Don't Ruin My Reputation

By Jerry Mack Grubbs

I think it was Tom Hanks in the1994 movie Forrest Gump that made the statement Stupid is as stupid does famous. I don’t like the word stupid but sometimes there just isn’t another word in the English language that does justice to some of the things we do.

The year was 1973. My son Todd was three and my daughter, Leslie was just a few months old. Our little family was gathered around the dinner table for the evening meal. We were struggling financially to pay off the debts of one of my previous adventures. In the middle of dinner I casually said that I would like to get my pilot’s license. My wife Kaye stopped eating; looked over at me and said, “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Realizing that right now might not be the most opportune time to discuss this idea; I dropped the subject and said nothing more about flying. What Kaye didn’t realize was that each day after work I had been dropping by the airport and watching planes taking off. I had been going to the airport long before Kaye came into my life. There was a small private grass runway near our home that I visited as often as mother would let me ride my bike that far. Many of my childhood dreams contained flights of fancy.

The local airport advertised sucker lessons. A sucker lesson is an introductory flight where you only paid for the gas that the plane used for your first ride into the air. From then on, grab hold of your wallet because you were going to be opening it every time you got near one of those fancy flying machines.

Whether the plane was fancy or not, flying was an expensive hobby. My first flight was in an old Piper Cherokee 140. As we climbed into the cockpit I notice that the wing had missing rivets and oil smears along the cowling of the engine. But I was hooked. Yes I was one of those suckers but I worried about those missing rivets and oil streaks on that old plane. The answer to my worries came the next day when the flight manager showed me a little 1967 Cessna 150 that was for sale. It was just what I needed. Well, I also needed a partner to help pay for this little bird of the sky. The answer to that problem came in the form of Mike Hill. Two days later we were the proud new owners of N2701S. In aviation jargon the plane’s call sign was November 2701 Sierra or for radio transmissions the abbreviated call sign was 01 Sierra. I lovingly referred to our little plane as 01 SugarBabe. I later flew 01 SugarBabe to Utah when I moved there and I still see her occasionally at the Salt Lake Airport. But I am getting too far ahead of my story.

Mike Hill and I studied for the written exam together. Well, Mike studied and I read aviation magazines. One day he informed me that he was ready to take the written exam and wanted to know if I desired to tag along. I agreed. Once at the testing center I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to see if I could pass the test without studying. A score of 70 was required to pass the exam and I suppose I was fortunate to only make 67. Had I scored 70 I know that I would have never cracked the books and burned those concepts into my brain.

Next came the actual flight training. I had the misfortune to pick a teacher who just received his instructor’s license. I was his very first student. I think he was more nervous than I was. Or maybe I was too naive to be nervous. We flew hour after hour and each lesson I would ask when I would get to solo (fly the plane all alone). He would put me off by saying something like maybe next time. To me next time seemed like it would never come.

In frustration one day I finally said, “If you don’t let me solo today, I am going to fire you as my flight instructor. I don’t care how many hours we fly or how many landings we practice, when the sun goes down if I haven’t flown this plane solo, tomorrow I will start looking for a new teacher.” “You can’t intimidate me to send you into the air all alone before I think you are ready,” said my instructor. “I’m not trying to intimidate you, I’m telling you what you need to do if you want to keep your job as my instructor,” I said.

I did solo that day. I think my instructor was more frightened than I was. After multiple landings he told me to bring the plane to a stop. My instructor opened the door of the plane, stepped out and said, “Don’t ruin my reputation.” I was scared and excited at the same time. Singing at the top of my lungs I pushed in the throttle and away I went. From there I went on to get my private pilot license which meant it was legal for me to entice other people to squeeze into the tiny cockpit and put their lives at risk.

On the day that I got my license I called Kaye and told her to see if mom could watch the kids because I wanted to take her out to dinner. I failed to mention that after dinner I was going to take her for a night flight over the city in our airplane. We went to dinner. We flew over the city. The lights were beautiful. But by the time we got home I knew that this was a very stupid idea. Well, I knew it was wrong from the start but remember, stupid is as stupid does.

Have you ever heard the saying I can forgive but I will never forget? I somehow knew that tonight would be one of those events. She didn’t blackmail me. She didn’t threaten me. It’s like she has a hidden card that can be drawn out of her back pocket and played at any time. It would be okay if the card could only be played once and it would be all over but that isn’t the case. After the card is played it is put back into the pocket and the game can begin all over again.

If you are stupid enough to buy a plane and learn to fly without telling your wife, don’t expect her to congratulate you on your accomplishment.