Cessna Moments

When my mother was a little girl, she would skip church with her grandfather every Sunday and go flying in his blue and white, 2-seater Cessna airplane. The empty field behind her house doubled as a landing strip, so he would just cruise up to the house and pick her up. They would fly for hours at a time, and talk, and tell stories, and laugh. They would fly through the clouds, even though they weren’t supposed to. He would sometimes pass off the controls to her and let her fly the plane, placing a tremendous amount of trust in a little girl with no pilot’s license.

My mom was the first-born grandchild and the only granddaughter for many years, and therefore reserved the right as Granddaddy’s favorite, the Golden child.  In his eyes, she could do nothing wrong. When something bad happened, it was always everyone else’s fault, never hers. He almost never took any of his other four grandchildren up in the plane, instilling a sense of pride and superiority in my mom.

 My Granddaddy was the type of man that enjoyed hearing himself speak, but my mother liked the sound her own voice more. They made a good pair. When flying, they would discuss religion, politics, her future, and his past. He probably told her about the time he got shot in order to win her grandmother back, after she had broken up with him; or the time he entered a boxing competition and beat one of the future winners of the golden gloves; or how he had the highest IQ of anyone in Harrison, AR. I imagine my mom, a girl of seven or eight, learning how to voice her own thoughts and opinions with him for the first time, and he telling her why she was wrong and what she should think instead. She was very inquisitive, and asked him a lot of questions that he didn’t know the answer to, which was probably a rarity for him. As a child, she wanted to be exactly like Granddaddy. Strong, successful, powerful, and kind without others knowing he was kind.

Granddaddy purchased the Cessna when he retired, at the age of 50, after making his fortune and passing his business off to his eldest son, Mike. He firmly believed that anything worth doing, was worth doing to perfection. He was also a bragger. So when he aced his pilot’s license test, he told everyone how he'd received the highest score on the state of Arkansas, a 100%. Flying was one of the few things he really enjoyed in his life. But after his second heart attack, he was forced to give up his license; a bird without his wings.

Despite the sadness of never flying that Cessna again, Granddaddy helped shape my mother into the assertive, but caring, adventurous spirit that she is today.  Despite not having the ability to take our own flight, my mother and I have had plenty of our own “Cessna moments.”