Article Contributed on: 3/5/2006 12:04:03 PM
In 1988 while flying Captain on a Continental B-727 out of Stapleton Air Field I enjoyed inviting unaccompanied children into my cockpit prior to engine start. Most kids loved to sit in the First Officer's seat and play with the controls, pushing and pulling all the buttons (carefully supervised, of course), thrilled at all the bells, horns, lights, and whistles. (DON'T TOUCH THAT GEAR HANDLE!).
The biggest majority of little travelers were children of divorced parents being shuttled back and forth like a ping pong ball, so some were seasoned flyers. What disturbed me were the few that were first timers, scared out of their gourds, not knowing a thing about what was happening to them. One little guy sat in the FO's seat just petrified and I could not get him to relax.I asked the Flight Attendant to take him back to the cabin and said, "Someone ought to write a book about airplanes and flying for these kids to read before being dumped on board like a sack of potatoes." She said, "Why don't you do it?" I quickly replied, "Are you kidding me, I'm a pilot, not an author."
Five years later, while visiting my ten year old grandson, Nathan Fleischmann, in Columbia, Missouri, we sat at the dining room table playing a game. He liked to draw so I challenged him to draw an animal and I would tell him a joke about it. He drew a dog and I asked him, "What did the dog say when he sat down on sand paper?" Nathan said, "I don't know, Grandpa." "Ruff," I said. He laughed and asked if I knew another joke. We went through several more and I was so impressed with his drawings that I said, "Nathan, we make a good team. With your art skills and my jokes we could do a child's joke book." Nathan's eyes lit up and said, "Really, Grandpa?" I knew right then that Nathan was up to the challenge and I couldn't back out. "What do I have to do?" he asked, already planning ahead. I said, "You draw 26 animals from Ape to Zebra and send them to me and I'll color them and add the jokes."
Back in Highlands Ranch I thought about our conversation and laughed out loud, realizing how close I had come to becoming a children's book writer. I was sure that Nathan would forget, but then it arrived, a package in the mail with 26 animal pictures.
I borrowed some coloring pencils and my wife's drawing board (Joan's an Interior Designer), and began to color. It was fun! Two of my granddaughters, Katy Flecky (11) and Tracy Flecky (9) dropped in and were fascinated by the fact that Grandpa & Nathan were doing a book together and wanted to help, so we let them draw two pictures. The book was so funny that my daughter, Mary Kay Ritchen, an elementary school teacher, said, "Dad, they'll be Laughing Through the Alphabet." The title was born! I spent a lot of time at Kinko's printing and binding three books, costing me $150. All I had to do was sell them for $50 each and I would be even. There had to be a better way.
Well, that was 1993, and the beginning of two careers, started by a ten year old boy. I wrote and published that book for kids to read about flying, Our First Flight, and later, "Kailouie & the Snorkel Monster," a colorful underwater sea adventure.
This led to freelance writing several flying short stories for aviation magazines and a mystery fiction novel. Nathan went to the Chicago Institute of Art and is now back home in Columbia working as a Graphics Illustrator for a local newspaper. Now you have the rest of the story. Http://home.earthlink.net/~mikedaciek