Flying Model Airplanes

The following personal essay was published in the Independent Weekly.

It was 1987. Some of 1986 and 88. Sundays. They had to be midday Sundays because most of the men who gathered at the old airfield in Pensacola were churchgoers. It was summer, sometimes spring. Swarms of gnats haloed my tender head every so often. Forehead sweat dampened my eyebrows. I chased crickets through freshly trimmed grass. I wore short shorts that I wasn't yet old enough to be embarrassed by. My shirt was thin and blue with an airplane on it. Sometimes it was green with a faded dinosaur print.

The men were of all ages. Some of them younger than I am now as I write this. Some of them were old enough to have dark spots on their arms and white hair on their heads, the breeze always kind in the heat of a cloudless day jostled their whiteness about. Bushy eyebrows raised. Coffee all day. Men slapping each other on the backs and laughing about things that evaded my understanding. I was quiet most of those days and simply took things in, mostly smiling behind closed, plump, lollipop-red lips. 

The men who gathered at the airfield were remote control model airplane hobbyists. Some of them had been fighter pilots like my grandfather. Some of them had never left the ground but enjoyed the acrobatics and camaraderie of the hobby. I always wanted to fly the models myself but was not allowed. Some of them cost hundreds of dollars and took dozens of hours to build. Both time and dollars seemed to have much more value back then. 

Since I was not allowed to fly, I entertained myself with my imagination. I thought I had superpowers. I would gaze for hours into the sky as winged machines loop de looped and did dogfighting. During long looks at the aerial dancing machines always eventually my eyes would pulsate to the beat of my heart resulting in a moving distortion of my field of vision. I thought I was shooting lasers out of my eyes like Cyclops from the X-Men. In reality, my tiny eyes were being damaged. I wear corrective lenses to this day. I didn't have superpowers, but my grandfather did.

Those days were spent with Papa watching him fly the model airplanes he built by hand. I didn't know it at the time, but he was quite a craftsman and built machines that the other men in his hobbyist group peered over with wonder and sometimes a tinge of envy.

His superpowers didn't simply manifest in his skills as a radio control pilot or craftsman. He had an uncanny power to make me feel okay; to make me feel accepted. This power was fully charged in his ability to notice when I was down or dejected and to speak to me like a person instead of a problem.

It was one spring Sunday in particular. I chased no crickets and smiled no smiles. Some destabilizing domestic event and kept my parents up all night fighting. That meant I stayed up all night, too. I held my urine until morning for fear of becoming a target of my father's anger. There I sat in freshly trimmed grass as it poked my thighs, a pain in my belly. I was afraid still and that fear had immobilized me. It had shut me up further inside my body. 

I had turned down a hamburger and coke. I turned down offers to go back to the van and listen to my Ray Stevens comedy tape, which was one of my favorite things. Nothing nudged me. Despair had crippled my skinny legs and muted my little boy voice. With a shake of my head, I told Papa I did not want to watch the planes take off.

“You're going to miss out on flying for the first time.” Papa had two radio controls in his hands and offered one to me.

My teeth shone brightly from my face. My legs sprung up and sent me into the air. I squinted and looked up at the beautiful silver box with all its joysticks and buttons for controlling mysterious things like ailerons and fuselages.  

Shortly thereafter I was shooting at his plane with my eye lasers and loop de looping my own plane to escape his. Viciously I mashed the buttons and flicked the switches of the magic silver box. (In reality, my radio did not work and one of Papa's buddies flew the model airplane from behind.)

That day was one of the happiest days of my life.

On Monday, February 15th, 2021, I got a call from my sobbing sister telling me she had awful news: Or Papa was in a coma in a hospital in New York and was not coming home. He died the next morning.

A few months ago he and I spoke on the phone. He said that things did not turn out okay; there were too many things to worry about and he didn't have enough time left in this life to fix his problems. His son and daughter, my uncle and mother respectively, were not on speaking terms with each other nor with him. Their lives had turned chaotic. I assured him that things would not be as bad as they might be now. I assured him that my siblings and I would take care of our mother. He confessed that he never worried about me and always knew I would be okay. His tears brought a speedy end to the conversation.

Last December, not long after that conversation, my mother decided to leave her abusive husband. A couple of weeks after returning to Florida, she made amends with her brother and my Papa. The last time I spoke with my grandfather he was happy and at ease. Tears ended the conversation for a different reason that time.

Ralph Pellizzeri was by anyone's definition a good man. While I did not inherit his passion for flight, I do hope that his abilities to love fully and to lighten a person's load have rubbed off on me.