Airborne: Ralph Lifting You Up Each Time You Got to Talk to Him - or - How Ralph Saved His Brother’s Life

EJ in Vietnam.
Inscription on back: This is what I look
like when I start off for guard duty.
Notice my fail-safe back-up weapons
system in my back pocket! (A slingshot)
Source: EJ's personal collection.

It was only about 5 weeks between Ralph’s diagnosis and his sudden passing - this was November-December 2020. And in those precious few weeks, Ralph would almost daily text me the contact info of his dearest flying friends, asking me to reach out to them, to share the news of his diagnosis, to let them know how much their friendship meant, and to document more stories for our family records. 

Most of these were friends of his I had never met, so I was calling, texting, or emailing them cold. But without fail they responded eagerly with warmth, love, and concern. I love each of these stories so much, each one aligning to themes of friendship, loyalty, and mutual respect. And also simply highlighting Ralph’s (and Ella's) love of life and love for those around him. 

When Ralph’s friends responded with messages and photos, I would forward those to Ralph, for him to read, or as he became weaker, for whichever loved one that was nearby to read to him.

Here are stories that Ralph’s youngest brother, EJ, shared, which were read by their brother DJ at Ralph’s funeral on 19 December 2020.

……….

I remember one of the first times my big brother lifted me up. It was in Mesa, on our little farm by the canal. I was maybe four or five years old. He lifted me up and put me in - I think also with my two older brothers - into a cargo box that was in the front of the motor scooter he used to get to work and to high school. 

Ralph and a friend on Ralph's Cushman motor scooter.
About 1947. Source: Ralph's personal collection.

Another lift came many years ago in California. Mom and I had driven to southern California, to San Jose, to visit Ralph and his family. Somehow we ended up at the Reid-Hillview Airport, where Ralph was the manager, chief pilot, and salesman for Caribee’s Copters. Close your eyes and imagine yourself as a passenger in a little Hughes 269 helicopter. You’re 10 feet off the ground, traveling slowly down the taxiway, and your pilot, Ralph, is doing 360 degree spins, one right after the other. That’s something you’ll never forget, and I sure haven’t. 

Source: Ralph's personal collection.

Source: Ralph's personal collection.

Fast forward three, maybe four years, to the Long Beach Airport. My big brother is now the general manager of Southland Helicopters, a division of Hughes Aircraft. He’s overseeing everything - sales, maintenance, flight training, and a new helicopter surveillance program with the city of Long Beach, California and the LA County Sheriff’s Department. It was the beginning of what became a common site across the country: helicopter patrol by law enforcement agencies.

Source: Ralph's personal collection.

In the spring of 1967, I had just returned from my mission to Denmark, so I quickly enrolled in the local community college, which is near the Long Beach Airport. With that all-important student draft deferment that would keep me out of the army, I got busy with school. Then I got a call from my big brother. “Hey Eddie, how would you like to have a job?” “Well, you know I’m in school. What do you have in mind?” “Well, it’s part time, in the evenings, we need someone to refuel the sheriff’s helicopters.” Wow! My big brother just offered me the perfect job. 

It wasn’t long until my big brother asked me another question. “Hey EJ, have you ever thought about learning to fly?” How many people can say that their big brother taught them how to fly? Two years later, I’m 24, without a student deferment, 1A, and just received an invitation from Uncle Sam to report immediately to Fort Ord, California.

There are stories about Fort Ord. My brother DJ might tell you some, but I don’t have any. I know how to fly, and the army needs pilots. I signed up for warrant officer training and was transferred immediately to Fort Polk, Louisiana for basic training. 

Bad news in my seventh week of basic, I’m told that I don’t hear well enough to fly helicopters. Good news: We’d like to send you to aircraft maintenance training instead. 

Months later, after becoming an aircraft maintenance specialist, I arrived at a small airport near Saigon, Vietnam. It’s the weekend and only one soldier is in the company headquarters. He asked me a question: “Do you know how to type?” I asked, “If I can type, what does that mean?” “If you can type, you can help keep the company flight records. If you can’t type, you go out into the sun and you work on those aircraft.” “I can type! I can type!” 

My brother DJ could tell you about being an infantryman in Vietnam, but me, I don’t have any war stories. That’s directly because my big brother Ralph taught me to fly.

Seven weeks ago I got one of those phone calls from my big brother Ralph. For some reason I asked him, “Do you know what kind of aircraft the Grumman OV-1 is?” This was the aircraft that I was trained to work on. We ended up talking for almost an hour. During that call I was able to tell my brother some of the ways he had blessed my life: I know how to fly an airplane. Because of that, the only hazard I experienced in Vietnam was eating at the company mess hall. And, in many ways in the years since, he has always been lifting me up, one way or another. 

Inscription on back: The Grumman OV-1
Source: EJ's personal collection.

Seven weeks ago I got to tell my brother how he lifted me up and how much I loved him. I get tears in my eyes every time I think about that call. And then I smile. 

..........

For the complete series of stories of Ralph and flight - Airborne - see here. 

..........

Source:

• From thoughts shared at Ralph's funeral, 19 December 2020. Written by EJ, shared by DJ.

Airborne: Always Make Sure Your Destination Airport Is Open

MH, Ralph, and Ella
January 2019

When MH told another pilot that he'd like to become a pilot himself, this friend told him he had to meet Ralph -- he was the very best. This was back in 2010.

Ralph indeed taught MH to fly, and over the next 10 years, they spent probably 300+ hours in the cockpit together. The first 120 hours were all instruction, and then MH started taking him along nearly every time he’d fly. “Loved having him in the right seat,” MH shared. “I’d call him with no notice and say, ‘Hey wanna go play in the sky?’ Ninety-nine percent of the time it was an instant YES.”

Ralph was often in the right seat, where the instructor sits. But sometimes MH would sit on the right, and just let Ralph have fun as pilot in command, and MH would pretend to be his instructor.

Over their time together, they developed a close bond, and MH held Ralph in the highest regard. MH shared that Ralph “is a legend in the flying community,” and he “is one of the best men I’ve known in my entire life, and I love him like he’s my dad.” There isn’t a better compliment than that!

They sure had fun together too. Just try to not laugh at the experience that MH shared, recorded below.

……….

Back when I was Ralph's student - this would be toward the end of my experience as a student pilot - he set me loose on several cross-country adventures. ... He always asked me to create my flight plan, map it out, and show him what I was going to do. Part of that planning process, obviously, is to check at each airport that you’re going to, to make sure that they’re available to land at. 

He gave me the directions to fly to Nephi, then to Delta, then back to Salt Lake City. He knew that Delta was closed. I think he was just testing me to see if I checked. 

I was up in the air, and I’m a rookie pilot, and I’m a second or third or fourth cross-country. I got to Nephi, I landed, I did my thing. I take off to go to Delta. I get to Delta and there’s X’s across the entire runway. And I knew from my studies that that meant that the runway was closed. And I was in a total panic because I didn’t understand why I couldn’t land there. 

So I actually called Ralph, and he was at lunch with his beautiful wife. And I said, “Ralph, Delta’s closed.” And he said, “Why did you fly there then?” [Chuckles] So I kind of failed my test. I learned from that point forward to always check ahead of time if the airport you’re flying to is available to accept you. 

Just one of many many lessons that Ralph taught me along the way!

KF: I guess you had a safety net of enough fuel to figure out an alternate plan?

Yah, no problems there. I had enough fuel to get there and back and there again probably, so that wasn’t an issue. It was a perfectly safe and fun way to kind of tease me into planning better. 

KF: You probably didn’t make that mistake again!

I was mad at him all the way home. [Chuckles]

……….

In 2018, MH presented Ralph with the best birthday gift: Two hours in the left seat (as pilot in command) in MH’s airplane. MH shared:

For years he was always the instructor in the right seat but he never got to fly in the left seat with me. I told him he could go wherever he wanted for 2 hours and I would grade him on his takeoffs and landings! He told me it was the most fun he had in the air in years, and that’s saying a lot! … He was like a little kid that day. Giddy!

Check out this footage. All of the pictures and videos of final approach were Ralph’s landings, at 3-4 different local airports that day.

Ralph and MH on Ralph's birthday flight.

Filmed 15 January 2018, near Bountiful, UT.

..........

Sources: 

• From a phone call with MH on 2 November 2020
• From a text exchange with MH on 25 March 2022
• From a text exchange with MH on 1 September 2022

Evidence of the Stories They Told and Lives Well Lived

Ralph with a model airplane, late 1940s.

In February 2021, over the course of several cold and dreary days, I gathered with SM and LM and their children at Ralph and Ella's home in Centerville, Utah. We were there to help in the continued effort to sort and find new homes for Ralph and Ella's belongings and mementos, as the family was preparing their home for sale. 

I brought my scanner as a carryon, and set up shop in Ralph and Ella's office. We organized photos and documents, and I scanned and scanned and scanned for days (and twice all night), creating digital versions of these priceless treasures, to be able to document and share these files with the broader family.

The days I spent there were so sacred, to be granted a peak into what Ralph and Ella saved, what was most important to them, what they hung on to, and what they wanted to remember. Each item made a statement about what they valued. 

But what touched my heart most was to find concrete evidence of the stories that Ralph and Ella told. The stories were already real, but these relics brought them to life.

Here are a few examples:

• Ralph's folio of business cards from different jobs and positions - he worked so hard to provide for his family.

• The receipt from when Ralph bought the electric oven for his mother.

A range that Ralph purchased from his uncle Ray's shop, Inglish Electric. 
Paid in 30 monthly payments of $8.56.

• Snapshots Ralph took while flying above Mesa, Arizona, as a kid - at the airfield where he would pick glass up off the runway in exchange for airplane rides.

View of Mesa, AZ, from the air, of Rendezvous Park
(coincidentally, where Ralph and Ella met)

This was labeled on the back, "My hobby."

• The huge family tree that Kate Findlay (Ella's mother) had created. She was ahead of her time with her genealogical research! This chart starts with George and Kate Findlay (born in 1903 and 1904, respectively), going back I'm not sure how many generations, but the earliest date listed is 1080 AD. (See a video of it here.)

Kate Findlay's handwritten family tree.
For context, this chart measures about 5-feet wide and dates back to 1080 AD.

• Photos of Ralph's infamous Cushman scooter. He sure loved it!

Reclining against the handle bars.

On two wheels!

• The invoice of the Findlays (Ella's family) selling just about all they had at the auction house, to help pay for their passage to America in 1949.

• Ella's school notebooks and study guides from Scotland, while a student at the Aberdeen Central S. S. School as an early teenager. Ella talked about how when she emigrated at age 15, she was ahead of the schooling standards for the same grade in America. But the Scots really set the bar high for their students! 

Ella's notebook for English exercises, filled with essay she wrote
on various prompts.

An essay Ella wrote about a week-long school camp to Kemnay, Scotland.
(Other stories and photos of Ella's family in Kemnay, here.)

Note how spelling and grammar were corrected, and then Ella had to 
rewrite the corrected words at the end of her essay.

Ella's English and Arithmetic exam book

"Mental Arithmetic" - I wonder whether this was a focus in the US curriculum for this age
in the late 1940s. Ella was really good at doing mathematic calculations in her head.

• Files and files and files of family history work, for both Ella and Ralph's sides. 

Just a sampling of the many files of family history work
that Ralph and Ella saved. 

• Sweet correspondence with loved ones far away - grandparents, cousins, friends, and even Ma Pat, the sweet woman who lived upstairs from the Findlays on Prospect Terrace in Aberdeen, and who assisted in Ella's birth.

A letter from Ma Pat to Ella, 15 January 1952

• Every card, note, photo - it seems like that they ever received - saved in shoeboxes and plastic bins. Including children's art projects, letters to Santa, notes from children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.

A note to the Easter Bunny,
from Ralph and Ella's daughter BR.

These, and many more artifacts, are physical testaments -- evidence of the stories they told and lives well lived. (May I live my life as well, and with the evidence to show for it.)