Memories from an Old Photo Album

And a few fireworks…

- MARTHA LUNKEN

Paging through a photo album (yes, there are still actual printed photos—think illuminated medieval manuscripts), I came across several of an old and dear friend. Frank learned to fly and owned a Beech Bonanza back in the 1950s, when he was a partner in his family’s law firm. Later, embroiled in a morass of marriages and divorces, he sank into a nearly hopeless alcohol addiction; he was on the verge of being probated, and flying airplanes was the last thing anybody thought he’d ever do again.

But after a particularly gruesome bender in Akron, Ohio, he woke up in a ward in St. Thomas Hospital run by the legendary Sister Mary Ignatia along with the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, Dr. Robert “Bob” Smith, and Bill Wilson. Frank could never explain why that experience clicked after so many failures at heaven knows how many expensive treatment programs. But work it did —for the rest of his life.

As you can imagine, it took some years to convince the FAA (at one point, they demanded a letter from the president of AA), but Frank finally reacquired his medical, went on to get instrument and multiengine ratings, and bought the first of a series of Aero Commanders. Lordy, how he loved those airplanes.