Dear Garrett..

Still operating in a basic survival mode, it was imperative that I secure another job following my dismissal from Baneth’s Pharmacy. My dream to become an Aviator was still in my mind though it had been heavily obscured by said need of basic survival. Finding another job now would be my immediate priority.

Over the next few months, I worked in a BBQ restaurant down the street from the pharmacy. It was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Ginsburg from Peoria, Illinois. I delivered BBQ for our customers and worked in the kitchen. The Ginsburg’s let me live with them. Though it was a lonesome time, I had a quiet bedroom and was able also to sleep.

Larry had also left Baneth’s Pharmacy shortly after I did to become the pharmacist at the Woodside Apothecary in Woodside, California. Larry invited me to work with him and handle the deliveries, stocking and checking. I left the BBQ job, accepting Larry’s job offer.

Woodside was a very affluent area. The countryside around the small town of Woodside was beautiful which I liked a lot! It felt a lot safer and friendlier than delivering prescriptions for Baneth’s Pharmacy in the East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park areas where virtually everything I delivered was signed for by welfare recipients. There were no welfare deliveries in Woodside. Some residents of the Woodside area were Tennessee Ernie Ford, Shirley Temple Black and Mrs. Folgers.

Running the Woodside Apothecary deliveries in Larry’s new Ford Galaxy 500 was enjoyable also. The Ford had a 390 cubic inch powerful engine with a four-speed shifter on the floor. I liked driving it a lot. I frequently delivered prescriptions in the Woodside area like a moonshine runner delivering white lightning! Working with Larry meant I got to live with him again. We had a nice apartment in Redwood City. When I wasn’t running deliveries, stocking or checking, Larry had me painting the pharmacy.

Shortly after completing the Woodside Apothecary painting assignment, I quit working at the Apothecary with Larry and moved in temporarily with my family living in a dismal duplex at 36 Clausen Road in Watsonville, California. Still feeling lost but not hopeless, I acquired a job at a Mobil Oil gas station in Watsonville. My pay was $1.45 per hour. Gas was 23 cents per gallon then.

While working at the Mobil station, I earned enough money to take my first flying lesson. The date of my first flight lesson was December 11, 1965. I drove to the Monterey Airport and found two flight schools based at the airport. Monarch Aviation was the Piper aircraft school and Del Monte Aviation was the Cessna aircraft school. I chose Del Monte Aviation for my initial pilot training. Del Monte Aviation had a Cessna 150 for $12 per hour. The instructor fee was an additional $8 per hour.

My first take-off was on runway 28L. Runway 28L was the longer of the two parallel runways heading west approximately 280 degrees sending departing pilots out over the Monterey Bay soon after lifting off the runway.

Once airborne, my life completely changed. As we gained altitude above Earth’s surface I felt the hell I had lived in for several years fall away like a butterfly emerging out of its cocoon . A miraculous shift began to occur in life during my first pilot training flight!

Until now, nothing had entered my life that was strong enough to lift me out of the grip of hell that daily life held for me the past several years. Now I had found something different from what I had ever experienced. It was something good and healthy. It felt great.

The effect of my first flight in an aircraft was powerful enough to capture and hold the thoughts of my mind, giving me something healthy and fun to think about and look forward to. Flying gave me something to smile about. Learning to fly provided my ascent out of hell.

My life could change now. I had found something beyond basic survival to occupy my thoughts and look forward to. I tried flying just one time and it worked for me. Flying was more exciting and wonderful than I could have imagined.

Having flown now I couldn’t imagine anything I would rather do for a profession. I immediately became empowered to move forward toward this new found goal. Prior to flying I had no goal in mind for a career.

The fact that I had no money, especially the amount of money it takes for flight training, did not concern me. I was determined to fly, I saw nothing that could stand in my way.

Shortly after completing High School, I drove to the SFO Airport to speak with United Airlines about working for them as a pilot. They instructed me to acquire my Commercial Pilot Certificate and then apply with them for a position as a pilot and that they would hire me as one of their airline pilots. They suggested that I check into the pilot training program at the nearby San Mateo Junior College which I promptly did. I took the entrance exams.

To attend college in San Mateo, I would need a new place to live. My step dad’s brother, Willie, lived in San Francisco, a little to the north of San Mateo. Willie said I could live with him while I attended college.

Everything was set to attend San Mateo JC. My future was looking bright! Then my 1962 VW broke down. Turned out my car needed a complete engine overhaul. Attending college in San Mateo would not work for me now. Without much money, a simple transportation problem was a big problem to me. So for now I would stay with my family in Watsonville until I could get my transportation problem handled.

Now that I had flown my first flight and ended up in Watsonville instead of San Mateo, I would need a new plan to become an Aviator.

In Watsonville, I made a new friend, Lynn Dawson. Lynn was and is a really cool dude. Lynn had a VW dune buggy we ran around in together. Girls liked our dune buggy too!

Lynn’s Dad was a commercial fisherman in the Pacific Ocean. Lynn was missing his middle finger from birth thus we called him “The Crip,” short for cripple. Having a missing finger did not seem to bother Lynn. If you said anything about it he would tell you what you could do with yourself while simultaneously signaling you with his missing middle finger the same way he would have signaled if he had his middle finger.

Lynn liked aviation like I did. While running around together, we worked on planning our aviation careers. There were two colleges with aviation curriculums near Watsonville, Monterey Peninsula College (MPC) in Monterey and Gavilan College in Hollister. Lynn and I made plans to attend Gavilan College together.

Gavilan had an aviation maintenance program. MPC had a flight program. Although I wanted to fly, I thought becoming a mechanic would be cool too. And learning at the same school with my friend Dawson would be extra nice.

Lynn and I visited Gavilan College together. We met with the Aviation Maintenance Program Director, Mr. Humason. We received a comprehensive briefing covering the Gavilan College program.

Normally, I would not remember a person like Mr. Humason but I remember him. I was surprised to learn that Mr. Humason was the uncle of one of my best friends in High School, Brian Humason.

Brian was one of those extra smart kids in High School. Brian’s Mom was a piano teacher and his grandmother lived on the 17 Mile Drive at Pebble Beach where Brian and I spent time together doing things like riding his motorcycle on the golf courses at Pebble Beach if you can believe that! I wonder what the statute of limitations is on leaving motorcycle tire streaks on the fairways at Pebble Beach? At least we stayed off the greens! Brian had a very cool Triumph 650 Bonneville motorcycle.

Brian and I did other things together for fun too. I felt real special having this special access to the guarded and stunningly beautiful 17 Mile Drive simply by being Brian’s friend. When visiting Brian, I simply informed the gate attendant that I am a guest of his grandmother and was instantly admitted. It made me feel incredibly different from what I was accustomed to feeling about myself in my East Palo Alto environment. I had forgotten what it felt like to feel special by simply living in a beautiful neighborhood like we did on Lake St. Clair in Michigan while my Dad was alive. My time in East Palo Alto had redefined my life, how I felt about myself and how life looked. Something would have to come along for me to feel better about myself and about life. That something did when I learned to fly.

My friend, Brian, showed me my first view of an airplane up close. Though we were the same age, Brian was way ahead of me when it came to academics, airplanes and airports. He was sharp in math, electronics, physics and pretty much everything else. Comparing our intelligence levels made it obvious that my development educationally had been severely limited. For several years, intense and continuous chaotic living was the order of the day. Education wasn’t.

I had already decided to become an Aviator when I got my first look inside an airplane. Brian took me out to the Palo Alto Airport and we walked around airplanes for awhile. Brian found an airplane with the door unlocked and began showing me the instrument panel. As I scanned the clocks, dials, instruments and switches a sense of bewilderment and dismay hit me. I told Brian that I didn’t know how anyone could ever learn to work all of those instruments and switches. As I continued to scan the instruments, I began to wonder if my decision to fly was a mistake. If I did become a pilot, would I have to know how to use everything I was looking at. There was so much inside the airplane, none of which I had even seen before. It looked like there was too much to know. I wondered how I could possibly learn it all?

Though seeing inside that first airplane with Brian stirred a brief doubt about my ability to ever learn all that’s involved in becoming a pilot, the strength of my dream itself was strong enough to override those doubts when they did arise. Brian was smart. He already knew so many things I had never seen or even heard of. “In time,” I thought, “maybe I could learn them too.”

We were at Brian’s grandmother’s house on the 17 Mile Drive one day when Brian came out of the house onto a beautiful porch holding something in his hand I had never seen. It looked complicated. It was an E6-B Flight Computer. Brian said it was used for flying. Once again, I thought and said, “How would I ever learn to use this?” It had so many scales and numbers in different places. It had two sides with a lot of different things on each side. Different parts of it moved in various directions. Not knowing anything about it and having never seen it before, learning to use it simply looked and felt overwhelming.

While continuing to work at the Mobil Station in Watsonville, I began taking more flying lessons at the Monterey Airport. I was assigned an instructor, his name was Tom. Tom was a retired Naval Aviator. He was an excellent Aviator I was sure but he didn’t talk a lot. It seemed like he just mostly sat there in the airplane with me. He would say something once in a while. It seemed as if he would speak when he had to say something to keep us on track in the airplane. Otherwise he would remain quiet, almost as if he was asleep with his eyes open. It felt like he was mostly in a deep dazed resting mode while we were flying together. It seemed that he was either very relaxed with what we were doing, or simply too bored to fully engage with what we were doing. It felt like he was there maybe because there was nothing better to do except making a few extra bucks on top of his military retirement pay? Maybe flying a Cessna 150 with me wasn’t stimulating enough to excite him like some of the more sophisticated and faster aircraft he flew in the Navy? It certainly wasn’t as easy to get hurt in our Cessna 150 which demanded much less attentiveness and ability than Tom was accustomed to in a high performing military aircraft.