Since he had become a racer, Dusty never looked back at his old life. At least, not in any way that warranted him wanting to go back to it. But he had thought back to it, as an exception, wondering if Leadbottom would still be able to manage out there all on his own at his age.

Before he showed up, Dusty had heard tell of other crop dusters helping out in that field, though he never knew more than that, even as much as Leadbottom could run his mouth. When he'd gotten to Propwash Junction, the old biplane was the only farmer there. He knew Dusty was the right build, young, and sturdy enough to carry on the business. Maybe he had made plan to retire originally. Not that he ever did when the younger air tractor joined him.

He cared about his job too much. It was that same hole of overworking that everyone else appeared to get stuck in - even Dusty had found himself constricted into the mindset of "I'll stop working when I'm dead" when it came to his own career, even as incredibly stress-inducing as that had become. So he couldn't see Leadbottom ever pulling out of it any time soon. Not until his engine seized up and forced him to. But then, he wondered, when it eventually did, who would take over then?

Propwash Junction today wasn't the same as it was forty years ago. Older folks passed away, or moved away, and younger ones moved in. Then there was the business explosion in the town after Dusty had begun to make a name for himself, and now new housing developments were being put up all over the grid. It was a bittersweet - good in that it meant the town would finally get the things it needed and the vehicles to use them, but sad because it was the end of an era, the beginning of closure of that little farm town in the middle of nowhere, where the radio stations were all on old country music and the biggest roadside attraction within 20 miles was the "world's largest prop". But then again, before his time the town was even less of a 'town' - the main streets were all but loose gravel trails and dirt roads. Leadbottom had watched the place grow up from that, and where was he then? Dusting the fields, the same as he always had. No one seemed to recall a time before then, hardly even him it felt like.

Though Dusty already had a strong grandfather figure, he'd always looked to Leadbottom the same way he did his ol' pops. Okay, well, maybe more like if Leadbottom was his great uncle twice removed, but still, like family no matter how far they're gone. And he empathised with the fact that, truly, he was getting up there in Skipper's age and still working full-time, and he was starting to slow down. It didn't take a trained eye to see it. He'd have to find another route to go eventually.

Along with the drastic expansion of the town in the last few years, there was also a drastic change in the kinds of folks that it inhabited. Less and less of Propwash's residents were the kinds of hard-working day-laborers they really needed, more of them leaning towards small-town businesses and shops, and other, out-of-town jobs. The change was bound to hurt their crop field production, if it hadn't been already - Dusty never really looked at the numbers.

Indeed, the world was changing, maybe for the better, and still maybe for the worse. But when old timers began to flounder, young guns would soon too be there to learn the ways, and on the chain would descend into another, even more innovative generation of beings, to hone their skill and pass it onto the next one's looking to take up their torches. When he thought about it that way, such a job was honestly a very honorable position.

It almost made Dusty wish he hadn't just abandoned his old job from before so quickly. He'd been at it for so long anyways, and Leadbottom wouldn't be around forever. But then again, he thought, if he had stayed, he would not have been able to see what he saw now in that job. He wouldn't have been able to cherish those days for being what they were, or where they would soon lead. And most of all, he considered, gazing off into the skies at a new CA-28 Ceres, probably in his early thirties, it would give others the opportunities he got, the chance to learn and grow from such a place and become something greater, something more. Whether or not that meant leaving later was up to them, but it was how they chose to begin their path that would set up where they would be headed. He, of all planes, should know.

Indeed it's true, you have to fight through some bad days to earn the best days of your life.

Notes:

-I have no idea what this is. I gave up trying to make some kind of story or point behind this.

-Leadbottom...backstory? I guess? I don't know. Boredom and light writing while I work around 'Emergency' snags some more.