MayMetMo 2020 #23: Airplane for Father

When I was young, my father would take me to the airport to ‘help’ him work on his plane.   He’d work and I’d pick weeds next to the hanger and run around the airfield playing in the tall grass that undoubtedly had snakes and all manner of possible unseen danger.    I would lay back on the grass at the end of the airfield and watch the planes take off overhead while the sun was high and blinding until it disappeared into the sea.   My father would call for me late in the evening and announce we were going home.  It was always disappointing if we were not flying that day. I used to love going up in the air with my father.   The airplane itself became synonymous with our relationship.  He would work, and I would stay just out of sight so as not to disturb him, in hopes of getting lifted off the ground and taking on a view of the world below.  The Plane was an old Cessna 172, overwing, manual prop (until he replaced it with a starter) Tail Number N13456 brown and beige, not much to look at but I thought she was a beauty.    We’d drive to the airfield in Ontario, my young mind had no idea how far that was from Los Angeles, but it was always a thrill to turn down the highway where the land became flattest and see the tiny tower that served as the airports’ radar station.  We’d park next to our hanger, he’d pull the Cessna out and offer me quips of wisdom from an earlier age, He taught me about a hard day’s works and the value of personal responsibility.   Above all else, my father taught me the importance of keeping your word.  “When you say you’ll do something, you have to do it.   If you think it, you’ve got some options, but once the words leave your mouth and someone else can hold you accountable to those words, that’s your check, you have to be able to pay for it if someone cashes it.”   Among other ways of saying it, it amounted to, “All you have in this world is your word, its all that is valuable, as long as you keep it.”

My father taught me to fly,