Plane Pull at O’Hare with Danahey on the Loose

 

 

It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday. The regular crowd shuffles in.

Billy Joel aside, this past Saturday, it was around 9 in the morning, and at that hour, these regulars were boarding a bus in an outlot at O’Hare to head to a plane pull near the United Airlines Cargo building.

That’s right. They were going to pull a plane. More to the long-named point, they would be taking part in the Law Enforcement Torch Run Special Olympics Illinois 2024 Plane Pull.

As the website for the event explains it, “the Plane Pull features the ultimate tug-of-war competition! Teams of up to 20 raise a minimum of $1,000 for the opportunity to test their strength by pulling an United Airlines 737, weighing more than 95,000 lbs, 12 feet as fast as possible.”

The friendly plane pullers in question frequent Rosie O’Hare’s Public House in East Dundee.

I don’t know who thinks up ideas like a plane pull to raise money for good causes.

Then again, I don’t know how or why the Scots thought up tossing cabers. Or how the Irish invented hurling. Or how the English came up with cricket.

 

 

How the crew from Rosie’s came to take part in the plane pull was because of Tom Morley, who works there.

Morley said he found out about the plane pull a few years back when stuck at the Denver airport. During a flight delay, someone recruited him to take part in a Special Olympics plane pull happening there that day.

Morley and his wife, Katie, have a special needs son, Rhys, a Welsh name which means ardent, enthusiastic, fervor and/or passion, according to the internet.

So, in part to honor his son – and in part because of the work Special Olympics does, Morley decided to get a group together at Rosie’s to take part in the plane pull they have at O’Hare. He calls his team Rhys Lightning, a play on the tune from Grease.

Saturday was Morley’s seventh plane pull, and the sixth he’s headed up here in Illinois.

I tagged along to the event. I chose not to take part. I am in training for the Chicago Marathon. I have to save my energy so I can get up early next Sunday to watch it on TV.

The goofiest thing I have done for a cause is polar plunging into Lake Michigan for Special Olympics on two occasions. My feet tingle just typing about that.

I also won a pie eating contest once at an event for a parks and rec department scholarship fund. And I wolfed down a hamburger and fries at record speed – but that was for a free t-shirt.

As for the plane pull, Tom’s team featured 13 men and seven women of all shapes and sizes. He didn’t hit the local meathead gym to recruit. He asked friends he’s made at the picturesque pub along the Fox River.

One time, though, Morley wound up getting some sizable Samoans who worked at the airport to fill out his roster. I think that’s what he said early that morning. Either way, the team this time was just Rosie’s regulars.

The event grounds did have a good many musclebound types milling about – some who had even ripped the sleeves off the souvenir plane pull t-shirts. But they were far outnumbered by everyday people there for the fun and the cause.

Me: I wore a camouflage type hoodie, to blend into the background. Actually, the hoodie makes me look like a giant Easter egg dyed with one of those trippy kits from the 1970s.

The family-friendly plane pull was set up like a festival, with booths of all sorts, coffee samples, free eats, a deejay and a cornhole game. There was also a fire truck giving rides in a cherry picker and a game where you could shoot water from hoses at targets.

 

 

 

I noticed a huge cargo plane from China on the tarmac not far away from the event. I imagined it filled with iPhones or stuff people buy off of Temu.

See, there’s a lot of downtime waiting to pull a plane. There was even a slight delay as one of the two planes being pulled had a mechanical issue that was soon repaired.

The way the day was designed, there were two planes being used at the same time by teams of plane pullers. Teams signed up in a few different divisions which determined which plane they would be assigned a time to pull.

The top teams would compete for trophies at the end of the event.

It was a bit complicated for my Saturday morning brain to comprehend. There’s a photo below in this story that explains things better than I can.

 

 

 

Tom had said his prior teams had some pretty good pulls. Turned out Saturday topped them all.

His 20 pullers pulled plane # 2 for 12 feet in 6.552 seconds.

Team members seemed surprised at how well they did. Some of them told me the key may have been that enough of them knew to use more of the leg muscles than their arms, and the spacing they had on the rope helped, too.

Whatever the formula was, the time put Rhys Lightning at the top of the leader board.

So Tom kept a watchful eye on the proceedings as his team’s time remained the one to beat.

I imagined this must be what it’s like to compete in the Olympics. You finish up your event in a very short time, but in good standing, then wait around to see how everybody else does.

Tom Petty put it best, all the way back in 1981. The waiting is the hardest part.

 

 

At least there was all the stuff mentioned about to help kill time.

Still, as one one Rhys Lightning bolt put it, “Every time I go to O’Hare I have to wait around for two hours.”

Murphy’s Laws were not in full effect though – meaning that some team didn’t knock Rhys Lightning from the top spot at the last millisecond, making all the waiting for naught.

Which is to say, the team made it to the next round. Incidentally, the guy assigned to let the teams onto the tarmac asked if team Rhys Lightning was from Rhys Electrical. Turns out there’s a company with that name in Elgin. Hmm. Maybe next year they can be a sponsor?

At this point, Rhys Lightning had to compete against a team that had pulled the other plane. A team of plus-sized dudes who work for a cargo company.

These were all big guys who move stuff about for a living. No gym muscles there, just ones earned through hard work.

My role in all this was to observe, take some photos, and hold stuff for team Rhys Lightning. Some were born to pull. Others are called on to be a holder among pullers.

Rhys Lightning went first. Team members told me the set up seemed a little different this time, with the rope a bit higher. And folks didn’t line up along the tug rope in the same order they did the first time.

 

 

While they pulled the plane in about the same time they did the first time, it wasn’t as fast as the affable, burly cargo company guys.

After the round, I joked with one of the officials there if there would be drug testing, like at the Olympics. Nah. Nobody had to pee in a cup – just a port-a-john before the bus ride back to the car lot.

We didn’t stick around to see who would be getting trophies. One team member had a wedding to attend. My ride, Charlie, would be going to see Steve Martin and Martin Short with his wife, Tonna, and some friends later that evening.

That show was in Rosemont, so I should have suggested that Charlie let me take the car and we drop him off, since he was close by already. But he didn’t have a change of clothing.

Back at Rosie’s, we learned our traveling companion, Nikki, collected donations for the plane pull from 15 friends. All told, Rhys Lightning raised about $4,000 for Special Olympics.

After one celebratory beer back at Rosie’s, I had another round to make. Best Fest Buddy Tom’s three grandkids called and wanted me to take them swimming.

That was as fine a way as any to end the afternoon – and this tale.

Mike Danahey is a writer who lives in the Chicago area. If you need his services, feel free to leave a message in the comments section for this post.