I wish you could’ve met this guy. I think my smart ass personality came from him….kinda.

By the time I met him, I found him working his fingers to the bone farming and running a dairy. The pictures I’ve looked back on, have shown him dog tired and covered in hay dust. I was 5 when they sold the farm, we lived in rural New Mexico.

Selling had nothing to do with running the place, it was his Dad’s originally. The real reason was because I’m 1960 the church asked him to be a Building Superintendent. His ‘mission’, to cover the Midwest building phase 1 chapels. They all looked the same except for his first project. Our branch’s little chapel. About 16 years ago, I stopped off there to see the changes. There was a new huge Stake Center in the little chapel’s place, after 45 years!

His second assignment was to move our family of eight to Oklahoma. I don’t have much to say about it, I was in 2nd grade. BUT! I’m still pissed at my idiot brother for breaking my cast aluminum western pistols. It all happened the day after I got them. Nothing worked anymore so I said, fuck it!

The next stop after the 1 year completion, we were off to Iowa. A lovely green area, as the previous years was dry and dusty. This was the year of Kennedy’s assassination. Truly a somber time. Hell, he looked like a nice guy and I had no idea why others didn’t like him. I personally had a life changing issue that I’ll mention in my BYU 1973 story.

After that we went to Minnesota for the final project. There were many fun times but it seemed as if the training wheels were coming off as we grew. My younger sisters and I innocently heard my 2 older brothers rape and molest my older sister. To this day, I feel as if she died. From that point on, she felt like she had no purpose. She couldn’t stay in relationships, keep good paying jobs, not to mention her emotional upheaval. The reason I brought it up is, because at that time my parents stuck their heads in the sand mostly because they had no understanding of how to solve and address things.

She has suffered tremendously. Her shack of a house is 170 years old. I volunteered to go up and run a project to reside her house. A new and rewarding experience for me! I worker all day and many times into the night to make it look very nice. I also had solicited the help from most of my sibs to move things along. Most all that helped had no desire to be there and my older brothers forced themselves into taking over things. I put an immediate stop to that bullshit. Aside from the construction issues, I was there to buoy my poor sister up in hope of changes in her life. She had packed on a few hundred pounds and became a hoarder. Because she had nothing, she thought that she had to save the things that brought joy to her. She has a good attitude, but has regressed back into her cave. She hasn’t been employed for over 30 years.

Sorry for airing our dirty laundry, but find it therapeutic for me to write it all down.

After finally completing the chapel in Minnesota, we packed up the car and headed home to New Mexico. Dad did some soul searching only to find his love for flying. He hadn’t flown since WW II.

He jumped in with both feet acquiring all of his necessary ratings. We were still poor. The church back then didn’t pay a whole lot.

We finally ended up back in Iowa, not far from where we lived before. Dad along with Moms nagging and direction turned our frumpy chicken coup house into a masterpiece. It was then that things got better financially and out came his wicked (in a good way) humor. He and Mom were always pulling practical jokes on their friends. Most of which were LDS. The one I recall the most, was when a family were getting ready to move to Arizona. Mom and Dad really wanted to pull off a huge joke. Mom loved making pizza, it was cheap and fun. They put their heads together for the grand event. Mom found some smoked grasshoppers at the store (edible). She shared the prank with a few friends sworn to secrecy, made the pizzas and included black olives with trinkets of grasshoppers and other toppings. The wife that was leaving was beyond naive. Her husband was laid back and had a good since of humor. As the yummy pizzas started coming out of the oven a few people figured out the prank and discretely picked the bugs off, wrapped them in a napkin, and tossed them. The wife was set up and having a great time really enjoying the food. Some people started snickering and then the cat was out of the bag! Her face went pale as she realized the extras. Everyone laughed and enjoyed the prank and a few days later the wife settled down, and off they went.

Dad had secured a job as a corporate pilot for a financial group. Over the few years we all enjoyed waxing the 3 different planes that he flew, along with frequent trips he could invite us on. He had always wanted to move up to a turbo prop King Air, so we flew to California. He asked me to stay put in his Queen Air till he came back. He glided across the tarmac to me and said let’s go! I knew he was trading planes but that was it. He smiled and said, go get the new plane! Not long after we enjoyed the comfort and speed of the new plane. Actually I have a copy of the new 1973 Cadillacs. In the backless his plane. I saw the tail numbers.

That happened before Christmas 1972. Everyone in our ward seemed to have a wonderful holiday until New Year’s Day. My parents got a call that my older brother was in a bind and needed help moving from Minnesota to Iowa immediately because he had gotten a job at Walgreens ( the OLD ones). He (the rapist) and his psycho wife got in pissing match’s and spent more time fighting that delayed the move 1-2 days. Dad called furious, telling my idiot brother to finish up and get me the hell home. It just happened to be a sign. I got home about noonish or was it 4? Not long after getting home I got cleaned up to go to MIA. That’s YW and YM!

The day before Dad got a trip to Omaha. An hour or so flight home. Since it was still a holiday of sorts, Dad thought I’d be fun to ride shotgun on the trip. He had 4-5 executives on board and invited his close friend our Bishop. Dad taught him to fly, but he had limited experience(which wasn’t needed). It was an uneventful trip until they were on approach to our airport. As they descended something went wrong and they started plummeting down from 5000 ft.

The weight of the ice on the wings forced down like a lead balloon and then there were 6-7 fatalities. It was a real mess. The ward, well, the stake, well…

And then they were gone. Oh, btw, had things worked out as Dad wanted them to…..I would have been in the right hand seat!