Vermont delay and an old friend

"Most of my money I spent on airplanes. The rest I just wasted."

We had breakfast at the hotel, a pleasantly substantial American style meal rather than the crummy continental I was expecting. Dad had a Denver omelet with diced potatoes, toasted French bread and arugula.  I had scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns and whole wheat toast.  Of course we had OJ and coffee, both of us drinking it black.  While we ate, we discussed yesterday's events. Although he hadn't made much of it at the time, and I didn't give it any thought, dad said that the service men's bringing the wrong grade of oil had shocked and worried him.  If he had not been there to watch what they were doing and caught the mistake, they would have poured it into our engines and we would never have known until disaster struck. The engines would have fried and quit or fried and caught fire.  Both of them.  At the same time.  And down we would have gone. We might have crashed on take-off or shortly after, or we might have flown some time into the flight and gone down over trackless forest or maybe into the estuary.  Most likely, we would have been killed and it's unlikely, should the aircraft have been found, that investigators would have been able to determine the cause, not that that would have mattered to us.

So, he said, waving his fork at me, take this as a lesson and do as I do when life and limb is at stake. Never leave anything to chance or to the competence of others unless you absolutely have no choice, and even then be wary.  He said I might think he was being overly cautious to always be on hand for refueling and servicing the plane -- I didn't -- but this time his caution had saved our lives. I could thank him by paying for breakfast.  I said, Aw, gee, pop, do you really think our lives are worth thirty bucks? Plus tip, he said.  Later, it occurred to me that breakfast was included in the room rate.

I recalled hearing petty officers demanding to know if a rating or seaman had done something and being told yes, but then saying, well, I didn't see you do it, so do it again while I watch you do it, and make damn sure you do it right.  I didn't like hearing that but now, if I hadn't before, I realized that that sort of behavior helped ensure the person so addressed made certain that whatever task he was assigned he did with full attention and care, with no sloppiness or mistakes, because if the PO found he had actually not done the job or done it poorly, he would discover that his ass was grass and the PO was the lawn mower.

We also discussed the fuel burn on the trip, which had been excessive.  I figured we were running rich for some reason even though I had the mixture set to either auto lean or manual lean during the cruise portion of the flight. I suggested a stuck linkage that could easily be unstuck. Dad thought so, too, although he said we might have a fuel leak. We hadn't smelled gas fumes or noticed any puddles of fuel when we were pre-flighting the aircraft, so hopefully that wasn't the problem and it would just be a stuck linkage or something easy to fix like that.

After breakfast, dad took the hotel shuttle to the airport to get the airplane sorted out, as the Brits say.  He told me he would meet me at the airport restaurant and we could have a snack before departing.  Our plan was to fly to Eu Claire, Wisconsin, refuel, grab a bite, then fly on home. It would be a long flying day again, but both of us were anxious to get the trip over with.  As he was about to climb in the van, he paused and said that I shouldn't check out of the hotel until he called and told me everything was okay.  

It was a good thing he did, because when he called it was not to say everything was okay but to tell me that he found no fuel leaks but we had definitely burned a lot more fuel than we should have. He thought he knew what the problem was.  When he found out for sure, he would let me know, but we weren't going anywhere today and maybe not tomorrow, so I should extend our stay at the hotel.  He would try to get back in time for us to have dinner but if not, he would just grab something at the airport.  He was going to stay until the problem was solved or he knew that it would be tomorrow or the next day at the latest.

Well, rats, I thought. That plane wasn't going anywhere till the problem was found and fixed. I hoped it was something simple so we could be on our way soon.  But in the back of my mind I figured it would be something major. Isn't it always?

I took a walk around the city, which was really a quite pleasant town, strolling down Church Street and walking out to the waterfront park.  By lunch time, I still hadn't heard from dad and I was getting anxious.  I walked back toward the hotel and told myself if he hadn't called by the time I got there I would call him.  I knew he wouldn't like being interrupted if he was in the middle of something and I knew he hadn't forgotten about me.  But still....

When I got to the hotel he still hadn't called so I decided to go up to our room and freshen up, then I would call him, but as I entered our suite he called.  Whew.  He had located the problem. It was not the bad news I feared, but not good news, either.   

The type of Stromberg carburetors on the Wasp engines in our plane use a back-suction type mixture regulator that reduces the fuel flow by lowering the pressure in the float chamber.  A small nozzle in the venturi leading to the float chamber produces the suction.  When the mixture control is in the full rich position, the float chamber is vented to the air intake.  As the mixture control is leaned, a valve closes off the float vent, lowering the float chamber pressure. Got it? (I think I explained that correctly, but I've probably completely garbled it.) Dad carefully described this to me over the phone as if it were something it was vitally important that I understand. Actually, it didn't make any difference if I understood it or not; he could have just said the carbs were kaput. What he was really doing was clarifying things in his own mind by explaining them to me. 

Anyway, he said that the valves in both carburetors were not closing properly and there was wear on other components. The FBO had located replacement carbs in Manchester, NH, and sent a CFI looking to build time to fetch them. He should be back by evening.  Dad was going to wait for their delivery and inspect them to make sure they were the right type.  He'd install them tomorrow.  Then he would test fly the plane for an hour or so to make sure they were working properly, filling the fuel tanks before taking off and on landing, then measuring actual fuel used and making adjustments if needed. So we weren't going anywhere today or tomorrow, and he wouldn't get back to the hotel today until late.  He might decide to stay at the airport, sleeping in the plane, so he could get an early start on things in the morning.  He'd let me know.  

I unpacked, sat down for a minute to think how I would spend the rest of the day and tomorrow. I could souvenir shop for my kids and mom, and I decided to buy myself some decent city clothes, considering the mess my traveling clothes were in -- grease, oil and hydraulic fluid spots and splotches on them all: if you fly in an old airplane sooner or later you get this stuff on you. All I'd brought with me were traveling clothes plus some glamor-puss negligee stuff for el jefe's viewing pleasure.  I'd bought sweaters, wool skirts and a wool cap in the Shetlands and Iceland: not of much use in the humid heat of Burlington.  So I thought I'd buy a summer dress and some comfortable shoes to go with. I felt bad for just idling away the day while dad was busting his knuckles, but there was nothing I could do to help him.  The FBO had A&P mechanics.  They would be the ones doing the actual work, I supposed.  Pop would probably have a game of poker with them while they yarned about their airplane adventures.

So off I went shopping. I bought maple syrup candies for everyone, for the boys a copy of Aaron and the Green Mountain Boys by Patricia Gauch as well as The Dangerous Book for Boys by the Igguldens, Good-night, Vermont by Michael Tougias and a big Raggedy Ann doll for my mini me and a Vermont-themed charcuterie board for my mother. I bought two green sweatshirts each with a picture of a maple tree and the slogan, "I'd tap that," on them for el jefe and my dad.  I bought a cute straw hat, a maple-leaf-patterned sun dress and some comfortable flats for myself. I lugged everything back to the hotel, dumped the goodies on my bed, changed into my new duds and sallied forth again.  

It was hot so I went back to the waterfront park to catch a breeze.  While sitting on a bench watching sailboats and wondering what to do next, someone tentatively called my name, not "Wanda" but my nickname when I had been in Afghanistan (you don't want to know, haha).  The name, coming out of nowhere, and not having heard it in so long, gave me a shock.  I almost got up and started walking away from the voice.  I didn't.... No.  Just no. No....  But I couldn't do that. And the voice was somehow familiar. So I turned to see who it was.  I didn't recognize the guy.  He could tell I didn't so he introduced himself. As soon as I heard his name -- I'll call him Joe -- I remembered him.  He had been deployed with the Marines in Helmand Province, when, climbing over a low wall, he had been struck by a large-caliber round which shattered his leg. Subsequently, it was amputated above the knee. I had spent a lot of time helping him deal with what had happened, and for some time after he left the service he would call me, usually late at night.  He just needed someone to talk to.  And no civilian would do.  It had to be someone who was in the 'stan, too, and knew. And he couldn't have opened up to a guy.  He had to maintain the facade.  So that left me, to whom he had already revealed so much, who had helped him come to terms with his new reality.  And now here I was and here he was, after all this time, seeing each other again. 

Joe was not the old Joe I had known.  He was, of course, older, but mentally mature in a way I didn't remember him being, quiet, almost subdued.  When I mentioned it, he said that he had moved on with his life, although it had been pretty rocky at first.  His girlfriend had left him, but, he said, not because he was a cripple (his term) but because he had taken out his resentments and anger on her, though nothing was her fault.  She tried to deal with him but finally he had driven her away.  The shock of losing her, realizing the only person who cared about him was gone, had made him get control of himself with the help, he said, of a book I'd recommend he read, Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, but that he hadn't bothered to until then.  He recited Frankl's key conclusion:  You may not be able to control what happens to you, but you can control the way you react to it.  He remembered that I had also had him recite with me and memorize Henley's poem -- "Out of the night that covers me/ Black as the pit from pole to pole/ In the fell clutch of circumstance.../ Under the bludgeonings of chance.../ I am the master of my fate/ I am the captain of my soul."

He'd suffered phantom pain seemingly coming from his missing lower leg for some time, but that had largely passed and he could use his prosthesis naturally and easily to do whatever he wanted.  He now volunteered with an organization helping disabled veterans and he passed on what I had  taught him as well as what he had learned himself about dealing with the bad hand Fate had dealt all of them.

After filling me in on his life, he asked what I had been doing and if I lived in Burlington. So I sketched the details.  He said he wasn't surprised that I'd stayed in the Navy, seeing as I was a Navy brat, but he was surprised that I was now living on a cattle ranch "out west."  He figured I'd probably be living in southern California.  I said sometimes I wished I were.  

He asked if I had eaten and I said I'd missed lunch so he invited me to a place nearby that he had been to before and was pretty good.  I ordered a BLT sandwich on toasted Italian bread, potato salad and ice tea and he said he'd have the same.  Talking with Joe was relaxing and enjoyable.  It was as if no time had passed since we were eating box nasties, or vacuuming up grub in a dusty impromptu chow hall, playing imaginary strip poker and exchanging harmless lewd banter, gossiping, talking about what we planned to do after we left the service, what we had done before.  I remembered Joe and the guys talking sports and I having no idea whether the Packers were a basketball or hockey team, to which they were incredulous.  We shared so many memories, so many old companions, had gone through so many things that others never had and could never understand.

Joe told me what some of the guys I'd known were doing now.  Several were married, working good jobs, solid family men, not the randy rowdies and hell raisers I had known.  Others had not done so well.  Some had passed on. We didn't dwell on negative things but talked about all the goofy stuff that had gone on, the legendary shower incident among others, and how when I had volunteered to go outside the wire I was reminded that I had always claimed to be a happy fobbit and intended to stay one.  He said everyone who knew me appreciated my spunk and grit. I blushed -- an 0351 Marine combat veteran said this to me.  It was such a high compliment I couldn't say anything for a minute. Silly me.  But that was about as far as we got into discussing the actual war. Who wants to remember that stuff?  What good does it do?

Joe complimented my ensemble, which surprised and pleased me because most guys wouldn't have noticed what I was wearing.  He said it showed off my figure well, especially my boobage, adding that I had great legs.  I guess Joe hadn't got the news about sexual harassment and "me too."  Fortunately.  I just ate it up.  Yeah, yeah....  But it was a delightful distraction from worrying about the stupid airplane and wondering if it would hold together long enough for us to get home, or becoming glum involuntarily recalling the bad times in the 'stan, the ones I had dreams about and that sent me into periods of depression even all these years later.  So, pulling up the hem of my dress, I stretched out my leg for Joe's inspection, turning my ankle first right, then left, wishing I were wearing heels, just for him. I said that I made an effort to keep in shape for el jefe, not only working out but doing a lot of dancing, which I really enjoyed.  I always wanted to be the girl he married and not let myself go like so many women do, especially after childbirth, and I appreciated being appreciated by the male of the species.  Joe then asked if I'd like to see his leg and pulled up his trouser leg revealing his prosthesis and stump, and I realized what a jerk I was.  I smiled awkwardly and tried to think of something to say that wouldn't sound lame.  I couldn't.  I should have just joked that his leg was sexier than mine or something, but I just froze, embarrassed, ashamed, maybe a little frightened, seeing what he had to live with, had learned to accept.  The memory of freshly dismembered limbs...and bodies...flooded my mind.

Joe tried to change the mood by asking why I called my husband el jefe and I explained that I had a Mexican friend who always mispronounced his name, Jeff, as Heff, so I just started calling him el jefe as a kind of joke, but it had stuck. Even his friends now call him el jefe.  As far as I was concerned, though, he really was the boss of me and I liked it that way. It was an off-hand comment, but Joe looked down at the table, lifted up his empty glass, set it back down and said, "Lucky guy."

After that, the conversation languished. We had so much to say to each other -- not kidding around but how we really felt, what we really wanted the other to understand -- but we didn't know how to say it.  Shortly, we said our good-byes, Joe saying he hoped he'd be able to see me again and I said if he was ever out west to look me up.  Outside, he offered to walk me back to my hotel but I said it wasn't necessary.  We stood for a minute awkwardly, not knowing how to let each other go. Then I hugged him and he hugged me back, whispering in my ear, "God, Wanda, God..."  I said, "I know." I watched him walk away.