-Depature

I had spent a nice time with mom just the night before.  She had been taking some rare relaxation in the tub upstairs.  I peeked in to ask her something and she motioned for me to come sit down and talk.  That was how she was.  She was fascinated by her children and always wanted to know how we were doing and what was new with us.

I am not sure what specifically we talked about, but I remember I sat on the edge of the tub for a long time.  It was just her and me.  I remember feeling so privileged that I could have her all to myself for awhile.  I remember her like an angel and I loved her with all of my being.  I hope that I told her that, but I probably didn’t. 

I am drawn back to that moment by the tub often when I see the way that my wife sometimes looks at our son.  It is a look and a feeling reserved only for mothers and sons.  Something totally pure and almost holy.  Something only they can understand.  I barely got a chance to understand it, and I miss it.

That morning in the kitchen, we finished our breakfast and began to get our things together.  My mom’s sister, aunt Betty Lou had come over to help my mom wrangle us and get us ready to fly home.  She lived in Fullerton, near the airport where our plane was parked.  It was the same airport I would learn to fly little Cessna 172’s out of many years later. 

We spent a lot of time at Betty’s house in the hills above Euclid Avenue with uncle Ken whenever we made one of our west coasts visits, swimming in their pool with their sons Jeff and Daren.  But not today.  Today we were heading straight to the airport.  My parents and Betty Lou packed our bags into her and Grandma’s cars, then dad went back inside and called his partner Bruce to tell him we were getting ready to go. 

Bruce and my dad owned our plane together, and my dad always kept in contact with him whenever he flew - as best he could in the days before such things as cell phones.  They did it with land-line calls before every take off and after every landing.  It was a standard practice with pilots. 

While he did that, the rest of us piled into the cars; me, Rick, and mom into Betty Lou’s Audi, and dad, Kim and Chris in Grandma’s big blue Cadillac.  Rick and I messed around in the back seat while mom and Betty chatted as sisters do up front for the twenty minutes or so until we made it to the airport.  Had I been given a glimpse into only a few hours into the future, I’d have paid more attention to what mom said, no matter what it was.

            The orange and white 1969 Beechcraft Baron B-55 with brown stripes sat gleaming in the hazy morning sun, tied down on the tarmac of the transitive parking area of the Fullerton Municipal Airport.  It was a beautiful plane, by all accounts.  It held six people and their luggage comfortably.  Its two big Continental engines mounted into the front of each wing cranked out 300 horse power each, the dual constant-speed propellers driving the sleek craft to a cruising speed of around 230 mph.  It could go over 1,800 miles on a tank of gas and could climb 1,700 feet per minute.  It handled as good as any plane of its kind and the B-55 Baron is still generally respected in the aviation community as a very, very nice airplane.

Mom loved to fly with dad and she loved the Baron.  It was a wonderful airplane.  She had taken many trips with him in it.  So enamored by flying was she that she had recently taken a copilot class and was in the process of becoming a student pilot to learn to fly herself.  She wanted to be a solo pilot someday so she could split the load of flying back and forth on these long trips. 

Or whatever.  She just loved to be up in the air with dad.  She watched and followed along as he methodically walked around the plane checking the wings and tail and flaps as he went through his preflight checklist.

            The plane was fueled up and ready to go.  Grandma and Betty Lou kept us together off to the side while my mom and dad loaded our luggage into the nose of the plane, then my mom opened the little cargo door that accessed the two back seats and more cargo space in the tail.  In there she loaded a few more bags.    

She joined Betty and grandma while dad went into the small terminal to get a standard weather report and file his flight plan.  The report said that it was nice and clear all the way to Farmington, New Mexico where we would land to take a break and have a late lunch.  It was a perfect day for flying. 

And it was time to go.

           I remember how my grandma kissed me and hugged me tight before we went.  Betty Lou hugged me goodbye, too.  There were hugs all around and my grandma even hugged dad.

            “Remember this is precious cargo,” she told him.  “You must be very careful.”

          Rick crawled through the rear cargo door and on into the far back seats.  Once he had maneuvered himself into the seat farthest from the hatch, I crawled in behind him, got into my seat on the right side, and arranged the seatbelt around my waist, buckling it and pulling it tight. 

Mom patted me on the leg and blew us both a kiss, then closed the hatch with a muted thump, insuring it was tightly secured and locked.  Meanwhile, Chris had climbed up onto the right wing to go through the main door and worked his way into the seat behind the left pilot position. When he was all situated, mom handed Kim to him so he could buckle her into the other seat, which he did.  Then she stepped back off of the wing so my dad could climb up and enter the cockpit. 

Dad positioned himself in the pilot seat where he continued his preflight checks.  Finally, mom climbed in and fastened herself into the copilot seat, closing the door behind her and insuring it was locked.  It was snug in the plane with all of us crammed in there, but not uncomfortable, for such a small space.

            The interior of the plane muffled the sounds both outside and in.  Dad had placed his David Clarke aviation headset on his head as did mom, and he was going through his checklist with her.  I knew the drill well and waited in anticipation while dad methodically flipped switches and checked gauges as mom read each item.  Then suddenly, he yelled out:

            “Left prop! Clear!” 

The left engine coughed out rapid high pitched staccato bursts then blasted into full action with a roar.  He let it warm up and continued to work through the checklist.  Then he yelled again:

“Right prop! Clear!”  The right engine followed suit.   Once everything checked out, dad gently pushed the engine throttle forward and the plane slowly glided out of its space and into the taxi lane, stopping between the rows of planes. 

He flipped the radio to the automated weather briefing.  Mom listened and jotted down the bits of information that came forth.  Dad then requested clearance to move to the run-up area near the end of runway 24, and then with an increase in throttle guided the plane over to it.  Once there, he did a series of run up checks and adjusted the pressure setting on the altimeter based on what he heard during the weather briefing.  When complete, he moved the plane to the end of the taxiway, stopping short of the runway threshold, and called the tower to get permission to take off for a right downwind departure. 

Permission was granted and the engines increased their pitch as we moved forward and turned to take our position on the runway.  Once dad got the plane properly oriented roughly west and more or less into the light breeze, he opened the throttle to full and the plane smoothly thrust forward, quickly gaining speed and pushing the blood to the back of my head and my body into the seat.  A funny dropping feeling in my stomach made me know that the plane was lifting gracefully from the earth, into the cloudless sky above Orange County. 

Dad reached climbing speed then raised the landing gear.  It whirred and clunked into place under us.  He guided the plane to the pattern altitude, and with a gentle and wide bank to the right, he turned to point the compass east.  He continued to climb into the sky, setting a course that would take us far above the deserts and mountains of Southern California and Arizona, and on toward New Mexico. 

Our home lay a million miles beyond.

I found all kinds of ways to pass the time on these trips, but mostly I just stared out of my little window at the changing landscape below.  We flew over snow-capped mountains, green forests, and deep canyons, then out over the sandy brown California desert.  We flew a route roughly parallel to U.S. Intestate 40, skirting the southern fringes of the Rocky Mountains, which majestically extended northward like towering sentinels.

Next to me, Rick had fallen fast asleep and eventually I too was lulled into drowsiness by the incessant purr of the engines and the rocking of the little plane, rolling gently side to side like a cradle.  Slowly, my head flopped to rest on Rick’s shoulder and I dozed off too, the big world spinning almost two miles beneath me.

Rick and I awoke with a slight start to the thump and chirp of the wheels under us as they touched down at the municipal airport in Famington.  Dad slowed the rushing plane, pulled off the runway and stopped.  He contacted ground control and got permission to move onto the taxiway and over to the transitive parking area, and then found a spot to park. The engines shut down one at a time and once they were silent we piled ourselves out of the plane, stretching our cramped bodies and rejoicing in being firmly back on the ground. 

Dad went into the terminal building to check the weather again and call Bruce while the rest of us made our way to the little café adjacent to the runway where we could get some lunch and watch as other little planes came and went.

Rick and I loaded wads of paper into our drinking straws, secretly shooting them at each other and the unsuspecting diners around us.  From time to time, the people gave stern looks right at us, but we pretended that we were innocent and probably believed they really didn’t know where the shots had come from – what with us being the only kids in the place.  I guess they all took pity on my mom with her three rambunctious boys, for no one said a thing.  Rick and I congratulated ourselves for being clever. 

Our food arrived and I munched on my hot dog.  Dad came in to join us and get some food as well, and we sat and ate a quiet lunch as a family one more time, together in that little airport café.  Nothing particularly special was going on.  It was the same scene as it is with anyone played out a million times across the globe every day, I suppose.  It’s difficult to realize how big of a deal such a mundane moment can be. 

But for the rest of my life, if I could be granted a wish for one instant in time to capture in a photograph, it would have been that one, right then.  We couldn’t have know the innocence we left sitting there amongst our wadded up napkins placed haphazardly on ketchup stained plates as we got up, gathered our things, turned our backs, and walked away.

Back at the plane, we conducted the same drill as before.  We got ourselves situated in our same places and were shortly climbing back into the sky.  It wasn’t far now.  
Not far at all. 

I looked around the clean white interior of the plane, bathed golden by the slowly setting sun sliding gracefully into the sea beyond the horizon far behind us.  Mom had taken my sister into the front to sit on her lap where she had fallen asleep.  I could see her closed eyes over the seat back, propped up on mom’s shoulder as mom stroked her hair.  I could see the back mom and dad’s heads over their seats, the green headphones cupped over their ears.  I could see Chris’ hair poking up over his seat back in front of Rick.  Beside me, Rick was asleep again. 

Slowly, with the darkening of the clear sky, listening to the droning of the engines propelling us perpetually forward, I gently laid my head back on my big brother’s shoulder and drifted into sleep once again, closing my eyes as a child for the last time.