Modern man, the world eater, respects no space and no thing green or furred as sacred. The march of the machines has entered his blood.

-- Loren Eiseley, anthropologist
The Invisible Pyramid

It was a gorgeous day. The sun was bright and the air was crisp. I thought it was going to be a great trip. I was wrong.

After loading our gear into the little Cessna 152, I looked over the maps one more time. I figured that with stop-overs, the round-trip flight would take about 5 hours. The plan was for my wife Evie and I to fly from Cleveland to Newark, take some aerial photographs of the Newark earthworks, and then continue on to Ross County - where we would photograph a few more of the Hopewell earthworks.

I had just got my private pilot license a few weeks before, and I was especially excited about this trip. Archaeology and flying - it didn't get any better than this.

I checked over the airplane, completed the pre-takeoff checklist, and we taxied out to the runway. The tower cleared us for takeoff, and I gave it full throttle. Within moments we were soaring skyward - climbing in the cold, dense air at a thousand feet per minute. In no time, we were at our cruising altitude of 2,800 feet - winging our way southeast. Like magic, the little airplane homed-in on the invisible navaid signals that would guide us across the 110 miles of airspace to Newark. Quickly though, my exuberance turned to concern.

The weather was clear. However, as soon as we leveled off we hit turbulence. Updrafts, downdrafts, and wind shifts combined to make things very uncomfortable. The little two-seater airplane, more like a go-cart with wings, pitched and rolled, and bounced up and down, up and down. Equally bad, the headwinds were stronger than expected - and our progress over the ground was agonizingly slow. Worse yet, I could see from my wife's pale white face - tinged with green, that she was not having fun.

Some fresh air - gained by opening a vent in the top of the windshield - seemed to cure the worst of her symptoms. And, like the brave explorer that she is, she elected to continue our adventure. An hour or so later we made an interesting crosswind landing at Newark.

The runway at Newark is narrow - only 75 feet wide and it has trees and power lines at its approach end. To Evie though, I think any solid ground was looking pretty good. I left her in the pilot's lounge with a good supply of quarters for the vending machines - no fancy lunch counter here - and I went back up.

Back in the air, I took what ended up to be a mediocre series of photos of the Newark earthworks. Part of the problem is that with one hand, you have to aim and shoot through the open left-side window of the plane - while the other hand operates the controls - keeping the airplane in a slow, steep turn without stalling, losing altitude, or otherwise crashing. It's a bit like patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time. I was sure that my wife had made a good decision to stay on the ground.

Anyway, after a cup of coffee and some Cheese-Nip crackers for lunch, we continued onward toward Ross County. It was a bit smoother as we left Newark and headed southwest. Off to our right we could see the skyline of Columbus - some 20 miles away, while below us the shimmering waters of Buckeye Lake quickly passed. Ahead loomed the hills of the Appalachian Plateau and Chillicothe. Twenty minutes later we landed at the Ross County airport.

Not wanting to risk her life unnecessarily, Evie again decided to wait for me in the pilot's lounge. At least this lounge had a sofa and color TV. I, on the other hand, was enthusiastically ready to go back up in search of the Hopewell earthworks. I had the plane refueled, checked the charts, and took off. First Dunlap, then Mound City, Cedar Bank, and Hopeton. I circled Chillicothe a couple of times, flew over the confluence of the Scioto River and Paint Creek, and skimmed along the summits of the mountains to the east of the city. Then on to High Bank, Hopewell, and Frankfort. I was thrilled to fly over and photograph the very same earthworks that I had walked over, wondered about, and studied so intently on the ground. I was having a spectacular time.

Then I saw it. While following Paint Creek, at an altitude of about 2,000 feet, I looked for Anderson. What I found was incredible. In the space of a heartbeat, my soaring spirit was shot through with the finality of what unfolded below me. There was the Anderson Earthwork -- an ancient ceremonial ground being torn apart by bulldozers. I lowered the flaps on the plane and slowly circled - astonished at what I was seeing. For almost two thousand years the Anderson Earthwork had withstood the ravages of time and the elements. Wind and sun and rain had not erased the sacred geometric figure that once connected the Hopewell people to their universe. Now, in a matter of moments, the walls that defined this sacred space were being ripped down and crushed beneath the steel treads of tremendous yellow machines.

Never again would this ancient figure -- this legacy of our collective-past be seen. Never again would anyone walk within the peaceful walls of the enclosure, or experience the awe and mystery expressed in the purity of its form. No amount of regret would ever bring back what we as a people had destroyed. In one fell swoop, humankind had just lost 10 percent of the existing Hopewell squares.

The flight back to the Ross County airport took only about five minutes, but it seemed like an eternity.

I told Evie about what I had seen, and we headed north -- back to Cleveland. For the first time ever, I was glad to leave Ross County. The destruction was too great.

As we approached Cleveland, the sun began to set. The metaphor was obvious. After a few more moments, darkness fell - and all that was certain were the small white lights that outlined the runway of our airport.

It was a quiet ride home. Certainly, I had seen more than I ever wanted to. As we drove across the concrete covered ground, bits and fragments of the words attributed to Chief Seattle came to mind:

Every part of this earth is sacred to my people.... What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.... Man did not weave the web of life -- he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web -- he does to himself.