Just About - But Not Quite

One day in July, I took 3 boys from the south up for a ride in the Bonanza and it was bumpy as all get out. The two in the back seat were needling the fellow in the front seat next to me as he was a little bit of a white knuckler. The temperature was close to 100 degrees and without air conditioning we were all sweating. When we landed and taxed up to the terminal, I wiped my brow and said, “BY God! We made it!” My front seat passenger asked me if there was any doubt that we would get back ok. I told him I didn’t know for sure, but that this morning I had come up to the Lake Air Service counter and asked for a job and they gave me the keys and told me to go fly it. The poor fellow turned every sheet of the rainbow and his mouth was going a 100 miles an hour with nothing coming out. His buddies were laughing themselves sick. I had to follow him out to the parking lot and tell him I was only kidding. A few days later, I was flying a bunch of young bankers, who were guests of one of our contract customers back from Nashville, Tennessee, about 11 p.m. Our customer was one of the owners of the White Sox at the time and his guests had gotten totally loaded.at their Nashville meeting. There were severe thunderstorms all over the place and Midway was at minimum or below. Air Traffic Control has just gotten their first radar operation and they vectored me to the Chicago Heights radio station. We were at 8,000 feet and they cleared us to descend to 6,000 feet on a heading of 30 degrees. Being new on the radar the controller put us right in the middle of a horrendous thunderstorm, which I believe could well have been a tornado. The controller asked if we were at 6000 feet yet and I replied negative as we just passed thru 10,000 feet. The controller asked how we were doing and I replied we just went thru 12,000 feet and still climbing. The storm finally spit us out at about 13,500 feet upside down. Needless to say, the controller apologized quite profoundly. We managed to get everything under control and back down to 6,000 feet. We were east of the Loop about 15 miles flying in and out of the clouds. As we were in and out of the clouds, a Capital Air Lines Viscount said he was about 10 miles west of us and was supposed to be at 5,000 feet, flew over the front of us by a few hundred feet. In those days, airline pilots had a knack to fib about their positions to the controllers so they could get ahead of other traffic. If that wasn’t enough excitement, air traffic control got us lined up for an approach to Midway’s runway. Thirteen left and informed us they were at minimums of 200 foot ceiling and a ½ mile visibility. This type aircraft on approach is very sensitive to any movement in the cabin. One of our drunken passengers came up to the cockpit and wanted to help fly. He managed to screw up our approach and I had to request a go around. I picked up the fire extinguisher and told him if he didn’t get his ass back in the seat I would whack him. When I looked back in the cabin, one of the other drunks had the exterior cabin door open and was trying to pee out the door. Fortunately the air flow kept the door from opening too far. Air Traffic Control ran us way back north of O’Hare because of traffic and we became about number 10 in line. We made this approach successfully. I never saw the runway surface until I got parked. When we touched down the controller told us to expedite off the runway as there was a TWA Constellation right behind us. I pulled off the runway and the Connie went zipping by us - much to close for comfort. We taxied in to the ramp and when I had the aircraft stopped, I turned on the cabin lights and looked back into the cabin. I was flabbergasted when I looked back. I only had three passengers. I thought, Oh My God! he fell out somewhere on the approach. I went back in the cabin and the door was open. I looked out and he had fallen out when we stopped and was laying on the ground peeing all over himself. Welcome to my world. The following March, we had an occasion to fly Elizabeth Taylor on a charter to Kalamazoo, Michigan, when she was married to Michael Wilding. The weather was terrible and we flew very low above Lake Michigan to avoid icing conditions. She had three companions with her in the cabin. The co-pilot was Freddie Hutchinson, an African American who formed the Haitian Air Force in World War II. Freddie loved to drink coffee and about half way over the lake his kidneys were getting weak. I suggested that he go back to the bathroom in the back of the cabin but he didn’t want to. As anyone who has been in the military knows, that generally black men are well-developed. A couple of minutes later, I looked over and Freddie was kneeling in his seat facing outside and slide the window open and proceeded to relieve himself. The aircraft was not a pressurized aircraft. Elizabeth Taylor was in the seat behind separated by the cockpit wall. I always hoped that I would run into her someday and tell her about it.