When I was a little girl airplanes were a regular part of my life. With an Air Force pilot for a father I was guaranteed to have a life full of airplanes, everything from the model arplanes placed throughout the house to the pilot paraphernalia that came with having a pilot in the house-there was always something around that had my dad on it. His dark green flight suits, his silver pens that tucked into the chest pocket just so. His dog tags were usually on the dresser, and I used to touch them with wonder-they felt so thiin and flimsy and yet had so much information-my dad's name, his social security number, his blood type and the words "Roman Catholic" on them. I remember the velcro name badges and various labels and medals, small colored bars that got tagged onto the chest. He had a special medal in a special case that he never wore, and we never really talked about. He got it in Vietnam, and I never knew why he got it or what it was because he wouldn't talk about it-the war was an off-limits subject.

So yes, airplanes were a major part of my life. My mother later trained pilots, and my father is now not only a retired Lt. Colonel in the USAF, he's also an airline pilot for a major airline (no, I don't get to fly free. I don't even fly this company, they don't tend to go to where I want to get to and aren't in my frequent flier clubs I subscribe to.)

The irony is that they'd give rise to someone who's not keen on flying but who does it a lot anyway is not lost on me.

One of the main aspects of being the child of a pilot was that we went to a lot of airshows. I don't really remember a lot about them, I just remember that there were always airshows. Because my memory is a bt perforated and our history a bit blurred, the settings of the airshows sometimes play havoc in my timelines. Sometimes in my mind I see my parents there, my sister in an orange stroller. Once I remember deep, painful tension and a woman with dark hair. Mostly, I remember crystal blue skies and the sounds that come with airshows, of engines and afterburn and, years later, of sonic booms.

The highlight for me was always the Thunderbirds. Being an Air Force brat, the Thunderbirds were the best. It didn't matter that the Navy's Blue Angels had the reputation of being the best acrobatic pilots in the world, to me the Thunderbirds were the penultimate in grace and ability. I remember them screaming overhead, the display of agility pricking the back of the eyelids. I remember feeling my voice box explode in the space of my throat as sound of the engines caught up with me, and I would whip my head around, trying to see where the got to.

I don't have many pictures from my past, but I did find this one of the Canadian Snowbirds, taken when I was about 6 years old.

We had whole books of airplane pictures, and I wonder what happened to them.

My father flew C-141s, among others. Even as a little girl, I went with my brownie troop to see one (yes I was a brownie. Shut up. Sometimes, there are good little girls, too.)

That's me in the front row on the right. In the ridiculous brownie outfit (yes, I am wearing a dress and trousers. Back then, it was ok, it was the norm.) And a bow in the hair. I had no idea then that years later I would look back and wonder what was up with the polyester.

My life now is a lot less about seeing airplanes now than in being a passenger, hoping for an upgrade. Angus and his brothers are keen on airplanes though (specifically the older ones, like Spitfires and Lancasters, and in their heart of hearts they all want their own Vickers VC10). Our home now is just a skip away from Farnborough, which hosts a massive air show every other year (alternating between Paris and Farnborough). This year was the year to be here-Farnborough Airport is very near us but is pretty exclusively used by those with money-private Lear jets park there, as does a Saudi plane from time to time.

Airshows, whether as a little girl or as an adult, tend to make their way through my life. Airplanes take me to places, and away from them. Jet trails across the sky are as normal to me as the freckles across my nose and the scar on my knee. I found airshows to be a bit distressing-the last time I saw the Thunderbirds we were at a Target in North Carolina. My mother, sister and I got out of the car in the parking lot and watching them, perched on the hood of the car. They flew overhead and we all spent a moment remembering the military life, the stability of employment, the instability of location. I took a moment to remember a way of life lost, a sense of self bottled up.

Then we went about our business.

Airshows to me were about the past, and up until recently (thank you, Couch Man), the past was something to be avoided at all fucking costs. Things from the past were unanimously labelled as "Ugly" and filed away in some inner part of me that I have no access to. But things don't always have to be ugly, and they certainly don't need to be filed away (filing = bad).

Sometimes, the past can be something to smile over.

So for the past week airplanes have been flying overhead. We can hear a sturdy drone of a Rolls engine powering something overhead. One of Angus' brothers called yesterday to see if they could go see the airshow from a local vantage point. Angus asked me if I wanted to go, and I smiled and said no. I stayed home on the comfort of the couch and plowed through a book that's been troubling me. I heard the planes overhead and went outside to watch them-there, spiralling overhead were the RAF Red Arrows, the English Thunderbirds. Angus came back with some killer pictures of them.

I watched them from the garden and smiled as they flew overhead, that familiar feeling of my throat large, my neck whipped.

And I dug into a photo album I have and found a picture of me and my dad. My dad is wearing his pilot's jumpsuit, and I sit on his lap, my 7 year-old front teeth missing and my face scraped from a playground accident (I was playing tag and I turned to look behind me to see if the pursuer was behind me. I had conveniently forgotten there was a bench in front of me, and I tripped over it, skidding on my face. To this day, when I cry you can see the marks where I tore my face.)

I took that picture out, and for the first time in a long time, the past did not equal ugly.

I realized that although parts of me are fucked up and horrible, that although things hurt and scab and scar, I have had some incredible things in my life. It's something special to have a pilot for a dad. It's something special to have someone teach you the aerodynamics of an airplane wing, to know how it is the wind picks up a plane and carries it on. To have been able to see so many jets, to have Sunday mornings of sonic booms-not a lot of people can maybe claim that. Instead of running, this part of me is something that I can look into the blue skies and feel good about.

I watched the Red Arrows, and made peace with the airplanes of my past, and the airplanes of my today.

Thanks, Dad.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 10:04 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
Post contains 1358 words, total size 8 kb.

1 Great pics (yay, Angus) and two good ones of you in 2 posts. Your dad looked sooooo young there, almost too young to have you already. Nice post, Helen.

Posted by: kenju at July 24, 2006 12:16 PM (2+7OT)

2 Heck, forget the VC10. If you're going to have the money for your own plane, this is the one to have: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBY_Catalina Especially if you want to go island hopping.

Posted by: Z. Hendirez at July 24, 2006 12:35 PM (ceOV5)

3 Yup, Angus got some great pictures. But the one of you and your dad, I loved that one. What a smile you got.

Posted by: RP at July 24, 2006 03:08 PM (LlPKh)

4 Your father looks nothing like I was picturing in my head. Could we get some more family pictures please?

Posted by: SaraJane at July 24, 2006 03:27 PM (t5Xsa)

5 You look like your dad abs x

Posted by: abs at July 24, 2006 03:41 PM (pejJ8)

6 What great back to back photos- a then and now perspective. Sweet and oh so Helen!

Posted by: Marie at July 24, 2006 04:32 PM (PQxWr)

7 h... that is one happy grin remember it!

Posted by: stinkerbell at July 24, 2006 05:56 PM (p6odB)

8 That last picture is too cute. I remember those brownie outfits. Ugh. So glad I was never in scouts. I have other bad polyester uniform pictures, though, from other things.

Posted by: caltechgirl at July 24, 2006 06:17 PM (/vgMZ)

9 My grandfather was a radar operator in P-61 Black Widows during WWII. Dad would have joined the Air Force if not for allergies and asthma--he joined the Army instead (Viet Nam era.) So I grew up with air shows, and fly-ins, too. Dad likes the classic WWII planes the most. P-51 Mustangs. T6es. B-17s, B-19s, B-24s, B-29s. We, too, have photo albums upon photo albums with close-ups of the planes we've seen. Not just the planes, but the flour bomb explosions. When I'm back on the West Coast, which is becoming more and more rare, Dad and I go flying. He flies small planes as a hobby, renting a few hours to keep his pilot's license up to date until his own dream machine is restored. And I usually don't admit this, but there was a time when I swore up and down I'd be an Air Force pilot, or at least one of the aeronautical engineers who designed planes. Thanks for the memories.

Posted by: Marian at July 24, 2006 07:50 PM (A4ZL6)

10 I live in Vegas and Nellis AF Base is where the Thunderbirds are stationed when they aren't in air shows. My dad was in the Navy and I grew up going to 1000 different air shows and now my husband drags me to as many as I'll agree to go to. His personal favorite are the WWII reenactments which are kinda fun. BTW, I still have my brownie AND Girl Scout uniforms complete with badges.

Posted by: Tif at July 25, 2006 05:02 AM (rray8)

11 What a wonderful post. I'm glad to see you exploring the happy times. (I must confess that I also drag my kids to the airshow every so often.)

Posted by: ~Easy at July 25, 2006 12:13 PM (lSF29)

12 With my dad, it was firetrucks, and still is to this day. I spent countless hours in the firehouse as a kid, and raced to many a fire in the car with him. Today, I balk at the suggestion of having my wedding reception in a firehouse, or arriving at my wedding on a firetruck. Hopefully someday, like you, I'll look back and appreciate my dad's obsession with firetrucks.

Posted by: geeky at July 25, 2006 02:01 PM (ziVl9)

13 Nice post. Hubs has always loved the planes, even tho' he was in the navy. Go figure. We've taken the kids in younger years to many an air show... You were (and still are) such a cutie! Oh, and I, was a blue bird first as they didn't have scouts in the small town I lived in, only Campfire girls. Then we moved and they didn't have Campfire, only Girlscouts! I got to be both!

Posted by: sue at July 25, 2006 02:57 PM (WbfZD)

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