Jim Rode Photographer

First...a couple other details. One is a photograph I took of my daughter near the airport. She was leaving in an hour headed west for aircraft carrier duty. Love her dearly.

The other detail is the great fun I had photographing a bridal at the Ruthe Jackson Center days ago. I wish I could post them...and I will, but she must remain unseen in her beautiful gown until she walks down the aisle! Sometime in late October, I will put a few pics up.

Now back to my dad. He worked for a while at TWA in Kansas City. He was both an airplane mechanic and a private pilot. This was unusual in the 50s. Being a private pilot was an exotic hobby. Maintaining a plane was hard work too. My dad had a Luscombe and in those days it meant a fabric cover. You had to dope it to harden the fuselage for better strength and speed. Kind of like building a giant modal airplane. Then every so often, replace the fabric and re-dope it. (Terrible smelly stuff!)

Anyway, as the family story goes, Howard knew of my dad. He made a stop in KC one time flying to the west and pulled my dad from his work at TWA. He wanted a co-pilot / mechanic for the plane he was flying. (Howard Hughes was also an aircraft designer and world record holder for airspeed flights as well as movie producer, millionaire airline titan, and the man who saved Las Vegas. For more on Howard Hughes, there are many books on his life, but of course it is hard to beat the short version in movie form - Martin Scorsese's The Aviator starring Leonardo DiCaprio.)

Anyway, Howard grabbed my dad and they took off. Howard was in a propeller aircraft so this was a long flight. My dad could fly while Howard got a quick nap, or be the mechanic if the plane had problems. They landed in the desert somewhere in Nevada where there was nothing but a cheap motel and gas station. Howard told my dad to stay put. Howard was picked up by car and disappeared. My dad waited weeks (although length of time might have "grown" as the years went by). He got "fed up" waiting. He didn't want to go against Howard Hughes...but he had a wife and kids back home. He felt totally abandoned. (He may have actually been forgotten...who knows?) Finally he decided that he was leaving, even if he got canned. He hitched a ride to Vegas and flew home. A few days later, a man in a suit came by the house and gave my mom a card. The card was blank except for a phone number. He said, "If you ever need anything, call this number." She never did.