Staying in Touch While Away From Home
It’s the easiest thing in the world to do now, staying in touch with our families and friends. We all have cell phones. We can call to and from almost anywhere. We can leave text messages and/or emails. We can Facetime or Skype or post on social media to let everyone know where we are and what we are doing. Let them know we are safe.
That was not the case back in the 70’s. Those of us who were alive back then remember that if we wanted to communicate we had to use a landline telephone. And there wasn’t always one available. More than once I found myself waiting for late passengers at an unattended airport, sitting on a picnic table or inside the airplane. If it was cold, I would start an engine and heat up the cabin for a few minutes every hour or so. If my wife, Marsha was expecting me to be home hours earlier, I knew that she knew things weren’t going according to plan. (Things seldom did go according to plan.) I would call her when I could or I would get home when I got home.
Once in a while there would be a phone I could borrow at an FBO if they were still open, or maybe a pay phone outside if they weren’t. I could make a collect call to home and let her know what was going on.
*Getting off-topic a bit here, but I remember one night sitting at a picnic table at a small airport in northern Illinois, and the pay phone rang. I answered, “Hello.”
“Is … hic … is this the pilot? … hic”
“Yes.”
“Ok … hic … We … We’ve been … hic … WE’VE BEEN DELAYED!” The loud music in the background made it necessary for him to shout. “WE’RE AT THE … HEY CHARLIE! … hic … WHAT’S THE NAME OF THIS PLACE?” After a moment, “WE’RE AT THE … hic … WE’RE AT THE PARADISE CLUB!”
Good news and bad news. At least I knew they were eventually coming to the airport and I would maybe get home in time to catch a couple hours sleep, but … it was going to be a while. At least until they ran out of money to tip the dancers at the Paradise Club.
And I was able to make a collect call to let Marsha know what was going on so she didn’t have to worry.
Eventually, maybe an hour or so later, a car pulled up,stopping in the parking lot not far from my picnic table. And my passengers more or less tumbled out. “WHERE THE HELL YA BEEN? WE BEEN LOOKIN’ ALL OVER FOR YA!”
“Hahahahaha!” they all laughed. So I helped them into the Piper Seneca and an hour or so later we landed at the Olney-Noble airport. All in a day’s work.
December 13, 1977 I had a trip from Olney to Detroit. Fly the president of the largest employer in Olney up in the morning. Wait all day. Fly back that evening. I sat all day at the FBO, living off whatever was available in the vending machines. Reading a book. (I always brought books to read. Clive Cussler was my favorite author back then,) I kept checking the weather. It wasn’t looking good. The forecast was for heavy fog in southern Illinois. And of course I had no way of communicating with my passenger. Remember, no cell phones back then. And I had no idea where he was or how to contact him. I knew it was not a good idea to call back to his office at the plant in Olney and ask them to get a message to him or to provide me with a number to call. The last thing the executives we flew wanted was to be interrupted by a pilot trying to rush them to wrap things up and get to the airport before the weather got bad.
So, late in the evening - again, later than I’d been told to expect, he shows up, ready to fly home. And it was my job to let him know that Olney-Noble was now socked in. Fog and mist had the visibility down to almost zero, and it wasn’t going to get any better until the next day. So we did the only thing we could do under the circumstances. We went to a hotel.
In the meantime, back at home, Marsha was watching television and she saw a news bulletin saying there had been an airplane crash with fatalities at the airport in Evansville, Indiana. She could see that the weather is too bad for me to get in to Olney-Noble. And she knew that I and any of the other Triangle Air Service pilots based in Olney would likely divert to Evansville in bad weather. So naturally she was worried. And all this time, I was sitting at the FBO in Detroit, not watching the news, and had no idea.
Once my passenger arrived, and we got to our hotel, I called home. By then, the news had been updated and she knew it wasn’t any of us. It was a DC-3 carryiing the Evansville Purple Aces mens basketball team. Everyone aboard the DC-3 perished.
It was tragic, to say the least. But the tragedy didn’t end there. One player, David Furr - coincidentally also from Olney - had not been on board the airplane. He had injured an ankle and was not travelling with the team. Then, two weeks later, he and his younger brother were killed in an automobile accident.
Years passed, technology improved, and everyone now has cell phones and computers. In October of 2009, I was flying some trips in Europe, staying at a hotel in Brussels. My father was on his death bed, and I was making efforts to get a flight back to see him, hoping I wouldn’t bee too late.
Meanwhile, Marsha, our daughter Angi, and two-year-old granddaughter Annika were at our home in Florida. They made the decision to drive straight through from Clermont, Florida to Evansville, Indiana where Dad was hospitalized. Of course I was concerned. I had driven that trip on numeroud occasions, a few times straight through. I knew how hard it was to stay alert on an all-nighter.
Thanks to the technology that we had available, I was able to use my laptop computer to stay in contact with them from my hotel room via Skype. It was reassuring. They made it back in time to say their goodbyes to Grandpa Raleigh, and although just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong on my journey back to the US from Brussels, I got there in time to be with Dad when he passed.
I admit there are times when I wish I could just be unreachable, if only for a few hours. But then, when I accidentally forget and leave my cell phone at home when I go anywhere, it feels like I am naked. I do like the idea of knowing that if my grandkids or my daughter need help, they can reach me. Or if I have car trouble, I can get help. So I have to say, yes, I am thankful we can now stay in touch.