Writes Tim McGraw:

Dear Mr. Vance,

Thanks for your article on the DEA. I’ve only had one interaction with the DEA. This was at the airport hotel in Miami. It was late May of 1990. I was checking into the hotel inside the airport. The next day, I would meet my boss, David Jones, the famous stunt pilot and aerial coordinator, and we’d fly to Belem, Brazil, to work together on the movie “At Play in the Fields of the Lord.” I was to maintain the Dehavilland Beaver used in the film.

A DEA agent was in front of me at the hotel check-in counter. I knew this because he was wearing a blue jacket with “DEA” written in large letters on the back. He was about 5′ 8″ tall (I’m 6′ 1″). He had his pistol in a holster on his hip; so much for no guns in airports.

The DEA guy was a real dick. He was demanding this discount and that on his room. I waited impatiently behind him.

I was in the jungle for six months. Pastor Benny, a missionary from Manaus, had been hired by the film company to use his Cessna 206 floatplane to fly in the missionaries (Aidan Quinn, Kathy Bates, and their son.) The plane crashed during filming (Benny stalled the plane at a low altitude). No one was hurt, but the next day, Pastor Benny flew back to Manaus.

The only other float plane available in the Amazon was a Cessna 185 owned by the DEA of Brazil. The pilot was a real dick of a DEA agent. He had the uniform, cap, and sunglasses. Again, he was about 5′ 8″ tall and a real dick.

When his part of the filming was done, I was told to replace the battery in his Cessna with a new one. I installed the battery with new Sulphuric acid, but instead of using distilled water in the battery cells, I used Amazon River water. This water is full of acid from all the leaves. This is what makes the Amazon River an opaque latte color.

My little revenge on the DEA.