March 2005
Everybody has dreams in which they think they are dead or at least in another world. If not, then I’m crazy because those dreams happen to me all the time.
My “dream” afterlife isn’t the stark, frightening one that most religions threaten me with if I don’t toe the line. As a matter of fact, in the literally hundreds of times I’ve visited my—for lack of a better term, “death dream”—the subject of guilt or innocence, faith or lack of faith never arises. It simply isn’t an issue.
I don’t generally meet any kind of deity when I make these nightly afterlife camp outs. No serious guy in a robe meets me at any kind of gate. Nobody in sandals with long hair is beckoning me out of any kind of tunnel—lighted or not. No grand “now I finally understand everything” moments during my nocturnal afterlife visits. No revelation of any great truth or proclamation of who I should hate.
In other words, death, even in a dream, is as normal as macaroni and cheese on a Wednesday or zits on an Olsen Twin. My afterlife dream is the same almost every time, which is why I tend to believe in it—not that belief matters to a dead guy. Whatever is simply is.
If you have experiences like mine you may end up beside a river like many church hymns would suggest. You may find yourself visiting with your long dead Mom or Dad or you may be the person that actually expects and gets a guy with long hair, a robe and sandals to meet you. I always end up either at the airport or my tree house near the airport.
The discussion of the tree house is for another time and another column at another magazine. Suffice to say that it is really a cool place and is decorated in a sort of “neo-Victorian” fashion; crystal lamps, comfy rugs, and nice drapes. Before I leave the subject of the tree house I will add that it is always the same tree house in the same tree in the same neighborhood and no, my neighbors do not have tree houses—they have regular houses.
Back at the airport that I always hang out in my death dream. You’d have to see it to believe it and presupposing the fact that you have to be dead or me dreaming about being dead to get a good look at it, I’m sure you’ll be content to accept my description at face value.
World War II aircraft mostly are what are sitting in the grass. No tie-downs are needed because I don’t remember ever seeing bad weather at this particular airport. I don’t think I’ve seen anybody mowing the grass either which makes this newly dead dreaming guy happy because the one chore I hated when I worked as a lineboy was mowing the damn grass.
Not just WWII war birds are scattered about. Tiger Moths, Wacos, Cessna 195s, Lodestars, Champs, Cubs, Travelairs and even the odd dirigible, but strangely enough never a blimp, are all about. All the airplanes in my dream death are new but not brand-new. They have been flown.
Their big friendly, mostly round engines have real oil pooling in real oil catching pans below their cowling. The propellers move real air that I have to lean into in order to remain standing when I’m behind the planes as they taxi out.
On occasion, there is a belch of fire blowing down from the updraft carburetor of the Corsair in my dream. I have unlimited time to spend with these aircraft and nobody from the Homeland Security Department wants to see my ID badge or shoos me away from these incredible machines.
If I want, I can spend an entire afternoon just sitting on the wing root of a T-6 or can squat below the wing of a Globe Swift and watch ants crawl up the main gear tire on their way to an otherworldly snack on some other dead guy’s abandoned baloney sandwich. No helicopters are there and I don’t understand why but I’m pretty sure I haven’t explored this whole place yet.
When you can spend an entire dream time sitting in the control cabin of a dirigible looking out the little panes of glass that make up the windscreen it makes sense that there are a lot of areas in this place that I haven’t seen.
I’m not by myself but the people I run into there, while being real enough, are a little blurry around the facial area. I know they are there but I really don’t know who they are and don’t have conversations with them.
My theory on this rests on the assumption that I’m not really dead in my dream, I’m just dreaming that I am dead. I assume that they are really dead and are not dreaming. Because of this, a sort of hazy divide exists between us. This is okay with me, and not because I have any kind of aversion to chatting up the occasional corpse.
I like the fact that while I’m there nobody bothers me. There are no cell phone calls, no meals to prepare or dishes to wash and no 24-hour-a-day cable news service running its little banner below my mental screen. The quiet is nice.
I guess you could say that when I’m there I’m resting in peace. I’ll finish up the description of this place in minute and get to the point but one final note about the weather and my activities. It is warm but not August-in-Florida hot. A light breeze is blowing—enough to keep an orange wind sock at about half-staff and the sun is shining (for you Trekkies out there, it is only one sun).
My last visit, which was last night, had me leaning against a Stearman PT-22 near the aft portion of the wing root, which was painted yellow. I was calmly smoking a Camel unfiltered and was a very happy camper.
Before you go off on a rant about me smoking for the first time in many years let me remind you that I am dead so smoking no longer holds any kind of threat and that this is a dream, not an ABC After-School special.
While the place and the conditions are pleasant enough I am in no big hurry to stay there permanently. In other words, I’m not looking forward to that long stay in the “oblong tanning booth” just so I can hang around airplanes without getting hassled. No death wish here.
I am looking forward to meeting some of the people that I am sure are already there though. Our mutual silence in my dreams is understandable to me. After all, what could they possibly tell me about their afterlife there that I won’t find out myself in good time? I’m also sure they have no interest in me telling them the latest on Dubya and who just got thrown off of the latest Survivor episode.
When the day comes that I’m there and not dreaming I plan on looking quite a few people up that I know are around there somewhere. First, I wouldn’t be a good son if I didn’t look up my Mom. I’m sure she isn’t hanging around the airport waiting for me but I plan on getting in touch and maybe buying her a burger at the field’s restaurant.
Once the family duties are taken care of I plan on looking up one of my first instructors, Jesse. I won’t use last names in this column because you really don’t need to know and because I think when you are dead that last names are superfluous things you leave behind on earth.
Plus, not using last names allows me to tell you that Jesse died an almost cliché death. He literally had a heart attack and fell off of a bar stool. What a way to go. One minute you’re singing along to “The Night They Brought Old Dixie Down” at the ABC liquor store on South Florida Ave. in Lakeland and the next minute you are in Rock ‘N Roll Heaven.
Jesse was an old fart but a good guy when I knew him. He took a lot of time teaching this youngster how to do important aviation things and saved my life more than once. He gets a heavenly beer from me when I check in.
I had a copilot about fifteen years back when I was flying captain on the old DC-9. His name was John and he was the coolest guy I ever flew with. I only flew with him on one trip because the day after we got back he accidentally flew his A-7 inverted into a bombing range. Man, I am really going to make fun of that guy when I run into him. I’m sure he’ll comment on what an old-looking sack of crap I turned out to be.
Jimmy Doolittle. Met him briefly once when I was young and I’ve got a lot of questions for the guy. Plus, I’m sure he hangs with all the cool dead pilots and I just want to be in the neighborhood of that group. A group that no doubt includes a lot of brave pilots from a century of wars who never lived long enough to get to know and despise me in real life.
Winston Churchill took over sixty hours of dual instruction and never soloed. While being a clumsy pilot, he did establish the RAF and later made damned sure they had enough fighters to defend Britain. I imagine he is more than a little full of himself but I’ve laid over in London enough that I’m sure we’ve frequented some of the same pubs and can base a lengthy conversation on that.
Greg was my favorite captain of all time to fly with on the airline and he bit the big one on a layover in Ireland a number of years back. I’m sure I’ll run into him in the afterlife and that he’ll know where to get a good meal. He had more flying talent in his little chubby pinky than I ever saw in train car loads of other pilots.
There is this idiot I want to see up there because I actually watched him die. He was the guy when I was a lineboy that told me that he could go flying any damned time he pleased and why was I bothering him? It was the year 1973 and all I was trying to tell him was that there was a huge thunderstorm coming up and he might want to keep his Aero Commander Darter on the ground. He ignored me, ridiculed me and took off.
Things went well for about three minutes as he headed into the maw of the storm. His aircraft impacted the ground at a negative angle and they later found his brain behind the radio stack. I got his pilot’s seat for our line crew office. What a dumbass. I can’t wait to ask him just what he was thinking.
I could go on all day talking about dead pilots I hope to chat with but I would be leaving out the most important friends I ever had—my dogs. Since by now you are either writing me off as a new-age wacko or are nodding your head saying, “yeah.” I’ll go on to say that the two guys I am most looking forward to hanging with at my afterlife airport and tree house are two border collies: Rhett, from my college until the airline days and Jed, who died a few years back.
I won’t go for the usual “dog is my copilot” garbage, but if there is an afterlife and if my dream airport really exists I can’t think of better company than my two favorite dogs of all time. I imagine both of them curled up by the coffee machine in the office and their ears pick up as they hear me walking in from the ramp.
Kevin Garrison’s aviation career began at age 15 as a lineboy in Lakeland, Fla. He came up through General Aviation and is currently a senior 767 captain. When not frightening passengers, Kevin plays tennis and lives on a horse farm in Kentucky, where he writes unsold humor projects and believes professional wrestling is real and all else is bogus.
