The path not taken

I found myself grieving today because it was finally safe enough to do that regarding my dream as a young man of becoming a commercial pilot or Bush Pilot like you have in Alaska. As a young man my father made me swear to him I wouldn't ever become a pilot until he was dead. At the time I understood why which was him losing his younger brother to a plane crash which devastated his whole family. In some ways they never fully recovered from this because as they said my Dad's Brother Tommy was the nicest person in the family. My father's family were all Survivors (sort of like out of the Wild West in some ways) especially still in the 1950s. You really didn't want to cross any of them. My aunt Eloise was maybe the most beautiful scary person I ever knew in my life. You could never tell her any kind of lie or you might live to regret it (or you might not live at all). So, I wanted her as my friend and never my enemy because she was the most beautiful but terrifying woman I have ever met.

Here is a story that is true. He Second husband punched her in the stomach while she was pregnant and she went into the kitchen and got a butcher knife and went to their bedroom where he had locked himself in and began driving the butcher knife through the bedroom door for what he had done. He ran away out the window and she called the cops and the cop said (this was in the early 1960s) that if her husband did that again to her she should call this specific Cop because he would know what to do.

Back then, husbands doing this to their wives, police would often beat them up within an inch of their lives. This was often how it was done back then in Los Angeles.

So, one never crossed Aunt Eloise ever if they wanted to survive the day. Sort of like out of the old wild west I guess.

So, anyway, I swore to my father I wouldnt' get a pilot's license until he had passed away. So, when he passed away in 1985 I soloed in a Cessna 152 a couple of years later. I still flew once in a while and took a lesson I just didn't take it to soloing until the late 80s after Dad passed away like I promised him.

The whole family was devastated in losing Tommy during World War II and they even were going to name me after him until my mother heard a lady calling "Tommy" every day to come home for dinner and got tired of hearing that every single day and they named me after my Dad after that.

But, like my uncle Tommy I always loved to fly. I think it's because of all my memories of flying around this galaxy and others, I guess. I've always been an adventurer like my father and grandfatehr before me.

I remember being given a 24 inch Bicycle (not even sure what that means today) but it was too big for me at age 5 so I had to step on a 10 inch block of wood even to get up on it then and throw my leg over the seat. But, I was always ballzy and adventurous and not afraid to be injured doing something fun. Also, I was always big boned so it was close to impossible to break a bone for me, sort of like an american Football player I didn't break easy and the bones in my arms were so strong my father had to tell me that I couldn't hit anyone or I might kill them because I was always so strong and well built and often a head taller than anyone else in my school class.

So, my father took me aside when I grew from 5 foot 2 to 5 foot 10 in one year and said: "You can't hit anyone or you are going to kill them son. So, you always have to be the Adult in the room now because if someone gets you angry someone is going to die now. You are just too big and strong to ever hit anyone anymore and have them survive it."

So, I was always the adult in every room even when it was hard and became the protector of all my friends because of this. I was always a gentle giant that girls ran to for protection from bullies. This was my role in life always.

So, my dream of becoming a professional pilot died in my teens from a vow to my Dad to protect him from seeing me die like his brother did which devastated his whole family.

And today I find myself grieving for the path not taken but also proud of honoring my father's wishes still.