Another amusing hallmark in my distinguished life involves the first time I was read my rights.

I attended junior high school. Southwest, to be specific. Life was a mess. Another trailer had burned and so my family moved to Tontitown to live with a paternal cousin, Leta. I had left behind my best friend and his mom, who had saved me from my family more than once. I was still infrequently wetting the bed, mom and dad’s alcoholism was at a seeming crescendo, and my dad and his cousin Leta were having an affair, which they thought was secret. I was getting one horrible beating a week, minimum. (I think maybe my dad had a quota that only he knew about!)

I don’t remember which class it was but I was facing South, looking out the window and doodling. The classroom was on the outside of the building, on the front near those horrible holly bushes with thorns. (I was thrown into those horrible bushes more than once by bullies.) I was chewing grape Bubble Yum gum, which I had just bought on a payment plan from Bobby. Honestly, I was in a funk and not paying attention to anything. The teacher interrupted my thoughts by saying my name, evidently more than once. I was expecting to be in trouble for not paying attention and doodling. Instead, someone had knocked on the class door and asked to see me in the principal’s office.

I was confused. I didn’t know if meant I had done something bad. As I got close to the office, I could see a couple of police in the office. Due to my parents, my idea about the police up to that point was mostly distrust and anger. But what flashed through my mind was the hope that my dad was dead. I can’t help how that sounds -it is true. The image of the police officer almost convinced me that he had finally gotten so drunk that he had died driving. I knew that if dad were dead, I could get away from my mom, too. (Dad had been in several terrible drinking and driving incidents. He was driving the car in 1970 when my cousin was killed. He totaled a truck while we were living in Tontitown with Leta. Etc.)

When I was escorted into the office, they started asking me weird questions about my name, where I lived. They probably assumed I was an idiot at first because I didn’t want to answer questions without knowing where it was headed. I jumped to the erroneous hope that maybe someone had reported abuse at home. Instead, they started reading me my rights, one line at a time.”Do understand these rights?” No, I didn’t, but I said yes. I wondered where my brother was or where another adult might be. It seemed odd that no one on my behalf was present.

They began asking a lot of strange questions about checks, mailing addresses, alcohol, whether I had ever smoked cigarettes or anything else. There were a lot of questions. I could see that they were changing from aggressive to a little perplexed. They could clearly see that I was confused and way out of my element.

As they could see I was very confused, they finally told me that someone had stolen a stack of checks from my cousin Leta and had written several hot checks on the account. One of the police asked me, “Do you know who stole them or could have stolen them?” I looked right at him and said, “Probably (insert name here), she usually is at the bottom of everything like that. But it could be my mom and dad – they are always in trouble for drinking.” I’m paraphrasing, but that’s basically what I got out of it. The two police looked at each other in what I thought was surprise.

They then asked me at least 25 more questions about (insert name here), who her friends were, did she smoke, do drugs, etc. I was as honest as I could be. As the interview was about to end, one of the policemen asked me if there was anything else I wanted to tell them. I almost cried but instead of saying anything, I just said “no.”

I remember later mom and Leta have a screaming fight about the checks but I went out into the woods across the fence to get away from the nonsense. 

I felt dirty, like I had been accused of something horrendous. I doubt whether they thought I was really involved. I think it was more of a fishing expedition. But it was strange being questioned by the police without someone else present while I was still in junior high school.

Someone is trying to make it sound like that it is a secret that I didn’t talk to my own mother for a long, long time until fairly soon before her death. Everyone close to me knows the circumstances and can’t understand why I tolerated such anger for so many decades. Whatever my actions toward her, it was up to her to live a good life, independent of my opinion of her.

I had written about my mom many times on my blog, and social media, well before her death and while she was sick. It’s no secret and everyone who knows me or reads my blog is well aware of it and the circumstances that led to it. My parent’s issues were a major stumbling block for me for most of my life. I could have used their violence and attitude to justify things I did – some of my family chose that path.We each must look back and make our own conclusions about how it affected us.

My decision to stop talking to my mom was mine to make; whether anyone else agrees with another version of this “truth” is for that person to decide. Mom’s legacy is quite well known to people. She left a path of anger behind her. I didn’t stop talking to her for a long time to punish her, but rather to try to live a more normal, sane life for myself. I couldn’t do it with her crazy drinking and anger. (To be honest, it is the same reason I don’t talk to many other family members. I don’t appreciate their behavior and don’t live like that.)

As for the problem last year with another family member,  my only goal was to “get away” from it and insist on being left alone. Again, everyone involved knows the truth. Attempts to characterize it any other way are nothing more than angry tirades to lash out at other people and to distract from the sadness and violence in other people’s lives. I worked very hard to avoid causing pain and suffering to the other family member. Sometimes, looking back, I think I should have followed the advice given to me, but most of the time, I’m glad I took the tougher route.

I didn’t write specifically about the other issue because regardless of what happened, I thought it was an invasion of the other family member’s privacy for me to do so, regardless of how angry anyone had been about it. My other family member worked hard to get back to a place of “better” in his or her life, just like I did. Ranting and screaming about it on social media doesn’t add anything positive to the issue. It wasn’t my right to tell that story. Again, though, everyone who knows the people involved understand how and why. That someone not involved is lying about who, what, when and where is to be expected, given their life up to this point. They don’t know any better and don’t understand that most people don’t live with all the drama and damage that they find to be normal. When all you’ve done is plant poison in life, it should be expected to find bitter fruit in their crop. It’s just disappointing. You’ll notice that I don’t mention names or lash out just to feel that righteous indignation being let out. I can only imagine he or she would feel if they read or heard some of the  nonsense being spouted on social media. Using that person’s pain to rant makes the person being angry look childish and spiteful.

I can’t worry about the lesser people in life using their anger and revisionist stupidity to lash out over and over. Comparing my life against theirs leaves no mistake which ones of us are trying to live an authentic life, even if misunderstood, instead of one characterized by wrath and destruction.

Below is the basic accident information.  I spent quite a while figuring this out after being unable to locate the newspaper archives or links.

On a Saturday back in September,1991, I skipped work for the first time while working at Cargill. My supervisor at the time had decided that I couldn’t use any time off, even though miscreants all around me were getting days off without notice. I called in “sick,” as technically I was sick of my supervisor’s nonsense. After taking a long walk, drinking a river of coffee and reading for a few hours, I went to rent some movies. I don’t know what the other movie was but I’ll never forget renting “Predator 2.” My roommate, the owner of the trailer I lived in, had went on a rare short trip with his son out of town. (That day was  a rare confluence of unusual conditions.)

I had started the movie and put on my headphones. In those days, it was high technology to wire a direct connection from the horrible tvs of the time directly to the headphones and add an extra length of wire. “Predator 2” is a very sound effect-laden movie at the beginning. I might as well have been sitting inside a marching band practice. I hadn’t been watching very long when a sound very much like a diesel 18-wheeler thundered even through my headphones. The first thought that went through my mind was that someone had decided to drive a large truck literally through the trailer park. The trailer seemed to jump a little and vibrate. I pulled the headphones off and couldn’t make sense of the sounds I was actually hearing.

I jumped up and ran the length of the trailer, opening the back door which faced West. Looking up, all I could focus on was a grey-silver jacket, supported by a billowing parachute. I looked down and to the right of the small steps off the trailer and saw a human body. It was somewhat mangled and the head had suffered the worst trauma. The window ac unit above him had heat dissipation metalwork and those ridges were full of flesh and other body matter. I honestly can’t remember how long I stood there in shock. When it registered that a plane had crashed and the pilot lay dead at my feet I’m not sure. But it is the first or second most surreal moment of my life.

It turns out that most of the plane was slightly South of my trailer, a few feet away, mostly propped up by a massive growth of shrubs and short trees. (In an unrelated twist, the spot where the plane stopped is the same location where I endured my other horrific surprise in life, years later.)

I don’t know how I would feel if I were a family member of Joseph Frasca reading this, but in some immeasurable way we were connected by the pilot’s death. Knowing now that he was returning home to his family after being honored with being one of the nation’s premier stunt pilots makes it much worse for me. He was flying back from a U.S. National Aerobatic Contest. He was 34 years old and already considered to be one of the premier pilots of his day. When I researched the incident to write this, I was deeply saddened to know that he had been so young. I hadn’t remembered that fact in any way.

Joseph Frasca was also the son of Rudy Frasca, owner of Frasca International, which builds flight simulators for places all over the world. Joseph’s life would have been one full of adventure and opportunity. Many sources refer to the plane that crashed on Arkansas way back in September, 1991 as ‘experimental.’ Most agree that if Joseph would have simply had his chute connected for safety instead of for comfort, his life would not have needlessly ended. But then I wouldn’t have learned just how common it is for planes or pieces of them to fall from the sky.

The plane falling out of the sky had a profound effect upon me. Despite being raised by tough people and having already learned about the frailty of life, I learned anew the stupidity of thinking that any aspect of life could be “safe.” It had been forced upon me to remember that dangers were constantly at my fingertips, around hidden corners, waiting to pounce like an army of gleeful gremlins. It is difficult to explain to someone else who has never experienced something so bizarrely out of tune with normal life. I used to laugh about the coincidences of playing hooky from work for the first time and being home alone – it was difficult to not make connections between total accident and blind providence.

A couple of days after the plane crash I had eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from the cafeteria vending machines at work. Coming back from break, it struck me that the color and consistency was very similar to the dead pilot as he laid next to the trailer. Without warning, I projectile vomited in the entryway to one of the huge food coolers. (I felt bad, because I didn’t clean it up.)

Someone associated with the pilot’s insurance sent me to talk to a psychiatrist. Of course, it was more for their peace of mind than mine, even though many who knew me joked “It’s about time” when they heard the news.  But after talking to the shrink for a few minutes, I got up to go to the bathroom. I spewed another geyser of vomit all across her very clean and organized waiting area, along the wall, and even up the wall. It was terrible. The secretary/office person could not have been more surprised. She was seated just a few feet away. Her eyes were incredibly wide. I believe they had to call a professional office cleaner to come deal with my mess. It was a little strange, as I wasn’t one to normally be squeamish or think things like a plane crash would upset me. I had no other symptoms whatsoever, and my mind wasn’t consumed by thoughts of the crash.

(In yet another coincidence, it turns out that the psychiatrist I went to for that single visit was the mother of my next door neighbor not too long after. He had heard of the infamous vomiting episode and laughed when I told him I was the person responsible. I think the volume of my sickness became an anecdotal legend.)

When an insurance adjuster came to visit with me and Ray, the trailer’s owner, he told me that the pilot had not fastened his leg harness or something along that line. He had been returning to Illinois from Texas from a stunt/flying show where he had just qualified to be on the US flight team. It turned out to be common for pilots to do this. A freak mechanical issue affected the plane. It was probably a very quick fall. His body cracked the middle of the trailer when he hit. I’m surmising that he hit the trailer at a very odd angle, turned and then hit the ac unit the rear window with a great deal of force. His terror was undoubtedly real, but also probably very quick and confusing.  I don’t remember him being so young, looking back.

During my research for this post, I was surprised to find group discussions from 1991 in Illinois. Many pilots wondered why he had abandoned the plane, knowing it was headed for a populated trailer park late in the morning on a Saturday. I had remembered him being thrown out of the plane, but perhaps my memory is weak on this point? It is a point to consider what must have went through his mind as he fell to the ground, knowing that his plane was directly above many unaware people.

It turns out that the insurance company paid for the hours of work I missed, the trailer, everything around it, and even offered to pay for ongoing psychological counseling – and also would have paid for up to a year of lost wages without question had I decided the crash had fried me mentally. The adjusters and insurance companies evidently had seen it all at some point and found it to be cheaper to be generous up front. I used to think that I should have taken a year off to read and relax.

Minutes after the plane crashed, people started appearing out of nowhere. A few FBI personnel were among the first to arrive. I don’t know where they had been working, but they had to have been close. In an hour, the scene was crowded with firemen, police, and reporters and dozens of spectators. Even my Aunt Ardith made an appearance at the edge of the NTSB tape. When I called the local news station, it was difficult to convince them that I lived in the trailer in question, mostly because of my crazy name.

For a while after the plane crash, much of our side of the trailer park didn’t have cable and we couldn’t figure out why. It turns out that the plane had penetrated the ground at one point in the exact location where the main trunk line for the cable service was buried, severing the line totally. I won’t write a novel trying to describe how chaotic it was for the rest of the day.

(In another twist, the ex-girlfriend of someone I had worked with knocked on the back door very late in the day. I couldn’t figure out why she was knocking on my door. I’m sure I had a stupid, incredulous look on my face when I saw her standing there, hand raised to knock on the door again. It turns out she was somehow involved with one of the news people taking  pictures. She, of course, verified to everyone that my name really was “X.”)

When my roommate Ray came home to his trailer later, he could not have been more surprised. My reputation for pulling pranks and being crazy might have made it hard for him to initially believe my story, but the look on his face was a strange evolution of disbelief, shock and then bewilderment. It turns out that he had heard of a plane crash in Johnson on the radio and had joked about the possibility of it being in the trailer park.

Reading the pilot’s biography and looking back into the past from 24 years ago, I see what happened from a much different perspective. A great pilot died that day, probably without necessity. Years of expertise were ignored and a strange series of unexpected surprises left him without any luck to fall back on. And it changed me in some way, forever.

I used to have a biography and a picture of Joseph Frasca. His exact appearance eludes me, but the idea of how young he was is really the only important thing to hold close. Sometimes, as I see little dots floating above me, I wonder about Joseph and our crossed path all those years ago. Now that I live closer to an airport, I think of him more often. I’m pleased to know that his family is doing exceedingly well and that Joseph has an aviation scholarship in his honor.

Meanwhile, too, I know that in distinct places all over the world, those dots are falling from the sky with great frequency, disturbing the lives of those below.