Flight of Passage: A True Story Read Online Free PDF Page A

the fire, and then I read on the couch to keep him company until he was done. Many nights I fell asleep before my father was finished, and then he would hop one-legged across the floor to toss an afghan over me and another log or two into the fire. Even when we weren’t getting along very well this was something my father and I could always do together. My memories of him and of winter are intimately bound up with the percussive tapping of his typewriter and the fragrance of cherry-scented tobacco and maple smoldering on the fire as I nodded off to sleep every night.
    So, I always looked forward to that time with him. That day, while my father and I split the wood, Kern worked ahead of us, sectioning the logs with a chain saw. Midway through the afternoon, Kern switched off the saw and dropped it to the ground.
    When he looked at my father, Kern’s face was cocked sideways and his chin was angled high.
    This generally meant trouble. Kern disliked confrontation, especially with my father. He tended to hold important things in until the last moment. By then the idea burned so intensely inside him that he tended to argue his case more insistently than he had to.
    “Dad,” Kern said. “Rinky and I are going to fly the Cub out to California next summer.”
    My father put down his ax.
    “Whoa. Say again?”
    “Dad. Rinky and I are going to fly the Cub to California next summer.”
    “Ah Jeez Kern. Where’d ya get an idea like that?”
    “From you Daddy. You.”
    “Me? I never said anything like that. I mean, a thing like this takes time. Lots of time.”
    “No Dad. I’ve thought it all out. We’ll rebuild the Cub in the barn over the winter and fly it west next summer. Think about that Dad, just think about it! Rinky and I flying coast to coast.”
    “Now listen here, son. When I was your age I worked my way across, piecemeal, over four years. I didn’t even get to Texas until I was almost twenty. Hell, I bet you don’t even know what comes after Ohio.”
    “Illinois.”
    “Wrong. Indiana.”
    “Big deal Daddy. Big deal. Who cares about Indiana? You’re just saying no to say no.”
    “Big deal! Is that what you say to your father? Big deal? Well listen here Kern, this is a big idea. It scares the bejesus out of me. Have you thought about money? Have you thought about the deserts? And what about the mountains? How the hell are you going to get a Piper Cub over the Rockies? What pass are you going to fly?”
    Kern wasn’t sure about that yet.
    “See Dad? See? You always turn a conversation into a quiz. How do I know what pass to fly? I’ll figure that out later.”
    Even though the pipe in his mouth was already lit, my father reached into the pocket of his work jacket for his spare and nervously tapped in some tobacco.
    “Oh Christ Kern. Why do you do these things to me?”
    “Dad, you can’t say no. I have to do this thing. I mean . . . Dad, I’ve been dreaming about this for a long time.”
    “Kern, I’m not saying 'no.’ I’m saying 'maybe.’ And that’s a big, fat 'maybe’ too. I’ve got to check my thinking on this.”
    “Fine Dad. Do all the thinking you want. But I’ve already made up my mind. We’re going.”
    Kern pulled the chain saw back to life and roared through another log.
    I was annoyed that my brother had included me in his scheme without consulting me first, but it never occurred to me to consider his plan unrealistic. We were very impulsive and barmy as a family and I was used to it by now. In 1958, when I was seven, my father decided that the ideal family vacation for us would be a horse-drawn tour of the Civil War and Revolutionary battlefields in Pennsylvania, so he went out and bought a team of horses and a large covered wagon and we spent a delightful summer doing just that, camping out by the roadsides or in farmers’ fields every night. The year after that he bought an immense yellow school bus and we spent the next couple of summers bombing around in that. In the