Dad Goes Solo: Conclusion

I was about to escape the confines of the earth, or so I thought. Read about it here.

 

Dad And Amelia: Conclusion

Valuable time ticked by as Dad fiddled with the plane’s flight instruments. When he’d finished tapping and adjusting every device in the cockpit, he contacted the tower on the squawky radio and we were told to proceed to the runway. With my heart beating like a hummingbird’s, I looked over at Dad. He appeared fully in control as man and machine became one. I still think of him this way, Helios the sun god. And I was to accompany him in his flaming chariot on a journey across the sky. The moment burned into my memory.

Dad cracked a window and shouted, “All clear!”

I didn’t know who he was shouting at; there were only the two of us around.

“All clear!” The checklist must have said to shout it twice.

I was about to escape the confines of the earth.

Dad revved the engine and advanced the throttle. I had seen war movies like Twelve O‘Clock High and was fantasizing that we were about to make a strafing run over Germany when I noticed the plane seemed to pause, as if confused. Then it lurched forward and began to cut a path in the gravel, a path in the shape of a perfect circle. After all Dad’s careful planning, after all that attention to detail, he had forgotten to do something so obvious it wasn’t even listed on the checklist. He had forgotten to untie the rope securing the right wheel to the tarmac.

We didn’t break the confines of the earth. Instead, we remained on the ground and raced madly around in perfect circles as Dad slowly down-throttled. When the engine finally died, he was worried we’d damaged the plane. We never got off the ground, and after that day we never spoke of this incident, although we did fly together in the future.

As we climbed into the old Packard for the drive home, Dad seemed embarrassed and vulnerable. I knew what I needed to do. I looked my father in the eyes and said, “Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“I want to ask you something.”

“Go ahead.”

“Can I have a German Shepherd?”

With a tired sigh, he shook his head.

◊

Dad has been gone now four years and I miss him more than I could have imagined. Dad always thought of himself as an ordinary guy, but that didn’t prevent me from thinking he was special, and he did have an amazing gift that set him apart from everyone else I’ve ever known, a magical ability he shared with his beloved Amelia Earhart. Like Amelia, Dad had the ability to vanish. Like a great magician, he executed his trick so skillfully that you didn’t notice how he accomplished it.

Back in grade school I’d learned that nature gives every creature the ability to survive: the snow bunny turns white in winter to blend with the snow, and the rock fish is camouflaged to match the ocean floor so predators can’t see it. Dad had similar protection…from my mother.

She wore the pants in the family, and he was constantly subjected to her diatribes—she had an opinion on everything. She spent hours answering questions nobody asked. Why the country was going to ruin was a particular favorite. She alone knew how to set things right, and she described at length historical parallels to support her political and sociological positions.

During many of these long, unwanted conversations Dad used what I came to think of as The Gift. Mother would be lecturing on how the country was, “…going to hell in a hand basket,” and at some point she would say, “Leroy, speak up. What are your views on this subject? Are you or are you not a person of your own mind?”

This was another of my mother’s favorite statements. To my knowledge, only Frankenstein was not a person of his own mind. And Dad made it clear on numerous occasions that he preferred to be addressed as Lee—he detested being called Leroy. But it didn’t matter much because by the time my mother reluctantly asked his opinion, both Lee and Leroy had vanished like poked soap bubbles.

In spite of this phenomenon, my mother would drone on uninterrupted. We would all be sitting around the table, David with his nose buried in a sports magazine and Dad appearing to be interested in all she was saying. Right at the moment when Dad would be required to say something—poof. He’d be gone.

Sometimes I’d ask David, “When did Dad leave?”

He’d look up. “Don’t know.”

“His chair is still warm. Did you see him leave?”

“Nope.”

He’d simply vanished.

My mother didn’t go out of her way to make life unpleasant for Dad, but she often treated him like a marshmallow in a blender. I always wished he’d stand up to her. Sometimes he’d ask her to accompany him on a ride or to the movies. More often than not she’d say no. If Dad pressed her she’d stand in the middle of the room with her arms crossed and declare, “Am I or am I not the mistress of my own home?” (This exclamation always made me wonder if there was any point in being the “master” of one’s own home.) My mother would then proceed with a lengthy description of her rights of sovereignty, and at some point Dad would disappear like a fart in the wind.

I’ve yet to figure out how he did it, and I’ve always wondered where he went when he disappeared. Since he often seemed sad, I hoped it was a place that made him happy, perhaps a place he shared with his beloved Amelia.

Dad and Amelia's Disappearing Act

Two events from last week prompted this true story: the seventy-fifth anniversary of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, and what would have been my Dad’s 86^th birthday.

Whenever Dad saw a picture of Amelia Earhart, he’d get a wistful faraway look on his face and mumble under his breath, “You know, she would have been an attractive woman with just a bit of makeup.”

I remember observing Dad as he watched a news report about her on TV: A picture of a smiling woman with short-cropped hair had popped up on the screen, and Dad was wearing that wistful look.

I asked him who this friendly looking lady was, and he said,” Why Amelia, of course. Amelia Earhart.”

“But who is she?” I wanted to know.

Dad looked at me solemnly. “She was a famous pilot who disappeared in 1937 and was never seen again!”

I remember thinking what a wonderful name Air-heart was for someone who flew.

“What do you mean she disappeared?” I asked.

“Well, she just vanished. She was trying to fly around the world, but she disappeared somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.”

I was fascinated. That night he told me all about Amelia and her co-pilot Fred Noonan, and how they’d taken a Lockheed Electra 10E ( Dad knew his airplanes) and attempted to circumnavigate the earth. I’d heard adults bump into each other unexpectedly and say, “Small world,” but I still figured it for a very big place. In school we were learning about exotic lands, and it seemed unbelievable that this smiling woman, this Air-heart, had attempted to fly around the whole kit and kaboodle.

Planes were Dad’s passion. He first got to ride in a plane during the war. He was in the Navy at eighteen and had been shipped off to the island of Guam. Dad was there with the Seabees to build runways and barracks to prepare for the invasion of Japan. When I was young, I misunderstood him and thought he was saying the island of Gum, which to a kid sounded like a terrific place. I imagined an azure sea surrounding a tropical paradise composed of chewing gum and bubble gum, licorice-flavored gum and cinnamon gum. No wonder there was a war out there—who wouldn’t fight for a place like that?

During the war, Dad was temporarily removed from duty when he hurt his hand. I used to fantasize that he got hurt while helping remove the wreckage of a Japanese Zero that had kamikazied into their camp, but his injury occurred while moving a latrine. Nevertheless, he was allowed to go up in a B-24 Liberator with a few of the guys and treated to a spectacular aerial view of the island that he never forgot. He must have gazed out at the limitless Pacific and wondered about his beloved Amelia, lost in all that water.

Many times when Dad and I would be walking together, my little hand in his big one, I’d look up at him and see his prominent Adam’s apple, his head tilted back as he studied a plane flying overhead. When I was small I was terrified that one day he might get into an airplane himself and disappear like this Air-heart person.

I was miserable when Dad decided to learn how to fly. My mother didn’t approve of the costly lessons but didn’t complain. Dad seldom asked for anything. I went with him when he took his first flying lesson. My brother David rarely accompanied us; he was too busy playing sports and filling his trophy case.

The flight lesson departed from Airport Village, a small extension of the San Jose Airport. I watched Dad and the flight instructor climb into a tiny plane and take off, the plane getting smaller and smaller until it disappeared into the haze. I waited nervously on a small observation deck until Dad and the instructor returned.

Several months of lessons followed, and before long Dad took his solo flight. When he returned, there was a ceremony; his instructor took a pair of scissors and cut the tails off Dad’s shirt. I remember being startled by this, but Dad assured me everything was okay. In fact, he’d worn that old shirt for just that reason.

He explained that pilots always got their “tail-feathers” clipped when they first flew solo. Dad looked happy about it so I decided it was okay, but the whole thing seemed off putting to me. We once had a pet parakeet named Chipper, and Dad paid extra at the pet store to have the bird’s wings clipped so it couldn’t fly away. It seemed strange that clipping a bird’s wings prevented it from flying, yet pilots symbolically submitted to similar treatment to celebrate the fact that they could.

I liked accompanying Dad in our old Packard when he drove to the metal building beside the airport where he rented a plane. The building smelled of grease, gasoline and body odor, a pleasant smell I’ll always associate with Dad. There was a candy machine, and he would give me money for a chocolate bar. There I’d be, with a big circle of chocolate around my mouth as my father disappeared into the wild, blue yonder. One day I was rewarded for being Dad’s airport buddy—he invited me to go up with him. I panicked at first. The little Cessna Dad rented looked pretty rickety. But the lure of flying over rooftops overrode my fear. Before long I was champing at the bit to be soaring like an eagle.

Dad was extremely methodical. Although he never said it, you always knew what he was thinking: “If you’re going to do something, do it right.”

He began his pre-flight checklist. To my horror there were nearly twenty items on the list. I watched him pull back the engine cover and pull out the dipstick to check the oil. I should have been grateful that he was so conscientious—after all, our lives depended on it—but I wasn’t. In my head I screamed, Enough already. Let’s goooooo!

We didn’t go. Dad examined the plane like a surgeon looking for a lump. Then he pressed a button and the plane pissed a small stream of gas onto the gravel; he said something about clearing air from the fuel hose. I stood beside the plane and tried to be as patient as possible. I was pondering how long eternity was when Dad suddenly dropped the hood back over the engine and informed me we were ready to depart. He lifted me up and buckled me into the co-pilot’s seat. He turned the ignition switch and the engine roared to life. The little plane trembled, and then purred like a living being.

I couldn’t wait to slip the bonds of gravity. Fear and excitement were dueling in my stomach.

Conclusion on Sunday