Blindrodie Was Always a Millionaire Golden Child

[Free]

Blindrodie Was Always a Millionaire Golden-Child

Yes he was. He told me so on a nine hr. road-trip to western Kansas, a couple decades ago.
You learn a lot about a stranger when you are constrained in a back breaking, 90's Dodge 3/4 ton for that long.
I was dog tired when we left Kansas City, about 22:00 hrs. after a long day at the railroad.
Shooting for two days over the weekend and driving back on a Sunday after flying the flatland of Elkhart Kansas, which,is
fourteen miles to Colorado, one mile to Oklahoma, where we towed with Ron Kenney, Chris Trout and Sonny White
from Oklahoma City.

I think I was a Hang 4, by then, and Jim Gaar, whom I don't believe had named himself "Blindrodie" yet was a Hang 1,
claiming 2 hrs. airtime exclusively on a bunny hill in 10 second flights on a garage sale standard, all in the late 90's.
But he had it all figured out. He knew he could do aerobatics. He did them in his dreams.

Jim was doing all the driving, my truck, and I unsuccessfully tried to catch some shut eye.
At about 3/4 of the way there, Jim was besting me on the impulse to sleep and we found a hay field to pull into
to try for a couple hours sleep and then continue to Elkhart, to arrive early afternoon.

I was really hurting for sleep and at a stage too tired to do so. Unbeknownst to me at the time I had a tumor growing in my
sinus that caused a very serious obstruction and every time I went unconscious my throat would close. I was dying nightly,
a little at a time.

The Blindrodie commented about it later. Said I sounded like a bear as I stretched out on a folding lawn chair behind the truck
and he stretched across the bench seat of the truck. I never got more than a few winks in the few hours we were there until the sun
started coming up. The rest of the trip wasn't much better. I used the truck bed to half way sleep on my stomach with my jaw
cocked open in a way to keep my airway open and Jim did his thing on a lawn chair in Ron's back yard.

I can't remember, Saturday or Sunday, or both days, it was all sled rides on the two mile tow road. Ron or Chris would drive till most
all the rope on the ATOL was pulled off. I was running on fumes and set up a big Falcon I got by loaning money on it's purchase
with a set of floats from somewhere up north. After a pretty high tow, upon release, it was sink city and I was
only going to make it half way back to the set up area. I was looking to land on a small open parcel alongside a big ol' water sprinkler
and catch the tow vehicle on its way back north. Case closed, in my mind. At 50 feet or so I triggered a bubble sweet enough that
if my brain had not been so stunted from fatigue, it would have been easy to climb out for the hero status of the day.
But no, I drove straight through. There was plenty bubble to turn in. What the hell, it was a Falcon..

Rodie took a couple tandems with Ron, and Ron turned him loose the next day on his new Falcon 170 or whatever that intermediate size is.
They weren't for me. 225 was my size and I can't remember if I had flown it before that or not. I'm pretty sure I was keeping a log at that time
but since then someone took that along with other flight memorabilia and aircraft logs. It turns out Jim Gaar was not the only one ever to try and
divorce me from flying. That's what it was in those cases. They were like my previous marital divorce where my former spouse took from me
the things that hurt me the most.

I've posted this to the point of bumming myself out and I've yet to get where the Golden child figured he was already a millionaire, although he
pretty much lived like a near do well. He just had to out live his old man, who he referred to as 'Norm' instead of Dad or whatever.
Just like my kids, while they were growing up, did to me. It's a mother thing that some women do. They weaponize the children against the
father. I had never met Norman, but I felt bad for him.

Taking a break from this for now. I hope to write more. Or maybe Jim wants to chime in.
He once wanted to do an article on me for the magazine as the curmudgeon of hang gliding that gave him
a hand as he fledged to that Hang II. My, my, my, 2 decades later he's already a Hang III!
Surprise, surprise... I'll bet many readers that have followed the Blindrodie's narrative over the years
believed him to be some high hour sky-god because that's the way he posts. He's an authority on everything
that flies because 'Norm' took him for rides in airplanes when he was the angry child with daddy issues while growing
up in relative luxury compared to my agrarian childhood.

When we hooked up it was city slicker vs farm boy... or something like that.
Jim Gaar really was a golden child.