Farewell to a part of my Grandfather
Look at her happy pose. Left wing reflecting her numbers, piece of a tree stuck to her nose. It’s as if she is begging me, or anyone else with a penchant for the mystique of air to go off and say hello to the sky. As I venture through life, I have learned that airplanes and people are similar in one respect: They both have the tendency to fly away out of our lives. The airplane in this picture is my Grandfathers last ride. When I look at the picture of this beautiful airplane, I feel like the luckiest of Grandsons, having had sat in the backseat while my Grandfather took me for a ride. I also had the good luck to sit in her front seat, holding her throttle in my left hand as I walked her through a few ups and downs, banking left and right as we went. As things are, when people depart from life, or to borrow from aviation speak “Depart the pattern,” the toys left behind need to be sold. Today, some new pilots from the left coast are arriving in town to retrieve Granddad’s airpla...