Excerpt:

When Pete finally arrived in Dallas, he did not have to wait long to get his first mail run. Three sacks full of letters, and about half a dozen boxes of every kind including one box from Tampa Florida marked “perishable fruit.” Well, right after being loaded in his storage compartment, Pete said out loud, “I think the perishable fruit just perished.” The problem was, no one was laughing. Rough crowd, Pete thought to himself now even more anxious to finish this month long mail run. Let’s get on with this! And with that I slammed the door shut and started down the runway. Funny thing happened then. I didn’t take off. See, I’m used to taking off on short runways and I thought no different on this takeoff. What I failed to realize is that extra weight from the mail I was carrying meant I needed more runway as I found out when I went crashing into that perfectly placed cactus at the end of the airfield. OOOOOOWWWWWW!!!!!!!!! I yelled. The crew that pulled me out could have done so more efficiently if they hadn’t been laughing so much. About an hour later after having ninety seven cactus pins pulled out of me, some aircraft glue and tape to repair my torn canvas I was finally on my way using the full four thousand three hundred and fifty five feet of the runway. Boy am I glad to be out of there.