Taking Flight

This book is dedicated to my father, who taught me how to dream.  

David Norton

N256DN

May 16, 1952 – July 1, 2000

1994

Wood from Wick’s (hardware) arrived on

June 30, 1994

The last day of your life may as well have been the last day of mine. I’ve had many wonderful days in my life, but if I could go back and repeat any of them, I would pick the day before…

The move from Missouri had been very hard on me. Maybe harder than you ever understood. I had spent several years hating you and Mom, hating Minnesota, hating the kids who picked on me in a school that was four times the size of my school in Missouri.  I didn’t understand that had we stayed in Missouri, you would have been out of a job. I was convinced I would hold on to the chip on my shoulder until I turned eighteen and could move back to Wentzville.

But then I made a friend. And another. I became involved in choir and band, opportunities that wouldn’t have existed for me in Missouri. I took advantage of the numerous libraries and book fairs in Hennepin County. I learned how to tolerate the brutal Minnesota winters, taunting my cousins in Wentzville with stories of ice-skating and snow on Christmas mornings. 

I started high school with a group of friends who were neither popular nor outcasts. I could be myself around them, never feeling pressure to be something I wasn’t. I didn’t have to wear make up to fit in, or listen to boy bands, or read Teen Magazine to be part of this group.

When you died I had a boyfriend. N was incredibly handsome, though no one else really noticed his charm or good looks until we started dating.

At sixteen I had everything I
could want
: friends, a boyfriend, a car, and a summer promising to be filled with bonfires and days at the beach.

And then...

I think about that day often. It has become my measure of happiness, the kind where you forget to worry about what could happen from minute to minute. I think it was the last day of my childhood. I spent June 30, 2000 on a boat on Lake Bavaria. Most of my friends were there. We stuffed ourselves with a disgusting amount of chips and salsa while we drank sodas from a frosty cooler. We pushed each other off the side of the boat into the deep water, splashing around, our laughter echoing across the lake. 

We stayed on the boat all day. Time was a luxury we didn’t realize we had, and likely wouldn’t until a decade later when we were all stuck in offices working a 9 to 5 shift on a lovely summer afternoon. We brought the boat back to the dock when the sun began to set below the trees. As we gathered our bags and towels, shuffling along in our soggy flip-flops, I felt a delicious sense of relaxation creep into my body, every muscle weak after an entire day spent outside. N kept a hand around my waist while we walked back to our cars, lighting up my inexperienced nerves with each touch. Everyone was going home for a couple of hours but we had made plans to meet up at Lynn’s house later. The girls were going to have a sleep over, and if we could pull it off, the boys would be sneaking back in after curfew to spend the night, too.

I drove home with the windows down, music blasting, my long wet hair curling wildly around my face. I would have lots of knots to deal with later, but I didn’t care. 

I often wonder how you spent your last day.

When I came home I immediately headed for the shower. I could hear noise in the kitchen, mixed with the sounds of lawnmowers buzzing through our open windows. The house was stuffy. You and Mom rarely turned on the air conditioning, convinced that even on its hottest day Minnesota could never compete with Missouri’s humidity. Simple details, like the sun shining through the white curtains, the clattering of pots and pans; these are the bits I’m afraid I will forget. And I wish to remember everything. 

The shower stung on my shoulders; I must have gotten burnt again. I ignored the discomfort and took my usually long shower. As I suspected I had to work extra hard at the tangles in my hair before I could pull the comb through without snagging. I considered putting on make up but decided against it. I did put some flowery smelling curl cream in my hands and scrunched the product through my damp hair, turning my natural waves into corkscrew curls. As I spent more time with N I found myself caring about my appearance. I wanted to be pretty for him.

I dressed in jean shorts and a long sleeved gauzy peasant top. I quickly packed my things and grabbed my sleeping bag from the closet. I was anxious to get back to my friends and excited to see N.

I came downstairs just as Mom was setting a plate of steaks on the table. You were already seated, and after Mom poured milk into your glass she took her seat beside you. We ate dinner together every weeknight, and though I was never expected to be home on the weekends, there was always a place set for me. “I didn’t know if you had time to eat with us,” Mom explained while I slid my sandals on.

“I’ve got to get to Lynn’s. I’m running late already.”

You turned around in your chair. Your nose, forehead and cheeks were pink, a telltale sign that you had spent the entire sunny day flying. You and I were never one to remember sunscreen. Your Cardinals hat was on backwards, sunglasses resting on the bill. We had the same dark hair and green eyes. “You sure you can’t stay?” you asked.

I was tempted. I loved Mom’s steak. “I’ll eat at home tomorrow night.” Unlike some of the kids my age, I wasn’t embarrassed or put out by spending time with my parents. I also had no reason to doubt that there would, in fact, be a tomorrow. I grabbed my car keys off the counter. “I love you,” I called over my shoulder, halfway out the door.

“Love you too,” you and Mom said in unison. So many people are left agonizing over last words, wishing they could change them or take them back. I guess I was lucky. I left you and Mom knowing that I was loved.

Lynn’s bedroom was in the basement with windows that were flush with the ground. At midnight her parents came down to tell the boys it was time for them to head home. We waited for an hour and then opened the windows and let the boys back in.

Don’t worry. It’s not as bad as it sounds. We mostly stared at each other, because suddenly ordinary cotton shorts and t-shirts were pajamas. We whispered and giggled and felt extremely proud of ourselves. Someone set an alarm so the boys would wake up before any set of parents were the wiser. When we finally shut the lights off those of us who were dating paired up, sharing sleeping bags and blankets. My whole body was on fire as N slipped his arms under me. We kissed some, and made promises we would never keep, though at the time I believed that love was love, regardless of age. It was the first time I slept with a boy, literally. When the alarm went off I rolled away from the sound, asleep again before I noticed N was gone. 

It was around 9:30 when Emily and I decided to head back home. Besides being my best friend, Emily was one of the youngest in our group and wouldn’t get her license for another week. Since we lived in the same neighborhood I was frequently her chauffer. Emily and I talked about our boyfriends as we walked to my car. Emily’s boyfriend, Steve, was N’s best friend, which made us feel like we belonged in a cheesy television series. Of course we loved it,
right
down to every double date we went on.

I was putting the keys in the ignition when I noticed the folded piece of paper under my wiper blades. I rolled the window down to retrieve the note. I read it aloud. “I had a great night. I love you.”

For the next thirty minutes I was untouchable in my joy. The sky was clear, the sun already tempting me to spend another day at the beach. I had my best friend by my side and a boy who loved me.

It was about this same time that you were inching down the runway, lifting off the ground for one of the hundreds of take-offs the FAA required your experimental aircraft to make before you could expand the distance you
were permitted to
fly.

It was about this time that everything changed.

There was a time when children rode in the bed of a pickup truck or sat in a restaurant so cloudy with cigarette smoke they could barely taste their food. No one was afraid of car accidents or carcinogenic cancers. Childhood in the 1980s and 1990s may not have been safe by current standards, but those of us lucky enough to come of age during those decades sure had fun.

Part of my irresponsible country upbringing was being allowed to sit in Dad’s lap to drive our Toyota pickup. I really was in control, too, evidenced by the fact that I put us into the ditch on two separate occasions. Nowadays child protection would have hauled me away from my parents before we got the truck in drive for such reckless behavior. Whenever Dad set me up on his lap he would remind me not to tell Mom that he let me drive. “She doesn’t need to know,” he would say as he started up the engine. Mom was the one who worried and Dad was the one who let me have adventures. 

Naturally, each time I drove, I told my Mom. I was too excited to keep it to myself. Mom never got mad, at least not around me, probably because I always came home safe. We were more likely to hit a deer or mountain lion than crash into another car. Isolation was one of the many perks that came from living in Lake Sherwood, Missouri.

Even more exciting than driving was flying. Flying with my Dad was the greatest adventure we ever shared. Like driving, I was never supposed to tell Mom when Dad handed control of the plane over to me. She may have had all the faith in the world at Dad’s abilities as a pilot, but the idea of me flying made her nervous. I never understood why. Nervous was the feeling I got in the pit of my stomach while waiting to be called into the doctor’s office, or when I had to read the answer to my math homework out loud in class. Nothing about flying made me, or Dad, nervous. Flying was second nature to us, as commonplace in my youth as brushing
my
teeth before bedtime.

Dad and I would drive an hour or so to Washington Airport one or two weekends a month to rent an airplane for the day. It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized some people would never set foot in these tiny planes, let alone fly them for fun. 

I knew when we were getting close to Washington because the endless fields of corn rows would suddenly shift into shapes, opening up to lanes wide enough for small airplanes to taxi up and down. Red and orange windsocks marked where the runways began.

The parking lot of the rental office was nothing more than some gravel bits poured over wild grass. We would walk past open hangers with planes lined up, displayed like hopeful puppies in a pet store window. I liked to try and guess which one we would get to fly.

The office smelled like cigars and hay, and most of the men who worked there wore faded overalls and John Deere hats. They greeted us by name, flipping their chew or their toothpick to the side of their mouth to say hello and shake Dad’s hand. While Dad filled out papers and signed us in to their large leather registry they chatted about the weather and their wives. I waited as patiently as I could, my nose pressed to the glass counter, looking at the colorful pilots’ patches and Washington Airport t-shirts for sale.

Unlike driving, prepping for flight requires more than buckling your seatbelt and checking your mirrors. Dad always had a clipboard and as he walked around the plane he would check things off, make notes, adjust gauges, test pedals. It took at least twenty minutes before we could start the engine. “Pilots always have to be sure of their plane,” he would tell me while I paced around, anxious to go.