Sandwiched
By the time you read this, I’ll either be traveling to Boston via airplane or will have arrived to start an amazing weekend with a good friend. I’ll be thinking of the Millers, however, and hope you all enjoy a great homecoming!
I’ve felt incredibly blessed this year to get to see destinations both new (Cincinnati, Tucson and Boston) and familiar (Washington, D.C.) I’ve been all over this country throughout my life and have even visited England twice.
I was fortunate to start my travels at a young age. As a child and pre-teen, my mode of transportation was primarily my dad’s station wagon. Mom and Dad took me on adventures to Niagara Falls, Washington, D.C., Williamsburg, Kentucky, Iowa, and later, Florida with my sister and her family.
I always sat in the back, of course, and worked on various craft projects such as latch hook rugs or potholders. Or I read Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, or Little House on the Prairie books. Yes, it was definitely the 70s and 80s!
Much to Mom’s and my surprise, Dad decided to learn how to fly an airplane in my teen years. He also bought a motorcycle … I seem to recall the phrase “midlife crisis” being thrown around back then. But I digress.
Soon Dad was the proud owner of one half of a Beechcraft Musketeer, a single-engine, low-wing, light aircraft that seated four people. We always joked with him wondering if he owned the front half or the back half.
I absolutely loved flying in Dad’s Beechcraft! We liked to take day trips to places like Chicago, Indianapolis, Muncie and Bloomington. And the icing on the cake was when I was allowed to invite friends along for these journeys. I felt like the coolest teenager in Mishawaka!
One day at lunch Dad announced to Mom and me that he was going to get his instrument rating. His number one reason was that he wanted to receive approval on days with a low overcast to climb through the clouds and into clear, smooth air. I thought that sounded way cool. Mom … not so much.
Mom was a bit of a nervous flyer with Dad. I think she equated bigger aircrafts with increased safety. While I was looking out the window filled with excitement on take offs and landings, Mom’s knuckles were white because she gripped tightly to anything she could get her hands on. She was always amazed when I fell asleep in the back, claiming she could never do that in a thousand years.
My last memory of my father was waving to him in Indianapolis in the fall of 1993 as he climbed into his Beechcraft to fly back home. I’m not sure which airport we were in but I remember his big grin as he set off on yet another fun flight.
Whenever I hear Frank Sinatra’s version of “Fly Me to the Moon,” I think of Dad, as he had a plane sculpture/music box that played that song. And even though I mostly fly on commercial airplanes now, I still think of him whenever I step onto a plane.