Memoirs of a Worldly Guy
Sometime after WWII there was a Flying Club up near the old Calgary Airport. The Airport as we knew it in wartime was just an old Army building which served the city's minimal requirements until the 'new' airport was built sometime in the 50's when Don McKay was the mayor. I think the federal government stuck their oar in sometime in the seventies. I have grumbled ever since about federal architects too stupid to think of installing electric plug-ins in the multi-level parking compound. To cover their doltish asses they ultimately arranged for a service truck to be on hand for a price. Travellers who returned home in minus forty degree Celsius weather were not pleased to have to wait for long periods for a questionably existent 'jump' start. Such is the brilliance of government funded 'experts'!
But I digress! I was in attendance once or twice at the Flying Club on weekends and was a witness to the brawls that took place near the end of the evening when the numerous drinks would exacerbate the jealousness of some of the more solicitous lovers and physical violence would ensue. This would usually result in the hostile antagonists rolling around on the floor amongst broken glasses, spilled drinks and human blood. I'm not saying that the party I'm speaking of was necessarily involved in such behaviour but he did tend to become bellicose after several drinks and he was present at the Flying Club on the night that the ultimate events took place. I should make it clear now that I was present the night previously but absent on the night that the following events transpired.
In the late 40's there was a group of young women who frequented the south end of the grassy lawn that bordered the park near the Elboya Bridge at the end of Elbow Park. It's called Woods Park now. They were in their late teens or early twenties and definitely nubile. Lolling about on the grass and their beach towels, the young ladies presented an irresistible attraction for the young men in districts near and far.
The parents of one of the young ladies were absent one weekend so she decided to have a little informal gathering of some of the girls and their boyfriends. I'll never know how Jackie happened to be there but he was present nevertheless. He was short and stocky with reddish hair and a florid complexion. If I may say so without seeming biased I think he had the perpetual look of a 'shit disturber'. I was present with my current young lady friend but I admit I was lusting after a young brunette female who was slowly driving me mad by walking about in her boyfriend's dress shirt. What else was she wearing? I don't know---that's what was driving me mad!
As the evening wore on and Jackie became gradually more steeped in his chosen brew he became progressively more true to his reputation; bellicose, unconstrained and loud. My lady friend and I decided that we would prefer to be in a more tranquil ambience and so retired to one of the bedrooms.
'I don't trust the little bugger not to barge in on us and provoke an incident of some kind,' I said, 'Ergo, I shall take certain precautions.' I shoved a table knife firmly between the door and the jamb that surrounded it. It was indeed tranquil as we lay against the headboard propped up by pillows and sipping our drinks. Then, as I had feared, there came a pounding on the door.
'Hey, what're you doin' in there? Lemme in, eh?'
'The drunk has arrived,' I said quietly. 'Don't say anything!'
The boy was very much 'on the prod' and we lay silently listening to him trying with increasing frustration to force himself into the room. After about five minutes we heard other voices indicating that he had drawn attention to himself and we heard him being pacified and led away, still yelling and complaining as any drunk of his ilk would do. That was the last time I heard him and I never laid eyes on him again.
I don't remember how or when I first received news of his exploits but assume it was a combination of word of mouth from excited friends and input from the media who found the story ideal for their purposes. There seemed to be just as much rumour as fact initially but it seems he was perceptibly inebriated when he wandered away from the weekly party at the Flying Club. His knowledgeable associates wondered how he was strong enough to lift and carry the heavy batteries required to start the engines in the aircraft he literally took off with. I'd have to search the newspaper archives to determine whether it was an Anson or a Harvard or whatever; I seem to recall that it was a WWII trainer of some kind.
He manoeuvred the craft out onto the runway and took off and the next hour or so was comprised of fragmentary hysterical reports phoned in to the police and the radio stations reporting his behaviour. The two tallest buildings in Calgary at that time were the Palliser Hotel and the Public Building (about eight stories, housing the Post Office, RCMP headquarters and other federal offices. Someone phoned in from the Public Building breathlessly informing the news department that they were working late on the sixth floor and were sure they had seen an airplane fly past below them! Scattered reports continued to come in. Jackie had apparently chosen to fly down the Macleod Trail south of Calgary at automobile height and managed to force several cars into the ditch.
He then returned to Calgary and decided to take a run across the bridge at Centre Street and on up to the top of the hill. Several astonished motorists took to the sidewalks to avoid the low-flying aircraft. Regrettably, depending on how you look at it, his turn at the top of the hill was too tight and his left wingtip brushed the house that had stood there for most of the century. The aircraft spun out of control and subsequently crashed into a small house two or three blocks further north. Jackie was killed and the house and the aircraft demolished. A little old lady sleeping at the back of the house was miraculously unhurt, but of course her sleep was disturbed.
It's conceivable that Jackie had taken one of the girls from the Elbow Park gang to the Flying Club and had been told at some point to 'get lost'. A burst of drunken machismo and sullen vindictiveness may have led him to commit his foolhardy demise.
A reporter from the radio station learned from a confused Flying Club member that Jackie had a 'date' early in the evening.The young lady in question heard about her premature death while listening to the radio reports and immediately phoned home to inform her parents about the radio station's misinformation. An angry phone call to the station from an irate father threatening a lawsuit put a sudden end to that erroneous report.
Shortly after I rose the following morning I got a phone call from one of my friends.
'Have you heard the news about Jackie?' he said. When I responded in the negative he was obviously delighted to find someone who expressed ignorance and brought me up to date.
'Do you want to go up and take a look?'
'Take a look?' I said, 'look at what? A pile of debris? I'm sure you're too late to see any dead bodies! I'll take a pass, thanks!' It sounds like he's the ghoulish type who slows down to gawk at road accidents! I thought as I hung up the 'phone. Those of us who'd known Jackie talked of him and his behaviour incomprehensibly and grieved for a week or so and then pushed it all aside and moved on.
— The End —