Airplanes

Living on a military post, it shouldn’t be a surprise that there is constant air traffic.  For two years, we lived on post and enjoyed watching the Apaches training.  We were never people who complained about the noise or commotion, despite the fact that our windows frequently rattled.

Our son, who joined our family only months before we bought our first home, didn’t get the chance to truly appreciate the helicopters whirling above our little duplex.  It was one thing that disappointed me in the excitement of this new venture which seemed to cap off our entrance into adulthood.
I had no idea what was waiting for us.

The Apaches had blurred the fact that we had very rare air traffic from planes while living within the confines of Fort Hood.  We were rewarded with a return of that air traffic, as well as the fortune of seeing the military planes coming in, when we moved off of the military post. 

Fast fighter jets, zipping across the sky; high enough to know they weren’t ending their journey, but low enough to be able to name them.  Commercial jets that flew at such an amazing altitude that they were barely more than dots, and, the crème de la crème, the military transport planes flying so low that they looked as though they would land on our doorstep.

Our son has joined me in my love of planes.  He will run across the backyard reaching his little arms into the air and laughing.  He can pick out an airplane in the sky before I even hear it.  He’ll start yelling, “Plane, plane” and friends will laugh.  But, I have never been wrong when I say, “just wait a moment and you’ll see it.”

Why?  Where does this love come from?

Simple.  It was passed down to me from the most important man in my life.  My grandfather.

Nothing rivaled his love for planes except that for his wife and his family.  If you knew him, you’d know that meant something.  If a topic was brought to his attention he studied it.  If he met someone from another country, he’d leave the encounter knowing a few words of their native language.  If someone said he couldn’t do something, well, he went out and did it.

But none of it compared to flying.  He was a young man born near the end of the depression. A young man who learned determination and believed that he could be anything he wanted.  Four children, a wife, three jobs and he somehow still found the time to learn to fly.  And fly he did. 

I’m reminded of my grandfather every time I see the underbelly of an aircraft soaring toward its destination, the wheels reaching down toward the ground as the wings tip slightly from side to side and the rumble of the engine, sliding into the high-pitched whine of deceleration.  I can always hear that voice in my head, “Ain’t that somethin’?”

I can appreciate those beasts of the air now.  Only now and then do I notice a tear slipping down my cheeks.  How I miss that man who taught me to love myself, love my family and love airplanes.