Mission of mercy

On occasion being a longtime flight instructor has its benefits. Your old columnist has been teaching since 1964. Recently I was asked to accompany a longtime friend on a flight to Denver then on to Omaha and return. The mission: to transport one of my former student’s employee’s vivacious, three and a half-year-old leukemia-stricken, daughter and her parents to a doctor’s appointment in Denver. Bring it on — of course I would be privileged to help out!

The aircraft of choice was a twin-engine Beechcraft upgraded with modern instruments and a couple of turboprop engines. A real hotrod, climbs like an angel, cruises fast, roomy and comfortable for the passengers. For those of you who have ridden Boutique Airway’s Pilatus airliner, our Beech would be in about the same class of aircraft. A little less than an hour flight time to Denver.

The generous owner-pilot felt more than competent to fly the mission but considered that with the precious cargo it would be good to have aa additional long time experienced set of eyes on board to fly in the predicted cloudy weather. Always a good plan.

The flight to Denver went as planned — perfect. Like normal, the doctor’s appointment took quite a little longer than projected. By then, a line of cumulus clouds that had formed along the front of the Rocky Mountains over Denver began to expand and back up to the east. By the time we departed, almost dusk, the clouds were solid from the surface to well above cruising altitude as far east as Akron. Not a problem, a capable airplane, the competent owner/pilot, good service by air traffic control and we arrived Omaha in a little over an hour and a half. Our precious little cancer victim will be continuing treatment and our prayers are for complete remission and a happy life that all young children deserve. Thank you, Lord!

Another aviation-related story but more of a frustration. In my travels in general aviation, this old guy is privileged to meet some wonderful good hearted people. One is a young lady, again a former student, who manages a fixed base operation and rather large aerial application (“crop dusting”) business in a Platte Valley location. This young businesswoman participates in a “teammate” mentoring program in the local community. On my arrival to her airport to fly with the local flight instructor my owner operator friend was out having lunch with her longtime mentee.

On a chance meeting with my mentor friend as I was leaving town she wanted to share. She related that she just loved being a mentor to her student friend, mentee, who is now a senior in high school and about to graduate. The mentee wants to go on to college, but her parents are saying no. The parents are of Hispanic heritage and speak little or no English. They cannot afford to send their daughter to college. So their answer is no even though their daughter is 19 years of age and evidently academically qualified.

Ah ha, you say, not a problem. The young girl should be eligible for financial assistance through the Pell Program or some other similar means of federal government assistance. Simple, the parents just have to fill out a lengthy application complete with evidence of citizenship, income records and tax status. Her parents want no part of that deal! My mentor friend suspects that possibly they are not here legally and might fear deportation. I asked if possibly my mentoring friend could do the paperwork and sponsor her mentee friend but that was a non-starter. Sad.

So as this political pundit sees it the misguided liberal philosophy of government doing all and overseeing all has struck again. Here is an accomplished young woman that could go off to college and thus be better able to contribute to her community over her lifetime. The idea of showering money down to the masses to make education more accessible is producing just the opposite effect. College administrators accepting the largess of free government money have kept ratcheting up the cost of tuition and associated college living costs to make a college education so expensive as to be out of the reach of middle-class families.

A policy of open borders and encouraging illegal immigration is also culpable. Now we have a current administration that is cracking down by actually enforcing immigration law and innocent young people get caught in a no-win situation. A future where self-improvement is stymied and they are forced into a lifestyle of diminished expectations. It is not the American way.

That is how I saw it. Dick Trail