NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Left: The US Navy Zeppelin ZRS-5 at Moffett Field. The airship was built with a rigid hull made of aluminum alloy and was kept aloft by 12 large, helium-filled cells inside the hull.The zeppelin was 785 feet long and uniquely designed to carry five single-pilot Sparrowhawk biplanes that could be released and retrieved in mid-air using a special skyhook-trapeze mechanism. Although weighing 200 tons when fully loaded, the airship could reach speeds of 80 miles per hour, thanks to eight large propellers driven by eight powerful gasoline engines. In 1933, the Macon was deployed to the West Coast and berthed at a specially built hangar at Moffett. The Navy planned to use the Macon and its Sparrowhawks as long-range reconnaissance for the Pacific Fleet, warning Navy battleships of distant threats from air and sea. Photo courtesy US Navy

This poem was written by Ted Drenton of San Francisco, who is now 85. He wrote the poem in 1935, when he was 15, while attending Campbell High School. He spent his childhood and adolescence on a Santa Clara prune orchard at the corner of Saratoga Avenue and Pruneridge Avenue, which back then were simple country roads. As a youth, he assisted his father in his 14-acre prune orchard.

During that time, he witnessed the Macon fly over the pruneyard and was inspired by the site of the immense airship. He also used to visit Moffett Field with his parents and saw the massive airship slip out of its hangar, rising into the sky and fly south toward the Pacific Ocean.

He heard about the recent search for the remains of the Macon off of Point Sur and thought that having the poem published would show what an immense impact the Macon had on so many people whenever it flew over the county.

The poem was sent to Jack Boyd to be published in the Astrogram.

‘The Glorious Macon -- My Zeppelin’
My ancient memory-wrapped zeppelin,
My silver-wild Macon
Hovering over my green prune orchard,
Motor-murmuring child-dream,
Parting!
Only then I dream of summer’s wonder-tasting prunes
Spread on trays, so wrinkled and black,
Such splattered square wooden-splintered trays,
Spread over them black prunes simmering in the sun.
Now like a blue-bright cloud the quivering airship
Slides horizonward.
Then, alas, the sparrow-singing orchard stills--
Waits?--
Like me, forlorn, for my glorious Macon to appear
Again?
With its pulsing motors once more haunting me
Into hazy childhood dreams.
Ah later!--
I horror-heard--
My Macon had crashed into the sad-clouded Pacific sea.
Thus so alone my tears cried with me
For my lost great wondership up there.
So long ago amidst Santa Clara Valley prune blossoms
I stood in my orchard
Of Never-Again!
-- Ted Drenton

NASA Ames/Ted Drenton