work of members of the Arts and Crafts Society of Alberta are on dis- play until Sept. 30 in a jury show at the Centennial Library.

Among the entries chosen by the judges for display are, above, pottery by Jean Coelon. ce- ramie by Ijorrain Oberg, and candle by Delia Kohl- man; at left, fruit batik by Yvonne Vnlgren. and, below, acrylic by Terry Regan, age 16. All the works in the show are for sale. BY BRIAN ANDREWS Both the prospect and onset of the first frosts suggest some garden jobs that need to be carried out fairly close on each others heels.

If you are planning to overwinter geraniums in the house, either old plants or cuttings must be brought indoors BEFORE frost nips the plants. As soon as frost blackens the foliage of tuberous begonias and daKlias. the plants should be dug up. cleaned of loose soil and placed in trays in the house. Gladiolus are a bit more frost tolerant and may be left in the garden until the leaves are killed back to ground level.

During the next couple of weeks, the detailed care and storage of gladiolus, dahlias and begonias will be discussed. Geraniums will be dealt with now, however, since they are first in order of frost priority jobs. One method of overwintering geraniums is dormant storage. Dig up the plants and shake off most of the soil from the roots. Cut back the shoots to about six inches above the soil level mark.

Be sure to make clean cuts just above the point where the leaf stalks join the stem, using a really sharp knife. Remove all remaining leaves and leaf stalks. Loosely tie together bundles of four to six plants, being careful to avoid bruising or damaging the stems. Place a polyethylene bag over the roots, securely being the neck of the bag at the point where stems join the roots. The really critical factor is proper storage conditions.

A dark, cool room with a temperature of 40 to GARDEN COLUMN 50 degrees is ideal. At temperatures above 50 degrees, the chances of overwintering successfully decrease as the temperature increases. Hang the bunches of geranium plants from the rafters in the storage room. In the following late spring, untie the plants and plant them either in deep boxes, several plants to a box or individually in plan! pots. Grow them on in a cool, light, airy place until planting out time.

Apparently, few gardeners are really successful in using this method unless they are fortunate enough to have cool storage areas in the home. Most homes are too warm. Any gardeners who are using a dormant storage technique successfully are requested to write and share their experiences and special tips. The more dependable and predictable methods involve "growing on" either old plants or rooted cuttings in the house over winter. Such methods require regular care and attention throughout the fall, winter and spring, and preferably a bright, light, cool airy place to grow the plants.

If you are not prepared to make this kind of effort or if you don't have a suitable place to grow the plants, it may be better to do like most gardeners and purchase new plants each year. If. on the other hand you wish to "have a go." the techniques will be discussed in detail next week. 1.