Dad took this picture on the approach to Billings, Montana in the early fifties. It’s a fairly non-descript day and I don’t know why he took it with the clouds and all, but it’s one of my favorites because it was just another day in Montana. But oh so special. There are no Hollywood dreams here. I am just eight years old at home in Minnetonka at the house with Mom. But Dad’s out here flying captain on a big prop airliner. Somehow, I see a life even better than Hollywood glamour in this picture made by Captain Kenmir, my Dad, my hero.
It’s a normal day – nothing special going on in all of Montana, just everything special. Wheat is growing, cattle are munching, the Yellowstone River is burbling towards Glendive and all is well with the world. I love to watch spinning things like this number one prop here. It just keeps an ordered hectic pace of such soothing sounds – and keeps Dad happy and me happy just thinking about all my travel dreams of Montana, writing, fame, and my cat and friends at home.
Dad was so well liked on the airline. He had a charm and charisma all his own. He didn’t set me up for fame and notoriety, but a bigger life, one of my own which included the 37 years of flying, like he did, and women and glamour and travel – but my own sunrise climbing out of Anchorage in the early morning sun was different and more glorious. I often thought of Dad's early days which he spent with his wife Vivian while flying the Aleutian Islands with high winds at Shemya and when I got my thumb slammed in the door of our rented 1958 Plymouth at Portage Glacier.
I remember the layovers in Billings when we’d go to the "78 Club" and we’d watch old cowgirls shaking their flannel plaid shirts and smoking cigarettes in the dim light, while I made our beautiful "stewardesses" laugh and we danced and we enchanted each other. This always seemed such a weird mixture -- the old frontier and the new glamour of flying -- we brought them together by coming to Billings.
Then, years later, I went on to France and Monte Carlo with Pat with the platinum blond hair; and then I had Susanne to meet in the dining room afternoon sun on top of the Anchorage Hilton. She was from Kodiak, the daughter of a rich lumber baron and she told me they only really get four to five days of sun each summer on Kodiak Island. She went to France to study art at the same school Pat attended. I didn’t make the second trip to France.
Here is Billings in 1954 and my own little picture of a gray day. Almost everyone who was working at the Northern Hotel is dead now. I still like this picture. The engines are at low power and we’re about 2,000 feet above the ground and dropping flaps while my life was just taking off in Minnesota. I am 59 years old now and Billings will still be there when I’m not around anymore. It feels good to know I got to see the propellers and have such fun on the Yellowstone River. I had such a great life. I am free and joyous and had wonderful parents who had lots of friends and laughter. In the jet airliner I flew, life was always like opening a new box of sunrises as we climbed out from Anchorage over the Chugach Mountains. We’d discuss pictures we'd seen of those crazy gold rush pioneers trudging up the hill above Skagway while we ate a pretty good omelet.
