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What is there about some boys (and some men) that compel them to classify things? My younger son, Dan, when he was 12 and 14, would put together lists of the greatest running backs, the best basketball players, and, as I remember, the highest mountains in the world.

He came by this odd tendency honestly. When Dan’s father (moi) was a boy he was fascinated by airplanes. I was 12 in 1955 and this was a time when a ton of new, strange, and wonderful airplanes were being developed. Before and during World War II the science of aeronautics ran amok. During the 1930s, all sorts of new design were being tried out, from fighter planes – which were just the smallest airplane built around the biggest engine – to large four motor bombers.

The Germans got a head start in this arms race when they built the Messerchmidt 109, but soon the English came up with the Spitfire, and around the same time the Japanese put together the Zero, for a while the best fighter plane in the world. Not long into the war these planes were eclipsed by such machines as the Corsair and the P-51 “Mustang” (maybe the best propeller fighter plane ever), and, toward the end of the war, jets.

Jet engines changed everything. The fighter planes got outrageously fast in a hurry. During the Korean War, the F-86 was shown to be a superior plane. I believe the F-86 broke the sound barrier in dives (about 700 miles per hour). I think the P-51 could sometime reach 500 miles per hour in a dive, but that was about it. Well, soon the sound barrier was left behind, and in 1954, Lockheed developed a prototype F-104, which left the sound barrier way behind. The F-104 was a screamer; in 1958 it set a world record of 1404 miles an hour over a 15-mile course. The 1950s bombers were also powered by jets, as well; the B-52 (a big, ugly, very efficient flying dump truck) is still in service.

Anyway, with all this remarkable change, you can see what a fascinating study airplanes could be. The enormous range of models fits within several clear categories (such as fighters, fighter-bombers, light bombers, medium bombers, heavy bombers, and cargo planes) and they each have intriguing statistics. Fighters compete for top speed in level flight and in a dive; bombers compare ranges and bombloads. With all this material, a boy could spend hours and hours comparing and contrasting endless airplanes in endless ways. And I did. Just as my son did much later, I’d work up charts and lists showing all kinds of comparisons.

Now, for those of you who see this kind of behavior as strange, or, at least, a big waste of time, let me tell you what became of my son. The little boy grew up, went to the University of Wyoming and got a master’s degree in history. From there he worked at the American Heritage Center on the University of Wyoming campus, which is, as their website announces, “a repository of manuscripts collections, rare books, and university archives.” And there he began to focus on photography, working as an archivist of photographic collections. From Laramie, he went to Logan, Utah, to Utah State University, where he’s been a photo archivist, and, in general, has worked with some fascinating historical collections. He’s got a good manuscript for a book that I hope that will be out in a few months to a year (these things sometimes drag on). The book is about the photography of Andrew Joseph Russell, of the Union Pacific Railroad, as that transcontinental rail line was built in 1868 and 1869.

So, though it may seem an unusual trait to pass on to a child, my odd penchant for lists and classifications turned out to be quite a good thing for my son Dan.

John Davis was raised in Worland, graduating from W. H. S. in 1961. John began practicing law here in 1973 and is mostly retired. He is the author of several books.