warning: this is a long post and has little to do with airplanes

I lost my Dad on March 20, 2006, rather suddenly after a long illness.
He had worked as an A & P for Petroleum Helicopters for 35 years, most
of them bending wrenches. And of course that meant that if it had an
engine and 4 wheels, we were under it or up to our armpits in it at
least once a month. I can't even count the number of times he was
waiting for me at the bus stop with his usual "Good, ur home... I need
ur help" which I cursed repeatedly since I hadn't even made it to the
door of the house before being pressed into service as a lamp post.
"Shine ur light down in here... and quit wiggling dammit." My Old Man
was something of an S.O.B. It always amazed me how he kept his job,
considering the things that came out of his mouth when we worked on
cars. And it seemed that the older I got, the worse things got between
us. I was never really sure why. But I went off to college and got my
B.A. etc. Big deal to my Old Man.

But then I started to make things. First a small wooden boat about the
size of a kayak... in the living room of my apartment. And then flying
machines cobbled together from bamboo and "viz-queen" and duct tape.
And then they started to fly. My Old Man showed a little interest. And
two years later, I tore apart an overworked minivan and replaced a
rear main oil seal... on a front-wheel-drive. We'd done that one once
before, when I was 14, but that was on a RWD car. The Old Man was
almost impressed. Then I started building the Wright machine. I had
planned to unveil it to my folks in Kitty Hawk and fly it. But that
dream was bigger than I was, and we never made it there. Two months
after that failure, the Old Man, who had had diabetes for years and
still smoked a pack a day was forced onto dyalisis every other day. I
knew what that meant, even then.

But a few weeks after that, I got a call from the folks at the CAF
about thier Houston show. Houston was only about 4 hours from my
folks' house so I asked for comp-passes for them. Pop made it in for
the Saturday show. We spent about 2 hours inspecting the flying
machine and discussing the various parts and systems. I could see that
the kidney failure was really taking a toll on him, but he stayed
through the entire show. In the middle of the afternoon, a man stopped
by and asked if Pop had built the glider. Pop looked up and said
"no... my son built it." The man said, "Wow, its really nice" and Pop
said, "yea, it really is." And to me, that one moment made all the
difference.

A few days after Pop passed, we got the coriner's report. The results
set me back. The official cause of death was listed as accute
congestive heart failure, as a result of kidney failure, as a result
of diabetes, as a result of agent orange poisioning. Pop had be
drafted in 1967. He went to Vietnam, served in the 2nd Bat., 94th
Artillery at Camp JJ Carroll, came home, and said almost nothing about
it. Except once or twice that he'd shelled Khe Sanh or Hue or Cong
Thien. He had worked steadily as an A & P for 35 years without saying
much about it.

After Pop passed, I learned why he didn't talk about the war, and how
he'd kept his job. Pop was at Camp Carroll during the worst of the Tet
offensive, and his battle record read like a list of newspaper
headlines. Pop was also one of the most respected (maybe not well-
liked, but respected) mechanics in his company, as I learned from
stories told about him. And when we burried him, I sent him off the
way he had lived: with a pack of smokes, my Zippo, and his 9/16" box-
end wrench, without saying much about it. I kept his other tools...
and his toolboxes, for myself. Like he wanted it. And now, two years
later, what I have left are a few memories, a halfa' life's worth of
skills and experience, and that toolbox.

Scott David Frey
"some people call me Harry"
Wright Brothers Enterprises