You have your own airplane?” my cousin Emily asked. I nodded.
“Must be nice,” she said, in a tone that suggested that I must be a Kardashian—and, in her corner of South Carolina, that is not a comparison you want to aspire to.
I wanted to tell Emily that my 50-year-old airplane cost less than her car. But I didn’t. Instead, I laughed a little and said, “It is nice. But, you know, my airplane is a little four-seater. It’s not a jet.”
Emily, her mom and dad, and about 50 other distant relatives were dishing up fried chicken, potato salad, and biscuits at a family reunion. I had never met any of them before, but they were bona fide relations: cousins and half-cousins and second and third cousins once removed, and even a half-uncle (step-uncle?) who had driven down from Virginia.
Between them, my grandfather and his six brothers had dozens of children, and their grandchildren and great-grandchildren probably number in the hundreds. I had discovered some of these relatives on Facebook, and when they proposed a family reunion, it sounded like an adventure. But—drive seven or eight hours from Maryland to meet a bunch of strangers? That sounded less like an adventure and more like pure drudgery. Flying, on the other hand….
The reunion was to be at Cheraw State Park in Cheraw, South Carolina. Cheraw Municipal/Lynch Bellinger Field (CQW) was just eight miles from the park. I jumped on AOPA’s online flight planner to see how far the trip would be by my Piper Cherokee: about three hours.
And that is how I found myself eating chicken on a sunny Saturday afternoon in May with my extended family, who—even though they did not know me—nonetheless treated me as one of their own.
Once the initial flurries of “You’re Dorothy’s daughter!” from all my newfound relatives subsided, my cousin Jerry came up to me. He was wearing a “I love the smell of jet fuel in the morning” T-shirt—but not for my benefit. He works for an air freight company in Portland, Oregon.
“I’ve got some folks you need to meet,” he said. He brought me over to a man in a ball cap, who said, “You’re the one with AOPA!” Turns out my cousin Jerel owns a fixed-base operator at Laurinburg-Maxton Airport (MEB) in Maxton, North Carolina. He’s owned several airplanes, too. We had a great discussion about aviation, of course (because that’s what pilots do, even if they haven’t known each other more than a few seconds). Our conversation ended with a warm invitation from Jerel to come visit. MEB is near Fayetteville, a beautiful part of the state, he said. Oh, did he mention that the U.S. Army Golden Knights parachute team is based there?
By the end of the reunion, I had a bunch of new names for my Christmas card list, made a promise to come back and visit, and got a grudging comment from Emily that she thought flying to the reunion was cool. She even wanted a ride in my airplane—so of course I need to make good on my promise to go back to Cheraw.
Flying back to Maryland on Sunday morning, I thought about how in all likelihood, I wouldn’t have made the drive—nor met the family, nor visited this corner of the South—had it not been for my Cherokee. Most likely I would have spent this Saturday like many other Saturdays before it, consumed with chores that don’t get completed during the week.
The airplane made it easy. The airplane made an adventure out of a trip that would been fairly tedious. Best of all, the airplane brought me to new friends and family—something that in this stage of life can’t be measured in terms of dollars or gallons of avgas, and is more precious than gold.
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