bedsheet for a sail. I taught myself how to sail in that boat. I feel like my dad and I did almost all the projects I could have hoped for. Using our hands to create things, we shared a lot of great hours together.
People have asked if my dad is my hero. I never really thought of him in those terms. To me, he was just a great role model on a lot of fronts, from how he found his own ways to appreciate life, to the honorable way he conducted himself. He was always a perfect gentleman, a man who almost never raised his voice. I don’t recall ever hearing him say a disparaging word about anyone.
Of course, looking back, there were sides of his personality that weren’t easy to understand at the time. My parents never wanted us to see them fighting, or even having a frank discussion. They would go into the bedroom, close the door, and later come out presenting a united front. They went to great lengths to shield us from any bickering. So I never saw the messy details of how a couple might find agreement. As a young adult, I ended up with an unrealistic expectation that marriages were free of conflict.
There was something else about my father. He’d have days when he’d say he was in a “blue funk.” He didn’t fully explain himself, and outwardly, he seemed OK. But I now realize that he suffered from depression, probably for his entire life. In those days, when we thought of the word
Sometimes that meant passing out the hammers and building an addition to the house. Sometimes it meant loading up the car and heading down to that roadside motel in Dallas. And sometimes it meant going alone into his room, where he’d deal with demons never discussed with the rest of us.
MY MOTHER was ten years younger than my dad, and especially at first, they had a very traditional marriage. She left college at age twenty-one to marry him, and later regretted not graduating. When I was a teen, she went back to school, majoring in education, and went on to get her master’s degree. She taught kindergarten at first, and then spent most of her career as a first-grade teacher at Sam Houston Elementary School in Denison.
It was a great kick to be my mom’s son in Denison. People tend to love their first-grade teachers, and my mother was especially kind and nurturing with kids. She was absolutely beloved in town. It’s not a stretch to say she was something of a minor local celebrity.
My mother was a terrific pianist, too, and I just loved listening to her play Chopin. When I was in grade school, I’d always say to her, “Will you play more Chopin?” I’m not sure a lot of kids today, plugged into their iPods and cell phones, are calling out to their mothers for more Chopin. But my mother helped instill in me an appreciation of classical music. She was my favorite performer.
I always like to say that my mother gave me three important things: a lifelong love of reading, learning, and music. These are three very special gifts.
I also saw in my mother a commitment to service. She was a leader in a local chapter of the woman’s group PEO (Philanthropic Educational Organization). Founded in 1869 in Iowa, its mission was to promote educational opportunities for women. In my mother’s day, there were plenty of people who didn’t think much of the idea of women going to college, and PEO’s platform was somewhat controversial in some circles. And so my mom was very secretive about this PEO “sisterhood.” She wouldn’t tell me what they stood for, what they did, what happened at their meetings, or who attended. There was a desire by these women to be quiet about their work. Looking back, I salute them for the work they did to encourage young women to fulfill their potential, but I realize theirs was a form of feminism that hadn’t yet found its full-throated voice.
My mother was an advocate for children, too. She believed that young kids could handle more responsibility than adults might imagine. She saw this in her first graders, but she felt it long before she was a teacher.
From the time I was very young, she and my dad impressed upon me the importance of looking after my sister, who was just twenty-one months younger. My father had the traditional sense that men should take care of women. And so he anointed me a kind of “second dad.” But my mother just thought children can rise to the responsibilities they’re given.
“When we’re not around, we’re counting on you,” my mom would tell me. My dad would say, “You’re in charge.”
I wasn’t always the perfect older brother. When I was five and Mary was three, I once took her out to play in the gravel on Hanna Drive. Some of the stones were smaller than a pea, and I thought it would be fun to feed these tiny stones to my sister. My mom caught me and told me a five-year-old should know better than that. Maybe I did know better, but at that age, feeding gravel to your kid sister doesn’t necessarily seem like a bad way to pass the time.
My sister now says that I was a pretty good big brother most of the time. She thinks that looking after her helped me develop the sense of responsibility that has carried me through life, and into my career as a pilot. A couple of times as a teen, she went out with guys who were too forward, or who weren’t completely respectful. I took it upon myself to go talk to them and set them straight. My sister feels that even when the two of us were arguing, I was protective and committed to keeping her safe.
We weren’t a hugely demonstrative family when it came to showing affection. But we were there for one another, and we felt a sure sense of duty. We also had faith in one another. My mother knew my capabilities and encouraged me to have confidence in them. That’s why she was comfortable flying as my passenger when I was a teenager. She knew that I knew I could do it.
My sister also was never afraid to fly with me. “Maybe it’s the invincibility of youth,” she now tells me, “and I just figured nothing could happen to me. But I think the main reason I had no fear is because I had an innate confidence in you. I knew you’d protect me.”
I WAS very sure of myself and directed as a kid in the 1960s. I expected to serve in the military and then be a commercial pilot. Looking back, I think I was a very earnest, serious boy still struggling to figure out where I fit in the world.
In one eighth-grade school essay, titled “The Way I Am,” I wrote: “I have good habits as well as bad ones. Being polite is one of my good points. My parents have taught me the manners I should know. I think my table manners are what they should be.
“I have bad habits, too. I am not very patient sometimes with other people. I would like to do everything exactly right, and I would like others to do the same. I should realize that everyone is not perfect.
“I know many people who have better personalities than I do, but I am doing the best I can.”
My teacher wrote at the end of the essay: “You are doing fine.” That’s the way things went in those days. Teachers and parents didn’t spend a lot of time stroking kids, telling them they were special. Back then, “you are doing fine” was what passed for a compliment.
I see my adult self in that essay. I remain regimented, demanding of myself and others—a perfectionist— though I think that has made me a better pilot.
In another essay, celebrating my family, I wrote about my sister “of whom I am proud, despite her behavior at times.” I wrote of how fortunate I felt to be my mother’s son: “She cares for me day and night.” As for my father: “He guides me and teaches me and makes me wiser and more able to profit from my mistakes.”
In the end, it didn’t matter that some of the floors in our house were slanted, or that my dad wasn’t paying attention to making money. I was supremely lucky to grow up on Hanna Drive, to know where every nail was, and to be nurtured and taught by two people who got so many things right.
5. THE GIFT OF GIRLS
I HAVE SEEN breathtaking sunrises and sunsets from the highest altitudes. I have seen the brightest stars and planets from what feels like a front-row seat. But there are things I haven’t seen—things that happened down on the ground while I was up in the air, earning a living and appreciating the view.
Being away from home so much, I’ve missed milestones in my daughters’ lives. Many pilots can recite a litany of missed moments. Our children don’t wait for us before they take their first steps, say their first words, or need a visit from the tooth fairy. And it’s not just early-childhood rites of passage that we’re sorry to miss. We also
