-Contact

A couple of days later I was rejuvenated and decided to resume my search.  I had spent the intervening time thinking about the specific groups of people that may have had something to do with the incident.  I figured if I could identify them, I could contact them and see if anyone specifically knew about the crash, or even had heard about it.

The County Sheriff where we crashed had come to mind, and I decided that I would start there.  I figured they would be an excellent place for records, and there may have even been someone there who remembered the whole thing.  My rudimentary knowledge of Nebraska geography was insufficient to remember what county I was talking about.  But I was armed with modern search engine technology so I typed: “Hebron Nebraska."

I was immediately rewarded with a list of topics to choose from.  The first one I clicked was a link to the official site of Hebron.  This proclaimed the place 'A nice place on the Trail,' as well as the proud keeper of the worlds largest porch swing.   I didn't immediately get the trail reference, I am ashamed to say now having been raised in Nebraska, but the porch swing comment made me chuckle.  I guess you learn something every day. 

A quick look at the site revealed that the town was in Thayer County.  I went back to Google and typed in 'Thayer County Sherrif,' and waited.

"Did you mean Thayer County Sheriff?" Google asked back.  I always got that wrong!

Annoyed, I retyped it correctly and clicked on the link that was produced.  A webpage popped up with the information for the County Sheriff.  To my chagrin it did not contain an email link, only a phone number.  Satisfied to get anything, I scribbled it down and set it aside.  I was excited.  I knew that they would have records of some kind.

I picked up the telephone on my desk and dialed the number.  A very Midwestern sounding lady answered at the other end.  After several moments of trying to explain what I was doing, she told me to hold on.  She would ask around and I was clicked on hold.

She came back a few moments later and informed me that no one there knew of it, which she wasn’t very surprised about as most of the department was in their thirty's and wouldn’t have been involved in the search anyway, as they were all kids at the time.  She also said all records that old would have been destroyed years ago, so no luck.

 Dejected, I thanked her and she wished me good luck and clicked off.  Where to go now?

 I thought about it some more, and another thought hit me.  How about the hospital?  But there was no way that they'd remember.  I was sure nobody at the hospital that night would have even been there today.  I mean it had been thirty years!  Besides, if the County Sheriff didn’t even have a web address, what could I expect from some tiny hospital?  But maybe they had a record - at least somewhere to start.  I figured it was worth a shot. 

I searched the Hebron City home page for a reference to the Hebron hospital, but was instead drawn to the link to the Thayer County Health Services.  I clicked it.  In front of me popped up a very nice website, the kind you'd find from a real hospital, with a picture of a large and modern looking facility. 

I blinked at it.  I am not sure what I expected the hospital to be – maybe something like a crumbling one room brick building with a rickety old metal exam table and dirty glass jars full of cotton balls and thermometers soaking in alcohol. 

I certainly didn't expect this place.  I figured that it must have been a newer and larger facility than the one we ended up at that night, even though the address said it was in Hebron.  Maybe they knew something about the other place.  The one I had envisioned all these years that wasn’t this place.  If there was no other hospital, then this place had to be where we were. 

And they had an email contact link.  I clicked it and a blank email screen popped up.  I typed:

          "Hello…" then stopped.  I realized that I didn't really know what to say.  I hadn’t exactly thought about it.  How could I tell about what I was doing briefly and not sound like some kind of weirdo?  Moreover, what if someone did remember, but were still mad at my dad for some things he said in the wake of our trip there? 

It occurred to me that I probably couldn't even get the information for the rest of my family, what with privacy laws and the like.  They probably didn't even keep records for that long.  I felt again like I was wasting my time. 

The motivation I had felt moments earlier quickly drained from me.

I pointed the mouse to the X at the upper right hand corner of the window and clicked it.  The email page disappeared unceremoniously back into cyberspace.  I stared at the bottom of the Thayer County Health Services homepage again.  The email option sat quietly before me, waiting for me to continue, but I hesitated.

I was scared and paralyzed again.  My stomach had twisted up and my jaw was locked and rigid, grinding my molars into each other.  Why?  Why would I be afraid of this?  It was just a request for information.  Information was what I needed.  It can't hurt you, I thought.  It can't!  Beside, you weren’t going to find anything anyway…

            "Bah!" I muttered, trying to fling off the feeling.  I clicked on the link again renewing my energy and typed in:

            “Hello.  I am writing because I was a survivor of a small airplane that crashed in a field near Hebron on February 17, 1976. I believe that the Thayer County Health Services was where we made it to after being rescued from the scene and was where we received our initial care prior to transport to Lincoln General Hospital.  I am looking for anyone who remembers that night, and would like to talk to them about the incident.  Please let me know if anyone is around from that night, or if you know of anyone locally who might remember the incident.  Anyone with any information at all can contact me.”

            I hovered the mouse arrow over the send icon and physically forcing myself to overcome the fear that tried to stop me, depressed the button under my index finger with a slight click.  The email disappeared. 

A moment of regret stabbed me in the side, but was over quickly.  I considered the sensation left by the whole thing, and then concluded that it had not been so bad.  It'll probably take weeks to get a response anyway, if anyone responds at all.

            I suddenly now felt like I had actually accomplished something.  This was becoming a project again!  I felt reinvigorated and I went back to the Google homepage, and studied the bright white screen, waiting for inspiration to guide me where to go next. 

Who else..?    

           

Twelve hundred miles away and a few micro bleeps later, a small box declaring that new mail had arrived popped up on the screen of Hospital Administrator Joyce Beck’s desktop computer at the Thayer County Medical Center in Hebron Nebraska.  She was out when it came, but found it there when she returned later that day. 

She mouse-clicked her way into her email in-box and saw the heading from a name she had never heard of before.  The words in the heading caught her attention first as she began to scan my note.

            “Oh great,” she thought after the first few words. “We’re about to get sued.” 

She directed the mouse over the forward key, ready to just send it to the legal department when the other words caught her attention, causing her to pause. 

What was that about a plane crash? 

She hesitated then began at the top and read the entire email, relaxing the pressure that may have ended my quest altogether.  Her better judgment was screaming in her head to just get rid of it, but instead she stared at the words for a long time.  She found that she was touched by them.  They carried a silent sort of desperation that even I wasn’t aware of.  She thought that whoever had sent this was looking for something very badly. 

She looked away from the computer screen and thought about what to do.  Perhaps, she thought, there would be no harm in asking around.  There was a few staff still here that were around in the seventies, after all.

            Besides, she was curious.  She was a pilot herself, and seeing the words of a survivor of a crash was very intriguing.  As it is with all pilots, there were lesson that could be gleaned from those who have ridden a plane into the ground.  It was the strange wisdom of survivors.  There were indeed things to be learned; things only they could know.

With a new determination, she decided to help.  If she was wrong, she was wrong.  But she didn’t think she was.  She hit the reply icon and rattled off a quick response: 

“Randy, I am the CEO of the hospital.  I have not had the time yet to investigate this but I am sure I can help you.  Give me some time and I will get the information for you.  I look forward to meeting you.  I will be in touch.”

Then Joyce pushed her chair back from the desk, got up and strode into the hallway, looking for Helen.

-Research

Days later, I still had no idea what to do as I sat in front of my computer monitor for the umpteenth hour, lost in the thoughts that raged disjointedly through my head.  I had never researched the crash or even thought about how I would.  By then I had regressed back to my old mindset that was sure that there wasn’t much information out there, after thirty years.  Nobody probably cared anyway.

I had a definite image of that day in my head, but without much more information trying to create a draft or even an outline was impossible and wrought with frustration.  I realized that this quest would require that I do some real research. 

Damn.

Now, I am pretty good at research – in fact it is a large part of my day job.  But it is a royal pain in the butt to get started when you don’t even know what you’re looking for.  Generally, the research I do day to day has some basis in knowledge that I already possess, so I know where to start. 

But here, with this?  How do you find such an insignificant event in such a huge world?  Where would I go to begin?  Who could I talk to?  It was the proverbial needle in an impossibly huge haystack.  It was so long ago, that there couldn't be much if anything.  And even if I did find it out, I didn't know the first thing about writing a book.  I mean me, a writer?  Who the hell was I kidding?

I was clueless, and it was utterly defeating in its weight.  After awhile I pushed back my seat and stomped away from the computer to sit outside on my back patio.  I stared out across the lawn, watching the phoebes dive and twist in aerial acrobatics as they snatched insects from mid air over the grass.  The cool spring breeze wafted over me.

I closed my eyes and retreated to memories of college - It occurred to me that it was really kind of the same as doing research papers on something like Cell Biology, or recumbent DNA, or Drosophila Melanogaster.   As an idiot student, like I was, I always began by staring into the massive whirling, sucking void of blackness known as the Academic Body of Knowledge, which represents the universe of information that you don’t know. 

If you let it overwhelm you at this point, which it is easy to do, you end up cowering alone in the darkened corner of some smoky bar a little later, trying to escape it with cheap college beer and cigarettes bummed from kind strangers.  And, of course, you really piss off the professor when you hand in something akin to a smiley face drawn in crayon on construction paper entitled:  'My Sell Biologoogly Stuff.'

But…if you are brave and motivated, and work it right, and look in the right places, and keep at it, eventually the answers seem to magically resolve before you.  Put them together and you've done…Research! 

My eyes snapped open -  I remembered!  I did learn something in college, after all!

Still, I had to force off the growing desire to find something else to do instead of wasting my time with this.  I considered giving into the cynicism for a moment, but then I remembered how I used to get through those mountains of paper in the stacks of the library at Western Illinois. 

I learned in college at one point, as I walked through those stacks, that everything that has ever been learned in the academic world is, in fact, already done.  And for the most part written down.  All I had to do was pull that information together and give it to my professor in a neat and organized format, properly referenced, of course. 

That was all research was about.  I got a lot of A's this way, and remembering it now emboldened me.  I determined that I would seek out what I could.  No harm in trying, I figured.  If I could do 20 pages of dribble on the human lymphatic system, I could do this, for crying out loud. 

I went back and sat at my desk and stared at the Google home page displayed on the computer screen before me for a long time.  The cursor defiantly blinked at me, daring me to figure out what exactly the hell I was trying to do.  Where do I start?  I wondered…I couldn't say if there were too many places to go or too few, but nothing came to mind.  I racked my brain. 

I remembered that many, many years ago I had seen a report of the crash.  I didn't remember then what it said exactly, but I figured it must have been from an official agency.  Who would do that…the FAA? The NTSB? The NHSA?  Who?

After a moment of trying to figure it out for sure, I figured what the hell?  I typed in FAA to see what would happen.  I clicked on the first link that Google provided and was brought to the Federal Aviation Administration’s webpage.  At the top I saw a link that said Accident and Incident Data.’  Encouraged, I clicked it. When the next page popped up I immediately spotted another link that said Aviation Accident Reports and Statistics – National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).   With building enthusiasm I clicked on it.  In a flash, the National Transportation Safety Board's website link popped up.  Although I was doubtful, I thought that maybe there would be some sort of database of crashes there. 

Then the very first thing my eyes rested on was a link that said: Accident Database & Synopses - Descriptions of more than 140,000 aviation accidents - search capability available.'

I blinked and a moment later delayed disbelief splashed over me, as if thrown from a bucket.  There was no way it could be that easy!  Skeptical, I clicked the link.  The page that popped up said:

'The NTSB aviation accident database contains information from 1962 and later about civil aviation accidents and selected incidents within the United States, its territories and possessions, and in international waters. Generally, a preliminary report is available online within a few days of an accident. Factual information is added when available, and when the investigation is completed, the preliminary report is replaced with a final description of the accident and its probable cause. Full narrative descriptions may not be available for dates before 1993, cases under revision, or where NTSB did not have primary investigative responsibility.'

Holy bejeezus! I thought.  The mother lode!  Just like that!

I scanned over the data input boxes and with excited and trembling fingers, typed in the information for my query.

Date range:  February 17, 1976.

City:  Hebron

State:  Nebraska

Aircraft Category:  Airplane

Make/Model:  Beech Baron

Investigation type:  accident

Injuries…I considered this.  The only choices were fatal and Non-Fatal.  I clicked fatal.  That felt weird.

That was all I knew.  I clicked 'Submit.'  The computer thought for a few seconds and then a mostly blank page popped up. 

'Not found.' It reported, matter-of-factly. 

Erghf!  I hated computers!  I tapped my finger on the pad beside the mouse, but then I saw near the top of the page there was a small link advertising 'Index of Months.'  I clicked it. 

Just like magic, the screen filled with a list of headings of years from 1968 to the present.  Each year was followed beneath it by links to each individual month of that year.

 Ah-ha!  This looked promising.  I was excited again.  I scrolled down until I located the row for 1976 and clicked ‘February.’  Columns of information popped up.  It was a list of incidents that occurred by each day of that month!  It listed the location, the type of aircraft, the registration number, the severity (fatal/non-fatal), and the status of the report with a link to it labeled 'probable cause.' 

Still not totally believing what I was seeing, I scrolled down to the heading of Tuesday, February 17, 1976 and began to read the list of locations:

Michigan City Indiana, Two Buttes Colorado, Artesia Wells Texas, Austin Texas, Bowie Texas, all nonfatal…Flagstaff Arizona, Fatal(1)…Yuma Arizona, Brawley California, Chipley Florida, Atlanta Georgia, all nonfatal…Cuba Missouri, Fatal(2)…Hebron…

Hebron.  I knew the name well.  It was held in my subconscious as a blurry and foreboding presence, only defined by the menacing feeling with which the name hit me. 

Hebron.  That was the place.  I read on.  It said: 

Beech B55, Number N3600H, Fatal (1). 

My god, I thought.  I recognized the tail number…it was us!  My heart thumped.  I stared at it for a second.  I was overcome that I was able to find any information at all, but there it was.  Still, I hesitated to click on the link that would show me the report.  I was aware of my heart throbbing in my head.  Suddenly, I was afraid.  My brothers warning about what I would find crept into my head.

I think that there are basically two types of fear.  One is a fear that motivates a person to take action, be it fight or flight, but the other is a fear that causes paralysis and keeps them from doing anything.  The kind that makes just stare at the oncoming light streaking through the tunnel growing bigger and bigger while we stay on the tracks, unable to move. 

For any scary situation, I think either type of fear can occur, depending on a person’s state of mind.  At that moment I realized that I had been paralyzed by my fear of finding the truth for my entire life.  It wasn’t the fear itself that held me back; there was nothing wrong with being afraid.  It was simply my perspective of that fear.

I took a deep breath and forced myself to position the mouse arrow over the link.  Then with a single click, I smashed through the paralysis and into action, and in doing so set into motion a momentum that would lead to one of the most important journeys I had ever taken.

On the screen it flashed:

NTSB Identification: MKC76AK043
14 CFR Part 91 General Aviation
Event occurred Tuesday, February 17, 1976 in HEBRON, NE
Aircraft: BEECH B55, registration: N3600H

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 FILE    DATE      LOCATION    AIRCRAFT DATA       INJURIES     FLIGHT   PILOT DATA  

                                                    F  S M/N      PURPOSE
3-0365  76/2/17    HEBRON,NE   BEECH B55       CR-  0  1  0      NONCOMMERCIAL    PRIVATE, AGE 41      

TIME -  1830                  N3600H           PX-  1  4  0      PLEASURE/PERSONAL TRANSP,  

           DAMAGE-DESTROYED                    OT-  0  0  0                                                                       
 DEPARTURE FARMINGTON,NM  INTENDED DESTINATION LINCOLN,NE

 TYPE OF ACCIDENT                                         PHASE OF OPERATION
 COLLIDED WITH: TREES                                     IN FLIGHT: OTHER

 PROBABLE CAUSE(S)

           PILOT IN COMMAND - IMPROPER IN-FLIGHT DECISIONS OR PLANNING
           PILOT IN COMMAND - CONTINUED VFR FLIGHT INTO ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS
           PILOT-VISUAL FLT AT ALT INSUF TO CLR OBST TRRN
           MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS - SEAT BELT NOT FASTENED

        FACTOR(S)

           WEATHER - LOW CEILING

           WEATHER - FOG

        WEATHER BRIEFING - BRIEFED BY FLIGHT SERVICE PERSONNEL, BY RADIO

        WEATHER FORECAST - FORECAST SUBSTANTIALLY CORRECT

        SKY CONDITION                                            CEILING AT ACCIDENT SITE
          PARTIAL OBSCURATION                                      600

        VISIBILITY AT ACCIDENT SITE                              PRECIPITATION AT ACCIDENT SITE
          MILE OR LESS                                             NONE

        OBSTRUCTIONS TO VISION AT ACCIDENT SITE                  WIND DIRECTION-DEGREES
        FOG                                                        360

        WIND VELOCITY-KNOTS                                      TYPE OF WEATHER CONDITIONS
        18                                                         IFR

        TYPE OF FLIGHT PLAN 

        VFR

        REMARKS- ATMTD FLT BLO FOG BANK,DARK NIGHT.R PAX BELT.

I was utterly and completely stunned and transfixed, like someone had just pulled the rug out from under me.  Before me were these incredible details about our crash.  I was numb with disbelief. 

It all looked so…cold.  So statistical.  I don't know what I expected, but this defied any expectation I did have.  I took a moment to peruse the document, having to figure out the abbreviations. 

CR meant crew, PX meant passengers.  I guess OT stood for others.  F was for fatal, S for serious, and M/N for minor or none.  My mom had been reduced to PX F 1.  I was one of the PX S 4.  Dad was now CR S 1. 

I already knew most of this information, from being told the story from my brother and dad, but it was strange and interesting to see it in the formal format, further making me believe the whole thing was real.  I looked over the document for a very long time, taking in the totality of what it meant. 

I considered again the numbers used to classify my family and my mom for statistical purposes.  I felt strangely offended by them, in a way.  It was like they robbed my mom of what she was as a person.  I was aware that it felt a little childish, my taking offence.  After all it wasn't the numbers fault, or even the person who put them there in the first place. We are all statistics at some point, I guess.  I would come to recognize a lot of this kind of angst as I continued my research.

But for now I shook it off, the angst of the numbers, and thought about the report from a more clinical point of view.  It was a good start, and provided a good deal of information.  Moreover, it gave me hope to find more.  I clicked the browser's back button once, and then paused.  I suddenly got a strange feeling that drew me to go back to the accident list. 

I looked over the other reports of fatalities that occurred on that day and began to study them, too.  I felt suddenly like I owed those people that.  I wondered if anyone else would ever look for them here.

The first one happened in Flagstaff.  The pilot, who was the only one on board, flew his Cessna 105G into thunderstorm-related turbulence and ended up crashing.  It was a commercial flight, but he was alone.  I pictured his chiseled face and set jaw as he struggled with the controls, trying to retain control of the aircraft even as it was wrenched from his grasp by the turbulent and undulating air.  He was screaming a mayday into his headset as the earth rose to meet him.  The report said the aircraft was destroyed.  It made me shiver. 

The other fatal accident that day happened in Missouri and appeared to be a flight instructor and student in their Grumman AA-1B, doing touch and go landings at the airport when they lost control and went nose down in front of the runway.  The report noted that the instructor was drunk.  Not hard to picture that one.  I shook my head.  I thought about that flight again a year or so later while landing a Cessna 172 with my instructor. 

We were in the process of a simulated power failure and were making a turn back to the runway at Fullerton.  Just before we got there, I moves the flaps to full.  The nose of the plane raised but my mind was elsewhere for the critical moment and I didn’t notice the airspeed drop from the indicator like a rock.  Suddenly I could hear the stall warning horn begin, and my instructor pointedly telling me to get my nose down-NOW!  I pushed the controls forward and brought the runway back into view, increasing my speed again, and a few seconds later thumped into a bumpy, but passable landing.

If my instructor had been drunk like that guy, we would have stalled, and during the uncoordinated turn we were in, most certainly would have spiraled into the ground a couple hundred feet below, just like they did.  The end of two great stories, as my instructor put it – his and mine.  I take their example with me into the air every time I fly now.     

With a curious and morbid fascination, I began to click on the vast list of other reports from the NTSB database, each with its own story that played out in my mind toward their violent and fiery conclusions.  I became immersed in this task, only pausing when I realized I had spent two hours doing it.  It was fascinating, but wasn't very productive to my immediate cause.

Overall, I concluded that it wasn't an atypical day as far as airplane accidents go - only directly significant to me and the few others who were flung variously to the earth that day and lived.  I did note though, that in all of the reports I glanced through, ours was the only one where survivors and totally destroyed aircraft were synonymous.  The thought gave me pause.  What do I know of luck? 
I was tired from my day of discovery, and worn out from what I had found.  I had to sort out the questions that intruded into my mind from all over.  This was going to take some time.  It was time to call it a day.  I pushed back from the computer and shuffled into the living room to spend the rest of the evening with Terri and James.

-Inspiration

Sometime after midnight, Ross drove us back down Peachtree Street in the direction of the massive Turner Center and back to our hotel.  I swayed in the elevator till the doors opened and then staggered out.  I turned and mumbled and incoherent ‘night’ to my friends, then walked down the corridor and found my door, opened it, and poured myself into the room. 

I clumsily pulled off my clothes then flopped onto the stiff bed, draping my arms across it and reaching for my cell phone.  I called Terri, who wondered why I go so drunk and we argued about it for awhile, then I fell swirling into fumy sleep. 

I dreamed a fitful yet familiar nightmare about fog and frozen, dirty ground.  I wandered lost and afraid, not sure where I was or where I could go for help.  I slipped further and further into the mist until I tripped and plunged into an endless void, twirling and tumbling downward…   

“Ungh!” I shot up with a start, thrashing my arms to free myself from the sweat soaked sheets that entangled me like a net.  The darkness filled my senses with still, dead air.  I wasn’t quite sure where I was for a second, but came around as objects began to resolve from the blackness that held me. 

I was in a hotel room.  I was in Atlanta.  The clock radio on the nightstand showed 2:30 in dull red numbers.  I squeezed my eyes shut again.

My head swam in a haze of old beer and adrenaline.  My heart raced.  The room was hot and muggy.  Suddenly I felt sick.

Stumbling into the bathroom, I slumped to my knees in front of the toilet and considered it for a moment while waves of nausea rolled across me.  Suddenly the waves crashed and I thrust my face into the porcelain orifice to let loose with a violent spasm twisting deep in my gut, feeling like a piston was ramming through my innards.  I heaved up a small amount of beer and a few gobs of bright yellow fluid, then dry-wretched for several agonizing minutes.

Eventually the waves subsided and I lay down, curled up on my side in a fetal position, gratefully embracing the gentle sensation of feeling better as it slowly washed over me.  Of course I knew the sick could return, but it didn’t.  I lay there for a long time, my skin drenched with clammy sweat sticking to the cold tile floor, the scene all too familiar.

When it all finally passed, I collected my wits, pushed myself to my knees, and slowly stood.  I shuffled the short distance to the sink to turn on the cold water and splashed it over my face as it flowed from the tap.  There was an acrid and bitter taste in my mouth, so I fumbled for my toothbrush and quickly brushed my teeth.  Then I rubbed my hands over my face and stared into the mirror at the dark bags under my eyes.  They drooped heavily making me look tired and numb, defying the indecipherable stream of ringing thought still flowing through my head. 

With a huff, I turned and left the little bathroom, flicking out the light with a flip of my hand as I went.  I stumbled across the room and found the darkened air conditioner under the front window.  I fiddled blindly at the switches until it began to blow slightly more cool air into the stuffy room, then grunted and fell back on the bed, spinning again into restless sleep whirling like a vortex behind my thudding eyes.  I wasn’t sure where these familiar feeling were coming from, but I knew I had opened a long sealed tomb somewhere in the depths of my head.

Great.

I tried to shake off the rough night and intrusive thoughts the next morning with a lot of coffee, and eventually managed to get my head focused on the reason I was there, which was to learn radiological emergency response.  Like so many times before, I suppressed the intruding thoughts as they entered my mind.  They were the same images I had seen thousands of time throughout the years.  They never changed.

We got back to California several days later and Ross was greeted at the airport by his wife and little boy who ran up to him, grabbing his leg and hugging it with a locked grip.  I smiled as he said goodbye to Shelley and me and they all walked off together, a loving family. 

Seeing it made me miss James and Terri.  It was good to be home.

Shelley and I rode the airport bus to the remote parking lot and found my silver Xterra.  We loaded up our bags in the back and got in.  I started it and turned up Bob Dylan a little in my CD player, then pulled out of the lot and headed for the entrance of the freeway, and on toward Riverside to drop Shelley off.  Then I could finally travel home to Terri and James.  We drove in silence for awhile, while Lilly, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts filled the void.

“Are you going to write about that crash?” Shelly asked a few minutes after we got on the freeway.  I thought about it for a few seconds. 

“Yeah…”  I said finally.  “Yeah, I think I will.”

“I think it’ll do you good,” she said.  I knew she was right.

Eventually, we pulled up in front of her house and I helped her get her suitcase out of my car.  We said goodbye, and I watched as she trundled her way to her door, pausing to wave back at me.  I waited till she went inside, then the door closed and the porch light went out, leaving me alone with my thoughts.  I turned to go and inhaled a deep breath of the cool California desert air, taking in the dim glow of reflecting lights on the horizon below a dark, clear, star-filled sky.

Suddenly I felt good.  I felt inspired.  I felt motivated.  I had said I would do it, and now I had to do it.  I climbed into my truck and made my way home, thinking about the task ahead.

When I walked in, I was greeted by the loving arms of my wife and son.  It was good to be back, but Terri immediately saw in my eyes that something was on my mind.  After 15 years, you just know these things about your partner.  I told her about my revelation and of my plan to find the facts and tell the story once and for all, and she was genuinely happy, if not relived. 

She said she would do anything she could to help me.  I now really wanted to do it.  I had always wanted to do it. 

I just needed to figure out how. 

After so many years and cycles of starting and stopping, I had finally convinced myself that the story would never be told, and that my mom would be forgotten.  It had made me desperate and depressed, and I had to force my way through that now.  I began to think really hard about it for the first time in my life, and set my determination to get it done. 

Chapter 2

Shelley crossed the terminal of the Ontario California airport towards where I sat, carrying a cup of coffee in each hand.  It was around 6:30 in the morning and she, our other colleague Ross and I were taking the first flight out to Atlanta to attend training at a FEMA facility next door in Alabama.  We were all excited to be going there and had been looking forward to the week long break in our normal work routines. 

I looked over the edge of the copy of the backpacking magazine I was reading and smiled pleasantly at Shelley as she approached, pulling myself from the story of a kid who had gotten his arm stuck under a boulder in some Moab canyon while hiking alone.  He ended up having to cut his mangled forearm off with a dull knife, negotiate the rest of the canyon, set up and repel one-armed down a 60 ft cliff, and then hike out some 20 miles before he ran into a couple of other hikers who helped him get to safety. 

What must that have been like?

I placed the magazine on the worn vinyl of the seat between me and the armrest.  Shelley returned the smile and handed me the extra cup, then sat next to me, sipping her coffee. 

I liked Shelley.  She was one of those people who carry an nonthreatening and honest demeanor, and she had an easy and direct way about her.  With her, what you saw was truly what you got - a rare quality for anyone. 

Before that trip, I had not really had many serious conversations with Shelley other than the standard work fare, but nonetheless we got along well.  I had learned a lot about her and she was always kind to me.  She’s a good friend.  Since I had to take this trip with people from work, I was glad one of them was her. 

I trusted her - and that was a rare thing for me.

We passed the time in the terminal chatting about inane things as we counted the minutes until boarding.  Ross snoozed in the seat on the other side of me, and presently the soft voice of the gate attendant came over the speakers above us to announce our flight.  We made our way up to the jetway and boarded, shuffling through the aisle until we found our row.  We buckled ourselves to the outer two seats in the center column somewhere in the middle of the big Delta airlines L-1011 jet.  Ross had a seat in another part of the plane, but Shelley was sitting next to me.  I was glad she was.  It was good to have someone to talk to. 

I use to work on the road doing freelance audio visual production jobs for various companies.  I flew many times doing this, but always hated to fly alone.  Generally, I never talked to anyone because I always found those situations awkward, sitting trapped next to a stranger, not knowing what to say.  I read a lot on those trips.

I hadn’t told the story in quite some time, it occurred to me later.  Maybe that was why it seemed different this time.  Ever since the motorcycle crash, and in my subsequent conversations with Carol, it had been heavy on my mind.  I guess that’s why it wasn’t surprising that while Shelley and I chatted about the ins and outs of air travel the way people do while the plane prepares for the upcoming act of lurching itself into the air, fighting against gravity and the weight of a full load of passengers, luggage, and fuel, the subject of air disasters came up.

For me, I have found, this is a natural thing.  Perhaps it is a basic part of human psyche.  It comes from the belief that air disasters are never predicted and occur as a sort of surprise.  The logic following this dictates that if you talk about the possibility, it somehow spoils the surprise - and then it won’t happen. 

So you bring up the possibility of disaster of some shape or form in advance; analysis of the things that can go wrong on takeoff like that one in Chicago when the engine fell off, or landing, like that one in Dallas that was slammed to the earth by a sudden and cataclysmic wind shear during their final approach, or somewhere in between, like that one in Iowa that had it’s rear engine ripped apart in mid air, and ended up rolling in a fiery ball down a Sioux City runway. 

It was a slightly morbid line of conversation, I was aware, but it sure didn’t bother me.  To my gratitude, Shelley didn’t seem to mind either, perhaps sharing my illogical logic.  And yes, I am aware that talking about it doesn’t make it happen or prevent it from happening, but if nothing else, it was an interesting topic with which to pass the time.  Shelley seemed to share this view, at any rate. 

As if on cue the plane jerked slightly as it moved back from the gate, breaking the flow of our conversation.  I chuckled nervously, and fiddled with the emergency card in the seat back.  There was an uncomfortable pause while I thought of something to say.  Maybe the topic really had made me uncomfortable.  Maybe it was the silence I hated.  Either way, I began to speak, unable to stop the words: 

“In case you were wondering,” I said, matter-of-factly, “you are statistically much safer while I am on this plane.”

It came so casually…almost as an afterthought, like I was talking about walking a dog or reading a good book.

 “Really,” Shelley said, turning her head slightly to glance at me curiously.  “And why would that be?” 

Suddenly, realizing what I had just started, I began to feel a little uncomfortable.  I really thought Shelley was a nice person and she was a colleague and becoming a friend.  I was going to this training with her and Ross, and we were going to be hanging out for a whole week.  Beside that, I ran into her a lot at work, and I suddenly didn’t want her to think that I was…weird. 

Unsure how to continue.  I squirmed in my seat now.

“Well…” I blurted out, trying to figure the best way to put it. “I was…kind of in a plane crash…once.”

She blinked and sized me up.  I now had her full attention.  I crawled in my skin under the weight of her stare.  Why couldn’t I ever just keep my big mouth closed? 

“Shut…up!” she said pointedly. 

I understood her reaction fully.  I guess it’s a strange thing to hear from someone seated next to you, particularly when you are strapped into an airplane getting ready to taxi.  I guess most people don’t give such statistics much thought. 

I do. 

In a lot of ways, the idea of statistical safety is what allowed me to ever get back on an airplane, funny as it may be.

“Yeah…,” I continued, awkwardly, “So statistically, you are safer …because I am on this plane.”

She blinked again.  I felt like an idiot.

“I mean what are the odds?” I babbled on.  “Of it happening twice, I mean…” I glanced at her and shrugged.        

Shelley's stare weighed on me as she sized me up, probably at least to some extent unsure whether or not I was just pulling her leg.  I had seen her expression so many times on the faces of others, so at least I was ready for it.  Nobody really knows how to respond when I tell them about that.  It must be a bit surreal.  I always feel like they are waiting for me to give them the punch line or something.

It is especially odd to hear when you’re sitting right there next to them, with all their limbs and parts seemingly in tact…with them alive.  People just don’t know a whole lot of airplane crash survivors, because if nothing else, they are pretty sure that not many people survive airplane crashes. 

As for us who do, it is something you shouldn’t bring up at all unless you are prepared to take some questions.  It is simple human nature to inquire about such things. 

            For now, the awkward feeling hanging around me, I turned my attention to the plastic tray table folded securely into the seat back in front of me, and wanted to smack my head into it.       

 “Wow…” Shelley said after a pause, seemingly with a lack of words.  The jet had begun taxiing by that point as we made our way to take off.  I could see her curiosity, so I told her what I knew about the incident, and how it led to ATLS.  It wasn't much, but it was like nothing she had ever heard before.  She was intrigued.

“Have you ever tried to write that down?” she asked after awhile.  I looked at her. 

“Yeah, I have,” I said.  I had thought about it, of course.  Terri had been telling me that I should for years.  So did Carol.  Lots of people had, and I really did want to. 

The problem was, I knew so little about the real story.  As I began to get the words down in a coherent and systematic form it would become just that; a story, a tall tale.  I remember nothing about it.  I only knew what I’d been told over the years, in small strands here and there. 

I really had no idea about what had occurred for those vast stretches of time devoid of information or substance, and when I would try to write about them, I would end up filling them in with fiction in the form of guesses or might-have-beens. It turned out the details I needed to make it anything worthwhile were sorely missing.

But one thing I did know for sure was that I didn’t want to tell a fictional story about it.  If I was going to write about it, I wanted to tell the entire truth.  And I didn’t know the truth.  No one person did.  It was horribly discouraging, and I would always lay my proverbial pen down and walk away after a few pages or sometimes paragraphs or even sentences.  It always left me with an empty and depressed feeling. 

I explained as much to Shelley.

“Why don’t you find some of those people, then?” she suggested with barely a pause.  “Ask them about it?”

The notion hit me, as she said it and her words swirled in my mind attaching themselves to some kind of meaning.  I was a little dumbfounded.  It made perfect sense.  Any thought I had about doing it in the past had for no particular reason been accepted by me to be futile, so I never gave it too much consideration.  Sometimes it takes another person to show us what we know to have been true all along.  That was the immediate effect of Shelley’s words right then. 

Why didn’t I ever find those people?  There was no answer.  But in the true form of a man set in the comfort of his denial, I told myself that the idea was implausible and shook it off.

“Nah,” I said, retreating once again.  “I don’t even know where to look…and even if I did, who’d remember anything? It was so long ago..”

Shelley turned to face me again. “Do you really think someone would forget that?”  She said bluntly. 

I glanced at her and in seeing the intensity of her look, faced away and stared at my lap, like I had been caught in something.  I thought about those words very carefully.

“No,” I said finally.  “No, I don’t suppose they would.”

“There has got to be someone around,” she concluded, and settled back in her seat with the confidence of someone who knew they were right.  More importantly like someone who knew YOU knew they were right.  “You just have to look.”

I cannot describe the sensation that hearing her say those words had on me, but it was akin to being struck by psychological lightning.  I tried to stoically play it off, but the thought made me squirm inside.

Could it be possible?  Why had I never given it more serious consideration?  Why did I want to believe what Shelley had said was NOT true, even though I knew in my heart that it was?? 

I was cornered.  I couldn’t deny the truth in her words.  They rang in my head the rest of the flight. 

We got to Atlanta and we didn’t crash, kind of proving my point about statistical safety.  We  picked up our rental car then drove to our hotel to rest for awhile.  An hour later we all went out for a nice dinner, followed by a visit to a bar in Buckhead to celebrate our safe arrival.

I got really drunk. 

-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.