PRICKETTVILLE — The corn along Old Sulfur Springs Road is green and in tassel.

The cotton is blooming, too.

From the den of a home in which he and his wife raised two sons and two daughters, it looks like a fine year to William Smith Prickett.

Now in his 90th year, Prickett had a life as a rural mail carrier and farmer.

But somewhere in there was a detour to World War II and flight engineer on a B-29 Superfortress on 30 bombing runs over Japan.

His first flight was to Kobe on March 16, 1945, his last to Yacoata on Aug. 7, just one day after the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. A second bomb hit Nagasaki Aug. 9, bringing World War II to an end.

Thursday marks the 64th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. It is not unreasonable to think those two bombs ensured the Valley farm boy coming home safely and without a scratch.

While Prickett (Alexandria High, Class of '37) rode neither, he does recall that both planes flew off Tinian, a tiny speck "we could see just across the water from Saipan."

It was from Saipan that Prickett rode his B-29 at a control board of switches and dials located just behind the pilot . . . holding firm in the belief that he would live, that he would get back to his parents' Alabama farm.

"I was scared every time I went up, but it never crossed my mind I wasn't coming home," says Prickett. "I can tell you that I'd get out on the edge of the pad before every mission and ask the Good Lord to take care of us. I'm not saying I was all that good, but I believed the Good Lord could do it."

Something sure held Will Prickett and the other crew members close during 17-hour flights to Japan and back. On no less than three occasions, his B-29 took enemy hits during the bombing runs.

The most serious incident came on April 7, 1945, when a kamikaze pilot turned his Zero into Prickett's B-29.

The Japanese fighter clipped the blades of the number three engine and then tumbled across the tail assembly, taking off the upper half. Somehow, the pilot brought the wobbling bomber back to level flight and managed an emergency landing on the island of Iwo Jima.

As flight engineer, Prickett's view of the war outside the plane was limited at best.

"I don't remember asking the pilot if he saw it (the Zero) coming," says Prickett. "I know I didn't.

"We left the plane at Iwo, but they fixed it and we later flew it again.

"On any flight I could hear the flak popping around the plane. On one occasion, we got a hole knocked in the side of the plane. On another, a shell came up through the open bomb bays and tore out some wires."

Then there was a weather information run that came awfully close to leaving Prickett and his buddies in the Pacific Ocean. Prickett's manipulation (as flight engineer) of the fuel supply probably got the plane's return far enough for yet another emergency landing.

"After we crossed Japan, we had a certain point we had to reach before turning back," he says. "We hit a big headwind and I must have asked the pilot how much further three or four times. We were getting really low on fuel.

"After we turned back, one engine went out and I just sat there and watched my gauges. I'd see one going down and I'd transfer fuel. We were supposed to go on to Guam, but we had to put down at Saipan.

"But I thought sure we were going in the drink that time. I think we had about 30 gallons left."

Would he do it again, did he have thoughts of a military career?

"No," he said. "We landed in Sacramento in September of 1945 — I've forgotten the day — and I've been in a plane one time since, a trip to California.

"I like to be where I can touch the ground with my feet, but I'd rather have been where I was instead of in the infantry. Those boys had a rough time of it."

It was after he came home that he met and married Geraldine Boone.

The two "ran away" to Georgia to tie the knot. The marriage lasted 61 years before Geraldine died back in April.

The love?

Geraldine lived her last seven years in a Jacksonville nursing home.

"I went there every day and fed her breakfast and lunch," says Prickett.

Then, with a soft smile into his memories of Geraldine, there is . . .

"Best $2 I ever spent in my life," he says. "That's what I gave the preacher when we got married.

"She was a good cook and a fine lady, a very gentle person. I tell people that I turned her hair gray and she pulled mine out."

There is another pause as his gaze wanders to an old black-and-white photo of a young couple hanging on the wall.

He is handsome, she's a beauty.

"She was a looker," he says. "It's a good thing our kids took after her."

It's also a good thing we had Will Prickett on our side back there in the early '40s. He and his like sure did a fine job, huh?

And they're my heroes . . . which I think you already know.