AOPA Pilot Magazine - December 2012 - 74

working. A shunt was intended to relieve pressure on his brain, but it didn’t work as the doctors had hoped. Dad sounded frustrated on the phone; he slept more; he fell asleep while I was on the phone with him. He was getting daily spinal taps as the doctors worked to find the problem. Finally, they revealed a theory that they could now prove. A few of the cancer cells from his lung had found their way to his brain. It was essentially terminal. There was one drug they could try, but he was too weak. “It would just make a miserable man more miserable,” my mother told me. He would get one more day of treatment, then be brought home on the Saturday before Father’s Day. I was conflicted. That same Father’s Day weekend, I was scheduled to take my youngest daughter, Sydney, to Space Camp for three days. It was a trip we had both looked forward to for months. I agonized over what to do, but deep down, I knew that Dad would be embarrassed to know that he had been the cause of such a disruption. Syd could still to go Space Camp with my wife, but it was supposed to be our trip. Dad would have insisted I go, that I be a dad myself. I did go, and while he was never out of my mind, we had a great time and I knew that I had made the right decision. He would have honored his commitment to me had the situation been reversed. We finished on Sunday morning, and that afternoon, I did something unheard of for an airline pilot—I bought a ticket home. It’s said that a father is his son’s first hero and his daughter’s first love. It’s true. I idolized my dad. There was nothing, it seemed, that he couldn’t do. He was funny, a quick wit with a dry sense of humor. He didn’t know a lick of math, but he was walking encyclopedia of history—a passion we share. He coached my T-ball and baseball teams. He taught me how to sail, golf, shoot a gun. He attended my swim meets, and my sister’s gymnastics and diving meets. He built me a tree fort, taught me to drive, how to change oil and tires. He taught me the value of a dollar and to hate the Dallas Cowboys. There was no advice he couldn’t give, no knowledge he couldn’t impart. He was always the smartest or the funniest person in the room, often both.
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But he couldn’t teach me how to fly. Even though he’d served in the U.S. Air Force, his vision was color deficient. He knew an awful lot about airplanes and A-N navigation and how to spell V-O-R. He knew pull back, go up. He’d even parachuted out of an airplane. I learned to fly in 1991, an idea that was my mother’s (I’m not sure it’s one she’d suggest again). She tolerated it, but Dad was as excited as I was. He reveled in my progress, quizzing me constantly. He would swipe my books and read them when I wasn’t. My tales of cross-country flying were a special thrill for him, especially while I was in college. I told him about flying near Cape Canaveral, and seeing the space shuttle on the pad. “Really?” he’d say, “You need to have some real stones to fly that thing.” He should know; he witnessed Challenger. As for flying in Florida, he said, “Only idiots get lost over a peninsula. Fly due east or due west, find water, and turn.” For Christmas presents, he’d buy me books on flight, and I still have them. He read them all. He could never remember my birthday (“It’s sometime in the fall, before it gets too cold”), but my mother would send something, and he’d rush to call Sporty’s. After college, I decided to pursue a flight instructor certificate, and slogged my way through instrument, commercial, and multiengine training. He joined me on weekend crosscountry flights to Ocean City, Maryland; Martinsburg, West Virginia; and Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Dad was my first passenger, on a hazy summer flight to Cape May, New Jersey. The visibility was three miles if you included what you could see straight down. When we got over the Delaware Bay, he told me later, “I realized that I had conceded total control of my life to this kid sitting next to me. I was scared to death!” I was on top of the world, teaching him how to use the VOR, and having him track our progress on a sectional. I could sense his pride. When we got home, he beamed. The feds issued my CFI in 1994, and he was one of my first students. Our flying together was some of the most enjoyable time we shared. I took great pride in the fact that he was calling me to ask questions, and that he—my dad!—needed

AOPA Pilot Magazine - December 2012

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