At ten years old, Grace had heard her grandfather’s flying stories since she could walk and talk. She was always ready for another one.

‘Papaw, tell me another flying story, please’.

‘Gracie baby, it’s late and your mama and daddy are gonna be mad if I keep you up late’.

She knew he’d tell her again because she knew he loved telling them as much as she loved hearing his stories of when he was a pilot. When those big blue eyes looked up at him, he knew that she knew that she could pretty much have what she wanted. She was especially cute tonight with her sandy hair pulled up in a bun in the back. She looked just like her mother at that age.

He got up from his big recliner and walked over to the fireplace, took the fire poker and prodded around in the late night fire. Some sparks popped and flew up the chimney, the logs settled back down into new burning positions and the sudden flush of heat from the fireplace made both papaw and Gracie stick their hands up to the fire.

‘This one is a doozy but it really happened, Gracie.’

Her little eyes lit up like the Christmas tree behind her.

‘And it happened like this;

It was Christmas 1978, and I was a private pilot for a very wealthy family. I had just flown the family from Indiana to Tennessee where their daughter was in a bad car accident and they needed to be with her.

I had dropped them off at the airport and they took a taxi to the hospital, and I was flying back home. It wasn’t a long flight and they were staying several days. I wanted to be home with my own family; your mama was around your age then. In the airport gift shop there was a snow globe that I wanted. I thought your mama would like that but there was a long line to buy it so I opted to wait about getting it this trip. I’d be back soon to fly them back home. But I was sure that your grandmother and Alice would like it. It was square, an unusual shape for a snow globe but had ‘Tennessee’ in orange letters across it and various things the state is famous for inside; Elvis/Dolly/bears.

It was Christmas Eve, and I wanted to be home for  Alice when she woke up and saw what Santa had left her under the tree.’

‘What did Santa leave mom?’

‘Well, she really wanted this popular doll back then called a Cabbage Patch doll. Santa brought her that ugly fat- faced doll and your mama loved that ugly thing until she grew up. It’s probably still in the attic somewhere now.’  he said with a slow reminiscent smile and chuckle.

Gracie said ‘ugly fat faced doll’ and rolled around a minute laughing imagining what it must have looked like.

By now, Papaw had made his way back to his comfy recliner by the fire and settled back in with a big blanket over his lap and Gracie obediently crawled up there and twisted and settled into her grandfather’s lap much like a poodle would do.

‘So, after I dropped them off at the airport, I refueled, did my standard preflight check list, filed my flight plan with the tower and took back off for home. I really wanted to be home for your grandmother and my baby girl that night.

It was around 1130, very late and snowing a little bit, not bad or I’d have waited to take off. Back then we didn’t have the advanced weather tracking that we have now. Not long into the flight, the snow got thicker and heavier and became very hard to see so I decided to fly above the snow clouds and I gradually gained altitude to hopefully get better visuals. And I did.

Above the clouds, the sky was actually very clear. Up there flying alone it was the deepest black with millions of tiny white diamonds sparkling in it.

I was listening to Christmas music and counting down the minutes to land when my right engine sputtered. It was suddenly struggling to keep running. And then the left engine started going out. I noticed the gas gauge was suddenly on empty. And to this very day, Gracie, I cannot tell you what happened to that fuel. The tanks were full when I left Tennessee, but for whatever reason that night, the gas had apparently all leaked out.  I must have not refueled correctly before takeoff. It was nobody’s fault but mine.

So there I was 15,000 feet in the air in a jet airplane that suddenly lost its fuel and power.

I tried restarting but of course neither would restart without fuel. The plane lunged forward into a fast plunge back to earth, taking me with it.

I could feel my heart beating faster but I was trying to focus and think clearly and keep calm. ‘Mayday, Mayday, Mayday’ I called over the mic to any tower that could hear me. I was back down in the snow clouds and couldn’t see a thing for all the flying snow. Nothing. I was plummeting straight downward.

I began to accept that this was my last flight, and that I’d never see your grandmother or your mother again. I could feel myself suddenly sweating and breathing faster. ‘

Gracie slid her tiny hand into her grandfather’s hand and just held on as he stared into the crackling fireplace and recalled that night.

‘A tower picked up my Mayday and began talking me thru to hopefully glide me into a field near them, but it was a very rough terrain, and the snow wasn’t helping the situation. By now the snow was falling heavy all the way to the ground.

I could see the field clearly as I dropped below the heavy snow clouds. The altimeter was spinning wildly as I nosedived back towards Earth. It all happened so very fast, Gracie.

I quickly began making my peace with God.

Then suddenly I felt a bump below my feet, like something hit the bottom of the nose of the plane. I felt it push the front of the plane upward.

The dive leveled off as if I was pulling back on the yoke, but I wasn’t.

Gradually, the plane leveled itself off. I didn’t know what to think. How was his plane being controlled and guided if I wasn’t doing it?

Then I noticed under the nose of my plane, a red glow that was strong enough to illuminate around the nose and I could see it below me from the cockpit. Odd, I’d never seen that before. But yeah, it was a very bright red glow with snow flying all around it. The altimeter slowed its spinning and I could feel the plane level again from it’s silent and dangerous plunge back to earth.

Something was gently gliding me down towards the open field that the tower told me about.

My plane came to a very soft rest out in an open snow-covered field.

I quickly unbuckled and opened the door and stepped out onto solid white ground. I’ve never been more grateful for anything in my life than the feeling of the frozen and snowy earth crunching beneath my feet.

Outside the landed plane, there was total silence. I ran around and looked under the nose to see if I could find out what had safely led me down. Nothing was there. There was a couple of scratches on the underbelly of the plane but nothing more than that. I stood there scratching my head for answers as to what just happened. I was grateful to be alive, but was lost for words to explain what just happened.

It was then that I heard bells lightly tinkling, like a small wind chime. And then a bright red and white dash did a flyover back over me and my plane then shot straight back up into the black night sky.

‘And even after all these years, Papaw, you still believe that was Santa Clause?’

‘Well, Gracie, sometimes you just have to believe in something. And besides, I have evidence.’

‘What evidence?’

‘Over there on the mantle, that snowglobe that says ‘Come to Tennessee’, I didn’t buy that in the souvenir shop at the airport when I flew back to pick up the family that I flew for’.

‘Where’d it come from Papaw?’

‘After the red and white dash flew back over me and upwards, something fell to the ground beside me. I picked it up and it was a small red and green wrapped box in the finest of wrappings with a gold bow on top.

I stood in the middle of the snowy field and quickly unwrapped it. Anxious to see inside, I tore the pretty papers off and the red and green papers fluttered away in the snowy wind.

And Gracie, inside of that box was the snow globe that sits now on the mantle over there. With a little note folded up inside.’

‘Papaw, what’d the note say?’

‘Gracie, the handwritten note said

‘Merry Christmas, Alice’.