spynotes ::
  May 29, 2006
Airborne

My grandpa was a pilot.

He was a pilot and a father and a drunk and a businessman and a smoker and a golfer and a champion cribbage player. He was my grandpa and I miss him every day.

My grandfather was born the youngest son of a large Italian American family in the hills near Santa Cruz, California, where my mother�s cousin still lives on the family ranch. His mother Sarafina was born in saloon in Carson City, Nevada. Her parents, who had emigrated to the U.S. from Italy, owned the saloon.

When she was about sixteen, her future husband caught sight of her riding on a carousel at a local fair. Instantly smitten, he told his friend, �That�s the girl I�m going to marry.� And she was.

After they married, they moved to northern California to start a ranch. They grew fruit and made wine. Four children were born at home. When Sarafina was pregnant with her fifth child, the family decided that mama should be modern and they sent her to have her baby at a hospital. My grandfather was the first of his family to be born in a medical institution.

When the hospital staff asked her what his name was, she thought for a minute and said, �Frederick.� They knew nothing of birth certificates and other legalities. She didn�t know this name was binding. When the rest of the family arrived to see the new baby, they all thought Frederick was a terrible name. They renamed him Ricardo.

My grandfather always thought his name was Ricardo until he got his draft notice.

My grandfather was a pilot in the army during World War II. He looked so handsome in his uniform. I loved to look at the pictures when I was young. He looked shiny and new.

Mostly he trained other pilots. When I moved to Chicago, he told me stories of how he used to fly in and out of Meigs Airfield in the center of the city, just touching down between the lake and the skyscrapers. When I moved to Chicago, I used to ride my bike up the lakeshore and stop to watch the planes and think of him soaring in the sky.

My grandfather loved the Peanuts. His favorite cartoons were the ones featuring Snoopy as a World War I Flying Ace. I can still hear my grandfather�s voice echoing in the old kitchen on Elm Street at the house in Michigan, his fist upraised, shaking at the sky, �Curse you, Red Baron!� He had a small stuffed Snoopy with a mock leather pilot�s helmet and small scarf that I used to play with. My grandfather would sit me on his knee at the kitchen table and read me Snoopy cartoons while we ate our cereal.

Every time AJ plays with his �Snoopy guys,� I wish my grandfather could see him. He would have liked to play with him. Santa brought AJ a stuffed Snoopy with a World War I Flying Ace helmet and a book about Snoopy and the Red Baron for Christmas this year.

When my grandfather died, more than a decade ago now, he was not shiny and new. He was not the handsome young man, nor the young pilot, nor the successful businessman who had taken care of his family. He was sick from the many diseases a lifetime of heavy drinking and smoking can give you. Although his body adjusted, psychologically he never recovered from his colostomy. He was not the man he was, not the man he wanted to be.

In the war, my grandpa was a pilot. I wish AJ could have met him. I want AJ to remember him, remember someone he never met. I take his stuffed Snoopy off his bookshelf and slide his goggles from his helmet onto his nose and straighten his red scarf.

�AJ, did I ever tell you about your great grandpa?
�No�
�I did but you don�t remember. Your great grandpa was a pilot��

* * * * *

Happy Memorial Day.

6 people said it like they meant it

 
:: last :: next :: random :: newest :: archives ::
:: :: profile :: notes :: g-book :: email ::
::rings/links :: 100 things :: design :: host ::

(c) 2003-2007 harri3tspy

<< chicago blogs >>