Author: pat Stith

Sallylicious

Rob Waters, Wade Rawlins and I were on a short backpacking trip, hiking north on the Appalachian Trail, when we came across a “trail letter,” a message on paper sealed in plastic to protect it from rain, addressed to “Sallylicious.”

Wade Rawlins, L, Rob Waters, my hiking partners
Wade Rawlins, L, Rob Waters, my hiking partners.

The letter was laying on the trail, held in place by a rock. It was short and sweet, telling her what shelter her hiking friends were staying at that night and that they hoped to see her.

As we continued our hike we speculated on what a woman called “Sallylicious” — that was her trail name — looked like. She must be, in a word, gorgeous.   We knew she was hiking south so we hoped we were about to find out, that we would meet her on the trail. And, in a few minutes, we did.

She was young but she was not beautiful.

I think about Sallylicious every now and then. Guys meeting her for the first time would not call her that. They might not call at all. But after spending months on the trail with her, hiking from Maine to the North Carolina mountains en route to Georgia, these guys had come to know her, her character, her personality, the considerable mental and physical strength she had shown on that 2,000 mile journey.

And she was “Sallylicious.”

Coming Monday: A Solder’s Letters To His Wife

Gone Missing – Part 8 of 8

 

The car with the blinking blue light came across the tarmac at Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport, toward Dave’s twin engine airplane, and then turned left and went away.  Dave and his passengers — the lawyer, the mother, and the four-year-old son she had rescued, would not be stopped, questioned, detained.

Brother Dave quickly took off.

But just as quickly he asked Hobby Tower for permission to return and land. His landing gear would not retract.

Dave began negotiating the return and, at the same time, going back over his check list: Lights on, check; fuel pump on, check; generator on –No, wait! — he hadn’t turned on the generator and without it there was not enough electricity to run the gear retracting motor.

Another mistake. He had been awake now for 32 hours.

Dave flipped the switch with “GEN” printed on it and heard the familiar hum of the landing gear motor pulling the landing gear up into the wheel wells.

They were on their way home.

The same wind that had held his plane back 12 hours earlier was now pushing it toward Charlotte at a ground speed of almost 230 miles per hour.

At 3:58 p.m. the Baron touched down at Charlotte Douglas International and after a short taxi Dave shut the engines down at Thurston Aviation, 16 hours and 13 minutes after they had left.

During dinner that evening the phone rang and Bob and Anne had a conversation that totaled just five words.

“Do you have Britt?”

“Yes,” Anne replied.

Six weeks later Bob took his own life.

Coming Friday:  Sallylicious