I'm trying to find information about a man who died in a plane crash in Moses Lake, WA when I was a kid. I'm pretty sure his name was Mike and he used to go to the Young Life groups for years. He went with a woman who seemed to be dating him (I thought), who I thought "looked like Nancy Drew" or the way I imagined Nancy Drew would look. She had reddish hair and was pretty.
She usually showed up with this guy "Mike" and I knew he flew planes, but I guess he was a pilot instructor. So Mike, the pilot instructor, who I knew, died in some crash. I remember when it happened because it was a pretty big deal.
I don't think that was the "Mike" whose name was under my bed.
I think I possibly said "Mike" out loud, next to Chris Dabney, because I might have touched the wood floor with my hand and subconsciously said this, from the hard couch. It's possible, because as a kid I sometimes fell asleep with an arm over the edge of the bed, and my hand on a ledge that had a grip, like this [ , a bracket, and then I could feel the wood, the springs, and I would touch this metal attachment that was like a coiled up pellet, sort of like a bungee cord part, that hooked into the frame. I put my hand there sometimes because it was so hot in the summers, and this felt cool. So if I had thought about the name under my bed, as I touched the metal and wood board, it might have caused a spontaneous "Mike" later. Possibly it even went back further than the childhood I remember, and went to my being tortured.
Chris Dabney was awake and acting weird and on another couch, staring at me like I might attack him with a weapon at any moment. When I woke out of almost falling asleep, to my own "Mike", I looked over at him and his eyes were BUGGED out.
He pretty much looked like Snoopy in Pilot Goggles. That is how wide his eyes were, and how shocked his face, but with closed lips, like I had just shot off a bomb.
MIKE
He said nothing and I don't know what I said, but I went to sleep and thought, "Which MIKE does HE know that he's so spooked about? or that I mentioned, like what if I know the one he knows?" and I also thought, "Why did I say 'Mike'?" He was just frozen, staring at me with these bugged out eyes. The moon caught this glow just enough for me to see the whites of his eyes, glowing like glow decals on a wall.
I think I did because my hand was over an edge and something must have reminded me of my bed when I was a kid. That's the only thing I can think of. There were no Mikes around my family. I mean, microphones for music, but with all of the Mikes out there, I think the only one I'd heard of was the pilot instructor. Then it was no one for over a decade until high school in Sherwood.
I'd like to more about the man who died that we knew, who was the pilot instructor, because it was a big deal then. He wore a bomber jacket and he was the only person I had met (that I remembered) who wore a bomber jacket.
I almost want to say he was married but I heard something about his being married or having a girlfriend and I saw how he was with "Nancy Drew" and thought they were together. They showed up at the same time and there was a chemistry between them, then.
It was a black bomber jacket and he wore a scarf sometimes. It was a pilot bomber. I know it was a bomber because my Dad told me, "That's a bomber jacket" when I asked, because no one else had a jacket like that and it was distinct.
I think he usually brought a Bible. Maybe I'm thinking of my Dad with the Bible, because he led the group, but I remember the bomber jacket guy showing up with a large Bible to the meetings. Either nothing, or a Bible. I must have met him first in the Fall or Winter for him to have been wearing the warm coat. My memory is that he sat next to the wall that was by our front window (blinds pulled maybe, or open I guess) and the front door. I remember him sitting on the couch and possibly in a chair. His personality was joking, friendly, and I thought he was extraverted but seemed to watch closely too.
Anyway, that was Mike the pilot instructor, and I would like to know if there is an obituary about him from Moses Lake.
Also, today I was asking my mother where our footstool went. This has nothing to do with Young Life, and I believe it disappeared around the time "Sharon" was around, Barb Maiers friend who is very pretentious, possibly the same one as Sharon McGuire if they both have blond hair. She has a blond bob haircut.
We used to have a footstool that went with our couch, sofa, and rocking chair and one day it was stolen. I used to sit on it, and my Mom would say, "That's not for sitting on--it's a footstool". She didn't like my sitting on it but I sat on it all the time, and she used it for a footstool and didn't want me sitting on something that was for putting your feet on. It was in front of our sofa chair and then one day it was gone--Sharon Era. I sat on it all the time, because it was kid-sized.
After Sharon Era people stole this from our house, we got a cedar chest we called "the coffee table" and instead of my mother having a footstool, for her chair, me and my Dad were putting our feet up on the cedar chest for a footstool, when we watched movies. My brother too sometimes, and sometimes my Mom if we all sat on the same couch.
It was for setting coffee cups on and books and magazines, but we just put our feet up on it. Which is sort of weird, after we had a footstool, and I sat on it instead. I loved that footstool. It was one of my favorite pieces of furniture. I sat on it, and I used it as a little table, with me on one side, and my brother sitting on the other side, and I would put a game board on it, or we would play some game on it. I moved it all over the place, from the chair to the middle of the room, where I would play with Levi. Maybe it was that I put a popcorn bowl there to share.
I was really young when I did that, and later I just sat on it.
Anyway, that was one of our "Parting Pieces"--another piece of furniture, toy, or something we parted with. After this, we got a "footstool" for the kitchen, that was a step-ladder to reach things in the cupboards. There was a step-stool and then a step-ladder for the kitchen. Before this, I had gotten up on the counters or reached things with a chair, by dragging one of our kitchen chairs to the cupboard.
At the Young Life group, people brought snacks sometimes. Cookies or something to munch on.
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