The Gift of Sight

 

     I have written about so many memories that I have a problem remembering what I have written about. I have tried going back through the 140 + stories to see if a particular subject was somewhere in all of the words written so far but that doesn't help very much as they just seem to get jumbled up in my head. Every now and then a memory will pop into my thoughts that is so important to me that I have decided to blame senility if it turns out that I have already written about the subject rather than think I did but didn't. That last sentence is a little confusing but it is not important to the story but it was important enough that I wrote it, at least to me.

      Linda had the most beautiful blue eyes but blue eyes generally are the weaker color. When I first met Linda she wore hard contact lenses, they were the only kind available then. Prior to the contacts, she wore glasses that had the thickness of coke bottles and every year she would get new glasses with a stronger prescription, the contacts seemed to cure that process and I don't remember her getting stronger contacts for many years.

     She never said but over the years her sight would deteriorate and I would see her straining to see things. She did a lot of small, detailed work in her quilting and needle point, it was sad to see her lean in close to see that she did something that met her expectations but at the time there was no fix for her failing sight.

     As the story goes, back in the 1990's, a young child in Russia injured their eye, a piece of glass cut the pupil or maybe the iris. When the eye healed the doctors noticed the child's vision had improved by flattening the Lense. Over the next few years, doctors perfected the technic which improved the eye sight of millions of people around the world. They called it "radial keratotomy", they actually made cuts to the iris like the spokes of a wagon wheel allowing the iris to flatten. Linda found out about this process and studied it, she knew of it's successes and failures, she knew which doctors were the best. She waited until she was sure the process was safe and right for her.

     Just as the world was entering the new millennium Linda made plans for the operation. The doctor she chose would only operate on one eye at a time, the first eye had to be well into the healing process before he would operate on the second eye. It took about six or more months before the eyes were completely healed but each day seemed to bring new experiences into her life.

     One day she came down to the living room wrapped in a wet towel and stopped in front of me. She said "Michel, I just took a shower" I said OK, she said "I looked down while showering and saw my toes". All of those years of wearing glasses and contacts and she had not seen her toes without them. She was so excited. A few days later she was washing dishes at the kitchen sink when she turned around and said "there are individual leaves on those trees", it was then that I realized just how bad her eyesight had been.

     The whole procedure cost five thousand dollars out of pocket but it was money well spent, I only wish the procedure had been available sooner. Even with poor eyesight she saw nothing but the beauty of life and now she saw it more clearly.

Fleeting Moments

 

     I need a place to write about things that just "pop" into my thoughts so I'm creating "Fleeting Moments" and from time to time will add stories that do just "pop" into my thoughts.

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     The cars available when I was a young boy were some of the neatest. Like many people of the time dad drove used cars as did his father, they may have been used and a little old but they were sound and fit the needs of the family.

     Automobiles of the 1940's and early 1950's generally had few amenities, there was no air conditioning, GPS, cruise control or sunroof. Few even had automatic transmissions or power steering but one thing many of the older ones had were "running boards".

     Running boards were an integral part of the main body connecting the front fender to the rear fender and wide enough to make a step for easy entrance to the vehicle, they had been a part of the car since the invention of the automobile. We kids (mostly boys) found a different use for them, considered dangerous by today's standards, we kids would take every opportunity to jump on the running boards and grab on to the window frame and ride the length of the driveway or across a field.

     It wasn't a long distance ride but for young boys it was a thrill, our mothers and grandmothers constantly berated us about the danger of falling off and being run over but it was one of those things they knew was going to happen regardless of the danger or their concerns. Sadly, the running board disappeared from cars sometime during the late 1940's, they are another thing that my kids and kids of today will never know about, one of the shortcomings of their youth.

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      I had my first job when I turned 13, I went to work in the grocery store where dad was the butcher. I worked weekends and summers until I went into the Navy at age 18.

     One of the things that comes to mind is that dad seldom filled his gas tank. We lived about ten or twelve miles from work and yet dad would pull into a gas station and tell the attendant to put in a $1 worth of gas. Gas at that time was about 20 to 25 cents per gallon or less. The average car could be filled up for $4 to $5 compared to today's prices it cost me $75 to fill the truck last week.

     Dad only putting a few gallons of gas in car at a time got me in trouble once. I was maybe 15 and had planned to go fishing with a friend. Dad had a wooden John boat chained to a tree in the nearby creek and I got his permission to use the car to carry the 12 horsepower boat motor to the creek some three hundred yards from the house. After getting the motor and gas tank to the boat I decided to drive to my friend's house, a few miles away, and bring him back to the boat. I might have been alright if I had taken the direct route but instead, I went the long way around. The gas gauge indicated there was a quarter tank of gas in the car but only dad knew that the gauge was broken. I ran out of gas and had to have my friends dad take me home and take dad back to the car. Needless to say dad was not happy, not only did I not get to go fishing but I had put that boat motor on my shoulder to get it back to the house ( that thing must have weighed fifty pounds).

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     At a family get together with Kay's family today, her brother, two cousins and I were swapping war stories about life, it's a guy thing that goes on whenever two or more men over the age of 50 get together. Kay's brother Doug and cousin Joe are retired from the Georgia State Patrol so all of us related our experiences with law enforcement. I have to admit that, since obtaining my drivers license at the age of 16, I have had more than my share of run ins with law enforcement. My right foot has cost me a lot of money over the years.

     My first duty in the Navy was as a duty driver, I drove naval officers from lowly Ensigns to three Star Admirals where ever they wanted to go while visiting the base in Florida. I also drove several US Senators and Congressmen and the Commandant of the Marine Corp.

     One day I was returning to the base from the airport in Orlando, I was driving a 1965 Ford Custom with a V-8 engine. The road was four lane divided highway in an unpopulated area. So, there I was driving along when a Florida State Trooper pulled up next to me, spoke into his radio then he put his pedal to the floor, within seconds he was a mile ahead of me. 

     I can't explain why but I decided to follow him to find out where he was going in such a hurry so I sped up keeping him in sight. My speedometer went past 100 mph when the road went down to two lanes and turned into a Cypress grove. The other side of the grove opened up on a small bridge that crossed the St. Johns River, which was maybe 75 feet across at that point, and there was the trooper making a u-turn in the parking of a small store. I won't say the words that came out of my mouth as I started braking and down shifting trying to get down to the speed limit, I don't know how fast I was going when I passed the trooper but it must have been slow enough that he didn't come after me, as I looked in the rearview mirror he was headed back towards Orlando.

     I don't remember getting my first speeding ticket until I was out of the Navy and then I started a nice collection of them, so many in fact that I had to pay risk insurance for about four years. I did a lot of driving for work and most of my tickets were in company vehicles, I even got two tickets in two different states on the same day some four hundred miles apart. 

     It has been many years now since I was stopped for speeding although I do continue to push the envelope just not as far as I once did but now days it seems speed limit signs are just a suggestion. It's as if it is not considered speeding unless you're doing twenty mph over the limit and I'm getting to old for those speeds.

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     When Grandpa Riggan died, I was 13 and he was 79. He had retired and sold the farm shortly before he died, up till that time he was used to rising before dawn, milking the cows by hand and feeding the other animals and having breakfast as the sun rose. After eating he would harness his two mules and walk them out to the field he would work that day then proceed to walk behind a plow for the rest of the day often arriving back at the barn around sunset.

     You would think that a man who had lived such a hard life would be worn out at his age and maybe he was old and tired. He did look old, his skin had wrinkles, he moved a little slower and had grey hair in his beard but the hair on his head was black as coal and it was thick. 

     I remember my mother saying, after the funeral, that he looked very natural as he lay in his casket but there was one thing that was out of place. Grandpa had what I call nice wavy hair, there was a curl or wave that normally hung down on his forehead but the person who prepped him for burial perfectly combed his hair. The one curl looked so out of place that mom wanted to flick it so it would lay on his forehead as usual but she didn't because it might upset someone. 

     I always thought I got my hair from him, if you could see pictures of us you might think so also but the one difference. As I aged grandpa Wade's hair started showing up, he was in his mid 40's when I was born and already grey. Grey hair started showing up on me by my mid thirties, I'm not as light as grandpa Wade but I'm all grey now and that curl / wave that grandpa Riggan had will show up if my hair gets too long.

     It's funny how some people can look at you and see features of one family member or another and quite often they are right. I guess if I'm going to look like one of my ancestors I couldn't pick a better ancestor than grandpa Riggan. I loved that man, knowing what I know now I would like to be able to spend some more time with.

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     I spent a lot of time on the farm with granny and grandpa Riggan. From before I can remember till about 11, I spent my summers with them. Not to say they had a favorite grandchild but none of the others were allowed to spend the night, of course it may have been that my cousin's parents didn't want them staying over, it wasn't the Waldorf but I loved it.

    Grandpa was 66 when I was born, he had worked hard all of his life and continued to work for another 10 or 12 years when he sold the place. By the time I came along, he had slowed down some, he never got in a hurry with anything he did, I never saw him get excited about anything, he never raised his voice. All his movements were slow and deliberate, this held true with everything he did.

     When I was maybe five years old, grandpa decided to take a trip to Carthage to see Aunt Rose and my cousin Charlie, so granny, grandpa and I loaded up in the car and headed out to Carthage. This was in the early 1950's, before interstates or four lane highways of any kind. The road was curvy, hilly and two lane. Once we got out of La Guardo the road was even paved.

     So, there I was sitting between them in the front seat, no seat belt, airbags or any or safety features. I don't remember the car very well but I can be pretty confident that it was a late 1930's vintage. It was stick shift with a pedal on the floor that had to be pushed to start the car.

     The standard speed limit back then was usually 55 - 60 mph but grandpa paid little attention to the  limit, he seldom went that fast. I remember at one point wondering if we were ever going to get to Charlie's house. I looked up to granny and asked if this was as fast as the car would go. She laughed then yelled at grandpa (he was very hard of hearing) "Howard, the boy wants to know if you can go any faster". Without looking at either of us, grandpa pressed down on the gas pedal, the car sped up to the speed limit for about a quarter mile then he eases off the gas and slows back down. Surprisingly we made it to Carthage and after a short visit we made it back to La Guardo.

     Life in general was much slower than today, people were more laid back. Most farmers were in no more of a hurry than grandpa, the crops grew at their own pace and they cows always came home every night. We had everything we needed, what we didn't have we probably didn't need anyway. I miss those days.

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     When I was discharged from the Navy, Linda and I went to Tennessee to live. Not long after returning home, Linda took a job with a bank in Nashville, I don't even know the name anymore because it has since changed hands and names a few times. She worked in the Trust department where she issued monthly checks to recipients of various trust accounts. Some of the recipients she dealt with were quite comical and apparently out of touch with the real world everyone else had to live in.

     There were these two sisters, what we then called "old maids". Their father had left them a sizable amount of money that the bank invested for them and paid out a monthly stipend as prescribed by the wishes of those who set up the account. 

     The account called for a specific amount of money be deposited into their checking accounts each month. There was a problem in that the amount of money didn't evenly divide between the two sisters - there was an odd penny. Now, you wouldn't think that one penny would amount to a hill of beans to someone who was being given money that they had never earned but it did.

     Linda became aware of the importance of this penny when she paid it to the wrong sister and that sister called the head of the trust department and raised a ruckus. Seems somebody forgot to tell Linda that sister "A" was to get the penny one month ad sister "B" was to get it the next. Linda had to make a note to remind her of who got the odd penny the previous month. Personally, I don't think the penny was the odd thing about these two sisters.

     Another recipient was the widow of a very rich man in Nashville, he owned a new car dealership among other things and lived in the swankiest part of the city. When the husband passed away, the dealership went to the son and mom got a trust account  that paid all of her bills (utilities, food, clothing, ect.) and gave her a handsome amount to frivolously spend on whatever she wanted.

     One day she came into the bank and told the head of the department that she couldn't live off what she was getting and needed an increase. Consider that I have already told you that the bank already paid her bills, her monthly check from the trust amounted to somewhere around $8000.00 per month, this was in the early 1970's. Linda and I together made about $14,000 a year.

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     I'm 76 now, at this age, my life is a collection of fleeting memories that haunt me in moments of melancholy. Fear of the unknown and hope for the future battle each other. Sleepless nights find me rethinking the "what ifs" and "should haves" of the past while wondering about the "maybes" of tomorrow.

     It can be difficult to get old, age has stolen the firm muscles, taunt skin and clear eyes of my youth. I want to do so much more with life but wonder if I will have time to fit it all in, I'm lucky that I still have good mobility but it doesn't keep me from wondering how much longer it will be with me. 

     I have things that get me up and get me going, I can sit and do nothing at times but even then I'm thinking about things I need or want to do. The getting up and going comes with an increased effort accompanied by the creaking, moaning , popping and groaning sounds of age but I refuse to let them keep me down. My doctor says that I have reached the age where I am akin to an old 1955 Chevy, with a lot of the miles on me, some of my parts are wearing out and may have to be replaced or repaired.

     Well, I don't know how much longer I will be around or how much longer I can even get around but I will push myself to get the most of every day though I may have to take a few more breaks. I refuse to let age get me down.

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     Granny and grandpa Riggan had siblings and seem to remember meeting some of them "once" when I was maybe seven years old. I don't remember them talking about their families or the times of their youth, it was like they were born old and there was no youth to talk about. Grandpa never really talked much about anything, he was 66 when I was born and his hearing was already going downhill and got worse over the years.

     Granny and grandpa Wade also had siblings who I met several times through the years, they each stood out from the others due to some memory I have of them.  The Wades had a couple of reunions that were held at Shelby park along the Cumberland River in Nashville. Outside all of the people and food the biggest memory of the reunions was that Grandpa's sisters were as overweight as he was, when they sat in chairs with straight legs they would sink down into the earth by several inches and they usually needed help to stand up.

     Granny Wade had a sister, named Sahara, who would come down from Kentucky on several occasions. Aunt Sahara was a petite woman like granny, I doubt either of then weighed more than 110 pounds or stood more than 5' 2".She and her husband Tommy ran a grocery store, they had two daughters, Madeline Ruth and Tommie Navare, their daughter Madeline Ruth is about three months younger than me which makes us the oldest of the grandkids. 

      Grandpa Wade had several sisters and at one time or another I met them all. Aunt May was living with them when they came down from Missouri to take me and Madeline Ruth back home with them. Aunt May taught me how to play Rummy as I recovered from a bout with Chickenpox. 

     Another sister  lived in the Woodbine section of Nashville, I can't remember her name but do remember that she had a daughter. Mom took us to visit her once and the daughter took me to a movie to see Elvis Presley's movie Jailhouse Rock, I didn't care for the movie.

     Then there was Aunt Cathrine, she and her husband Henry lived near granny and grandpa Wade in Gallatin, Tn. so I saw them often. I was recently reminded of them by my cousins David and Tim who remember going to see Aunt Catherine and Uncle Henry, they remember that their house always smelled of boiled cabbage which is a very distinguished aroma. I remember them for other reason.

     Uncle Henry was always a happy person and he always had a story to tell, The one I remember the most was about a duck hunting trip he went on somewhere up north. He was dressed up in chest waders and taken out in a boat. when the boat reached a certain point he was told to get out. He was left to stand in water up to his chest, whenever a duck would fly over he would shoot at it and watch it fall into the water, later the guide would come back to pick him up and collect his birds. he said the water was cold and there was only one way to go to the bathroom.

     Aunt Catherine was severely overweight. At one point she needed an operation for gallstones, normally this was a 45 minute operation that turned into a couple of hours, the doctors said that every time he would cut into and remove enough fat to get his hand in her more fat would cave in around his hand causing him to have to cutout more fat. The operation left a large depression in her side and I remember her showing us how she could stick her hand in it.

                                                    

The Sleigh Ride

 

     I went to work with my dad when I was thirteen and stayed with the job until I went in the Navy when I turned eighteen. I had no idea of the life experiences I would have and the memories I would hold forever. 

     When school was in session I would work on the weekends and usually every Saturday dad would want to go see his bootlegger (Grady) before going home. Regardless of the weather dad couldn't pass up an opportunity to have a few drinks with friends and pick up a to go bag. 

     Grady's place was located on the banks of the Cumberland River close to the mouth of the Stones River. It wasn't much of place, a couple of shacks to house Grady and his wife and another to house their daughter and grandson. The driveway was a long downhill curvy and at one time paved, one side  was an embankment dense with brush while the other side steeply dropped off into a wooded area with a sharp right turn at the bottom. If you missed the turn there were a few sapling trees that might stop your plunge into the river some fifty feet below. Rather sit around inside watching people drinking, I would find something of interest to occupy me.

     One night drove to Grady's place, it was cold and snowing. I didn't think going to Grady's was a good idea as we might get trapped at the bottom of the hill but we went anyway. When we got there we met a friend of dad's by the name of Ben, he was a likable character and a barrel of laughs. Ben had already had a few drinks.

     I hooked up with Grady's grandson Junior, we through a few snowballs and then Ben came out and joined the fracas. The next thing I know, Junior came up with a couple of sleds which we drug up the driveway and then the fun started. For the next hour or more we drug our sleds up the drive and rode them down the hill at what seemed like a breakneck speed. Miraculously we managed to not break through the curve at the bottom, all of our laughter and yelling got Grady and most of his customers outside to watch us.

     After a while it was time to go, we hopped into Dad's '58 chevy and headed up the hill, I don't know how he did it but we made it to the top.

     I grew up a lot in those years, between Dad's friends and the people I ran across with the job, I got a good education in life's lesson of interacting with people. In a way that I didn't realize at the time I became closer to dad, I didn't understand him any better but it was good to hear him introduce me to his friends, there was a sense of pride in his voice when he told people I was his number one (firstborn) son. 

     

     

The Sounds of Silence

 

     I'm sitting on my back deck reminiscing about the "Good Ol' Days", reminiscing has become a common occurrence for me. Seems that the older I get the less I like the changes I have lived through, embracing the world of today is difficult for me with all of the rampant technology, the woke generation, the me generation, the left, the right, so on and so on. So I often wind up looking backwards to a time long ago that only people my age can relate to.

     I live in a small town that is steadily getting larger and becoming more fast paced, more crowded with traffic and people. The noise, at times can be overwhelming with firetrucks, ambulances and police cars racing buy, then there are the loud mufflers. Peace and tranquility are hard to find in todays world.

     One of the things I like is to look out at what Kay and I have created for ourselves, her flowers are everywhere and their colors are beautiful. Birds are attracted to our yard, mainly because Kay feeds them but also because there are quite a few trees and places to build nest, in this I have helped by building at least a dozen birdhouses. Sitting here watching the birds and listening to their calls made me remember two birds I have not heard in many years. 

     When I was a young boy, I spent a lot of time on my grandfather's farm. He was a farmer of the old school, he plowed his fields walking behind a pair of mules, named Kit and Doc. He had cows, pigs and chickens all of which were tended to by hand. I followed him around just about everywhere he went.

     I remember, back in the 1950's, the distractions were a lot less than they are now, you were more in tune with the surroundings, in particular, the birds. There were the loud Blue Jays, Mocking birds, Wrens, Cat birds and others, they all had a song to sing and all you had to do was listen but there was one that really stands out in my memory - the Bob White Quail.

     The Bob White Quail is a small bird found only in the forest of the south, they had a very distinctive call, it was more of a whistling sound like no other. They were ground feeders and nested in the deep underbrush of the forest and raised a brood of six or more chicks. Once the chicks hatched mom and dad started their training and wherever mom and dad went so did the chicks. One of my best memories was walking down a shaded dirt lane with my grandpa. I looked up and not far ahead two adult Quails came out of the brush, one following the other, they in turn were quickly followed by six or eight freshly hatched chicks in a single file line behind the mom and dad.

     Unfortunately, the little bird was considered a prized target by hunters, they were nearly hunted to extinction. Their savior turned out to be the hunters, their hunger for the bird caused them to create brooders who would raise the birds to be turned loose on large hunting clubs where they would be hunted. But the hardy little bird turned out to be quite the survivor, the speed with which they flew when they were flushed made them hard targets. Today there are many birds running wild in south Georgia having escaped the aim of the hunter, conservationist in most southern states are reintroducing the Bob White Quail in their states.

     The other bird that I used to hear quite often is the Whippoorwill. When Linda and I moved closer to the lake in Mt. Juliet I could often hear the Whippoorwill late in the evening. I never saw one but they had a distinctive call that made them different from the other song birds. As far as I know they too were fond of the solitude afforded by the forest but the encroachment of people has destroyed much of their habitat.

     The last time I can say that I heard the call of the Bob White Quail was the late 1950's or early 1960's. The last I heard of the Whippoorwill was in the mid 1970's. I'm not against progress, I'm not a tree hugger, I leave that up to someone else and hope that someday mankind will learn from his prior mistakes. The sound of their silence is yet another reason so many of us elderly people often look back on the "Good Ol' Days".

    

The Dancing Queen

 

     In 1976 a group called ABBA released a song called "Dancing Queen", hearing it reminds me of Linda, one of her many talents was dancing.

     The first time I met her was at the "E" club on Patrick Air Force Base. She was dancing with various guys and when none were brave enough to approach her she would dance with one of the other girls. Linda loved to dance, I on the other hand had no idea how to dance and like some of the others I was afraid to ask any girl to dance much less the most beautiful girl there.

     Linda was part of a group of girls who would take a bus, provided by the base to pick them up, and go to the "E" club and dance with some of the young guys. Her dad had heard about the arrangement and talked her into going, she really didn't want to go but her dad was insistent.

     A week or so before I met Linda, I had my first beer, actually I had quite a few of them which resulted in my first hangover and boy was it a doozy. So along came Saturday night and several of us were drinking a few beers at the  grill on base, actually more than a few, when someone said let's go to the "E" club. I wasn't so drunk that I was falling down, I could walk somewhat of a straight line but the important thing was that with a few beers under my belt I was brave enough to ask a girl to dance and that girl was Linda. I danced several dances with her before the night was over, I even tried a slow dance and held her in my arms for the first time. When the night was over we parted company and I never thought I would see her again.

     It turns out that Linda was attending these dances with her best friend whom she told that she hoped to never again meet that guy, meaning me. Now as luck would have it, her girl friend had her eye on one of the other guys from my outfit but she didn't want to go out with him unless it was a double date. Once again as luck would have it, he asked me to go with him, he even enticed me by telling me how good looking my date was. Linda evidently had a sort memory because she didn't recognize me but even with my blurred memory I remembered the most beautiful girl at the dance. We had several dates before her friend told her who I was, by then I had won her over, our fate was sealed. 

     We dated for the better part of a year before we married, several of our dates were at the "E" club. Fortunately, the dancing of the day consisted of few steps, it was more gyrating of the hips, a wriggling of the body and occasional shuffling of the feet, at least that was how I did it or so I thought. My room mate said I looked like a character from the sitcom "the Adams Family" his name was Lurch and he moved around very stiffly. Linda on the other hand was like most girls of the day, she knew all of the dance steps. After we were married we didn't dance as much for the next few years not until we bought our first house and our parties had music, then we would dance the night away. I continued to be stiff in my movements while she would kick off her shoes and wear out her stockings.

     Eventually we made a move to Florida and started a family, my work took us all over the country. Alas we didn't really get the chance to dance again until her dad's 75th birthday, we were in our late forties then, a little heavier, greyer and slower. When the music started I took her in my arms, held her tight and slow danced, her cheek rested on my chest and my face nestled in her hair she still smelled as fresh as it did when she was 17 and I couldn't get enough of it. 

     We never danced again after that but at every occasion I would hold her tight and bury my face in her hair. 

     

A Fleeting Memory

 

     Brother Ronnie once told me a story that took place in the late 60's (maybe). He was not yet old enough to drive but dad had Ronnie driving him around especially when he was to inebriated to drive himself or for whatever reason he didn't want to drive. When Clint and mom found out they were beyond ticked off but in Ronnies defense, he didn't have a lot of say in the matter, having been there I can say it was better to have me or Ronnie behind the wheel even though we had no license and were underage.

     One of the places dad wanted Ronnie to go with him was to see his mother on Sunday mornings. Granny lived in a room in a house in Lebanon and dad like to go visit her on Sunday and Ronnie was recruited to go with him. I guess these trips had been going on for some time although they were not something Ronnie looked forward to after all Granny was old, set in her ways and showed favoritism to only her sons and me. 

     One particular Sunday morning dad came in and woke up Ronnie to go with him to see granny, Ronnie for whatever reason was not in the mood to go and he tried talking his way out of going. After much cajoling Ronnie lost his cool and told dad that he didn't want to go because granny didn't like him and she let him know it. Dad on the other hand wasn't having it and was standing his ground until mom walked in and told Ronnie to go with dad and that's when Ronnie lost it. Ronnie looked at mom and told her "she's your mother-in-law, why don't you go with him". According to Ronnie that was the worst whipping he had ever gotten.

     I can attest to grannie's being difficult, as I said above, she made no bones that her favorite people were her sons and me. Over the years I learned that her daughters and daughters-in-law were tolerated, mom didn't like her for sure. My memories of her are all good but then I was the reigning favorite grandchild and it would be hard for me to give those up.

Coming Home

 

     Since leaving home after turning eighteen, I have returned home many times. Some of those trips would leave me scratching my head, counting my blessing and at times hoping I had nine lives like a cat because I just used up one.

     My first time in an airplane was 1965 when I went off to Navy bootcamp when I was eighteen, the plane was propeller driven, jet engines for passenger planes were still a new idea, I flew from Nashville, Tn. to Chicago, Il.. It was an exciting adventure, the first of many. There were three of us from different parts of Tennessee. One boy, from the deep woods of middle Tennessee, sat next to the window and constantly starred at the engines. After a while, the boy sitting next to him asked what he was looking at, while keeping his eyes glued to the engine, he said that he was concerned that the engine would blow up if the pilot didn't shift into a higher gear. Turns out the boy had never seen an airplane up close much less ridden in one. Over the years an airplane brought me home many times, not all of the rides were smooth.

     After my first tour in Vietnam ended, the Navy flew us home in an old four engine, propeller driven, plane. We started off in Da Nang, Vietnam and flew to Subic Bay in the Philippines where we spent the night. The next day we flew to Yokohama, Japan where we refueled then on to the scenic island of Guam where we spent the night. The third day we boarded the plane and flew to the island of Midway where we picked up box lunches and more fuel then we were off to Hawaii for another sleepover. The next day we boarded the plane for the last leg of the trip, destination San Diego, Ca.

     Our pilot was somewhat of a joker. In Guam, he and a few of the other guys loaded up on liquor at the duty-free store, somewhere between Midway and Hawaii he came out of the cockpit holding an empty liquor bottle and feigning being drunk claimed he had finished off his bottle and needed more.

      The next morning we were ready to takeoff on our final leg of the trip. The plane goes rolling down the runway at full speed but just as it should be leaping in to the air the pilot slams on the brakes then taxies back to the other end of the runway, this happens three times. The pilot gets on the intercom and tells us if we would look out the window we would see that the propeller on one engine was not spinning, it seemed that the engine wouldn't start the normal way so they were trying to drag start it, if they couldn't get it going they would have to postpone the trip until repairs were made.

     Well, the engine started on the next attempt and we took off but instead of heading out over the ocean we started circling the airport. After several circles the pilot once again told us that there was a red light on the dashboard that indicated the alternator was not working but he thought it was a faulty light so we were going to circle the airport another time or two. It wasn't long before we headed out over the ocean for our last leg of the trip which was a little over twenty five hundred miles. At maximum speed it would take us at least eleven hours.

     Several hours into the flight, the pilot comes on the intercom again and proudly claims he was right about the light being faulty because it was still out but it didn't matter because we were at the point of no return meaning it was just as far to go back as it was to go forward. We finally landed in the wee hours of the morning.

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     The second time I returned from Vietnam was uneventful and after a few days I got leave to fly home to get Linda and drive back to California. 

     Back in the late 1960's there was a lot of unrest in America and around the world, not everybody was happy with the American way of life. Draft dodgers left the country for Canada and oddly enough there were people who wanted to go to Cuba, a communist country, so they would highjack airliners. Well there I was on plane to Orlando, Fl., it was a night flight and believe it or not there were no more than twenty or so people. There were several men of obvious Spanish decent, I couldn't help but wonder if we were going to land in Orlando or Cuba, the butterflies in my stomach finally went away when I walked off the plane in Orlando and saw Linda waiting.

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     Years later I was returning from a business trip to California, I had to change planes in Dallas, Tx. before flying on to Orlando. The plane was full. We taxied down the runway towards our takeoff point but stopped short behind several other planes, seems there were severe thunderstorms in the area and all planes were held on the ground as a safety precaution. This delay in it's self was not so bad except that it was July in Texas, hot and humid, and we sat there for over an hour waiting for the storms to clear and the pilots decided to conserve fuel so the shut down the engines, there we were, some 150 + passengers and crew sitting in a long cylinder with no ventilation. The pilot finally turned the engines back on but not without the threat of mutiny. 

     The storms calmed long enough to allow us to takeoff but our route would take us into them the line of storms that had just passed over us. The pilot decided to go around the line of storms and get in front of it so we went as far north as Memphis, Tn. before turning south to Orlando but we would still fly through some rough weather so all passengers were told to keep their seat belts on and even the stewardesses were not allowed to get out of their seats. Rough weather was an understatement, I don't know what kept us in the sky, the plane was bouncing all over the place with down drafts and up drafts, it was about forty five minutes before we turned south and the ride smoothed out.

     

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      I was working in New Jersey in the late 1990's, every couple of weeks I would fly home. I took advantage of the Presidents Day weekend to fly home for three or four days. When I arrived at the airport I was put on an earlier flight which was loading then, the flight was full. I was in the middle seat, a cadet from West Point had the window seat and a young woman who worked as an accountant for Jim Henson Productions was in the isle seat.

     The plane was a twin engine Airbus. Once we were loaded a tractor backed us away from the boarding tunnel and the pilot attempted to start the engines. A few moments later the pilot made an announcement that if we would look out the window there was a crew that had the cowling off the engine and were working on it, the pilot told us that we had a bad starter which would be fixed momentarily. T mechanics quickly had the new starter installed and the cowling back in place and the engine was spinning over, this was done to blow out any fuel residues from trying to start it earlier. Now the pilot hit the starter and a bright orange flame about a hundred feet long shot out of the engine, People screamed and someone shouted "we're gonna die". Passengers jumped up from their seats and crowded the isle in total chaos, the stewardesses finally got people to calm down but they were determined to get off the plane they had no confidence.

     The pilot came over the speakers and explained the situation, simply put not all of the fuel was ejected before hitting the starter. The pilot stated that he had some thirty five years experience and he assured us there was nothing wrong with the plane, Finally he said he would go back to the gate and allow anyone to get off but if they expected to get another flight out before next Tuesday they would have a difficult time as this was a national holiday weekend, that last part seemed to calm the nerves.

     In the mean while the cadet bought the pilots explanation but the young woman next to me was still shaking. She looked at me and asked what I was going to do, I told her it was not my time to die and I was going home on that plane, I offered her my hand and told her if it would make her feel better she could hold it, she grabbed it and held on tightly, we were thirty five  thousand feet in the air before she turned loose, there indents in my palm where her nails dug in. 

     Barring the fiasco at the beginning it was a smooth flight.

     These are the most memorable of all the flights I have been on over the years, there were others that had there moments such as fog so dense you couldn't see the runway, winds so strong the plane had to land sideways to the runway and blinding rain but flying is still the safest mode of transportation.