Getting lost at an air show in England
Growing up as an Air Force brat means a lot of moving and a lot of meeting new people. My extended family mostly lived in Alabama and did not travel much, but my childhood was defined by relocating every two to three years and starting over at a new school, a new church, and a new set of friends, when I could find them. I will not say this was hard or harder than anyone else’s childhood. It was simply what I knew.
Just before I was born, Mom and Dad lived at Travis Air Force Base near Oakland, California. My older brother Chris was born there. My only claim to California is that I was conceived there. Dad was being transferred to RAF Lakenheath in England, and Mom was just over eight months pregnant. Her doctor advised her to wait and travel after the baby was born, but Mom would not have it. She and the two boys, Randy and Chris, would fly over immediately so the family could stay together.
Mom later told me the doctor suggested she have a little alcohol before the flight to prevent stress from pushing her into labor. Today we would look at that advice as quackery. These were base doctors, and Mom would have called them quacks even back then. That is not to say all Air Force doctors are bad doctors, but she had a few foundational experiences that shaped her opinion.
Mom and the boys arrived in England, and just a few weeks later I was introduced to planet Earth.
Mom says I did not like smiling at people even as a toddler, which I find hard to comprehend. There are many things from those earliest years I do not remember. I do not remember pulling a bottle warmer off a dresser by its cord and burning most of my body. I do not remember being fed milk mixed with egg, which for me was nearly fatal. That was how we discovered I am severely allergic to egg. I do not remember holding my newborn sister, Tena, when I was only two. For the record, she looks ten years younger than me, but she was born only two years later. I do not remember the LDS missionary named Ian for whom my parents gave me my middle name, though by their accounts he was a kind young man who helped our family while we lived in Suffolk, England.
But I do have a few core memories from those first four years, and one stands out as my first true living memory.
We left England when I was four, so I assume this happened when I was three. The Air Force occasionally holds air shows, allowing families and civilians to tour the base and see the aircraft up close. I was holding Dad’s hand as we walked from plane to plane while he pointed things out. I do not remember what he said, only how captivated I was by what I could see inside the aircraft. Tubes and wires lined the interior like veins and muscles in a body.
At the time, Dad was a maintenance airman working on the F-4 Phantom with the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing at Lakenheath. His first exposure to the Phantom came in Vietnam, where his job was to enter downed aircraft to remove or destroy classified equipment before the enemy could recover it. He had some harrowing experiences doing that work. Those experiences later led him to contribute to design elements in the F-15 that automatically destroy classified equipment when a pilot ejects. It might sound selfish to design a system that eliminates the need for replacements to do that job, but he had learned firsthand how dangerous it was to retrieve wreckage behind enemy lines. He wanted to prevent future airmen from having to do the same.
That day on base, one aircraft in particular overwhelmed me. The C-5 Galaxy, aptly named, was stunningly massive. Each step up the ramp felt like entering an arena-sized space. I could run from one side to the other. I could see hydraulics and electrical systems weaving through the interior walls like a living labyrinth. I could not comprehend how something that large could ever lift off the ground.
I did not fully understand what I was seeing, but Dad tried to explain in simple, three-year-old terms every time I asked, “What’s that?” which I did about every thirty seconds.
At some point I pointed again and asked my question. Dad did not answer. I asked again. Still nothing. I turned to get his attention and realized he was not there.
I do not remember being afraid. Maybe I was just concerned for him. This was Dad’s world, his work. I knew he would not be scared, but I did not want him to be lost without me. I called out, “Daaad.” Then louder, “Daaaad.” I turned toward the rear of the plane where I thought we had entered, calling for him every few seconds. “Daddy.”
I exited the plane, still calling out, but there was no response.
A Military Police officer knelt down in front of me and asked if I was lost. I told him my dad had been with me, but I could not find him. The MP lifted me onto his shoulders and told me to call out again. I did. He turned ninety degrees and told me to try once more. And again.
No Dad.
Eventually we made our way to the police tent, where the officer sat down and placed me on his knee. He kept me entertained until, sometime later, Dad arrived. I was not emotional. I was just glad Dad was okay, and relieved he was not upset with me for getting lost.
As it turns out, getting lost was something of a pattern.
My parents had five kids to manage, and I was the one who repeatedly, mysteriously, disappeared. More than once they arrived home from church only to receive a call that a boy was still waiting for a ride. I was also the one who knew how to find the customer service desk at the Base Exchange or K-Mart and ask them to page my mom. I even managed to get lost at my fair share of gas stations.
Perhaps my love of exploring and camping grew out of those early experiences of getting lost. Or perhaps it was the other way around.
Looking back, that first memory feels less like a story about being lost and more like a story about learning how not to be afraid of it. I trusted that someone competent would notice. I trusted that calling out mattered. And I trusted that exploration, even when it separated me from what was familiar, was not wrong. I did not know it then, but that pattern would repeat itself for most of my life: drawn to complex systems, absorbed enough to lose my bearings, and confident that finding my way back was part of the work.