my step dad

My step father was a pilot.

He owned an airplane much of the time I knew him. In fact, when Dale came to our town about 1943 he came to take delivery of an airplane. I have no idea of why the plane was in our town, but memory says that it was not a local plane.

Any way, he met another pilot/owner who attended the same church as Dale (and mom also). That weekend the other pilot invited Dale home for diner after church, and he invited my widowed mother, who was 26, as I calculate.

Dale was about 30 handsome and had just come from Alaska where he worked on the Al-Can highway, the road between Alaska and the United States, through Canada. I guess he had a bit of cash and a real desire to own his own plane.

So Dale was introduced to mom (Arline, my daughter is named after her). Dale did not quite catch the name, and thought she had been introduced as “Darlene”. “Glad to meet you, Darlene,” he said.

I was 6, and I thought he said: “Glad to meet you Darling.” That sounded like flirting to my young ears and that was not acceptable. I glowered at him. Mom did not have a car and since he came into fly a plane away he didn't either. So he walked us to our house, down the street 7 or 8 blocks and spent the afternoon and evening.

There had not been a man in our house since dad died a few years earlier, and it was an interesting treat, I thought.

So, in a few months they were married. I remember the wedding.

Dale had been living in New York City before he went to Alaska. He ran a small donut shop there. But he left two 1935 Ford cars in storage. One was a convertible with a good engine, but bad body work and the other a 4 door sedan with a straight body and a ad engine.

So for their honeymoon, Dale and Mom rode the Greyhound Bus from our town in SW Idaho clear to NY City.

There he changed the engines and drove the better car back to Idaho.

A few times I have heard it hinted that mom as not at all happy about all of that, but she did not make a huge fuss as I remembered.

More about the plane soon.