About a month ago, two very special friends of mine, David and Ann
Drye, of Concord, N.C., were killed when their private plane crashed on
takeoff. David was a very successful real estate developer, whom I had
gotten to know under very interesting circumstances. He had heard me
lecture at a North Carolina homeschool convention in May 1990, in which
I had asserted that the type of dyslexia and reading disability that
afflicts so many American youngsters is caused by the faulty teaching
methods being used in the schools. I further asserted that this sort of
dyslexia was curable.
About three years later I got a call from David, whom I had never
met, reminding me of what I had said in my lecture and asking me if I
could cure his 15-year-old son, David Jr., who had been diagnosed as
dyslexic. He wanted me to come down to North Carolina, stay at his
home, and spend a week tutoring his son.
I accepted the challenge. David and his wife Ann were marvelously
hospitable at their large comfortable home. I tested David Jr. and
concluded that he had become dyslexic as a result of the way he had been
taught. I tutored him in intensive, systematic phonics for a week, and
indeed cured him of his disability. David and Ann were so impressed
with my work that from then on I became one of their special friends,
invited to stay with them several more times. They were devoted
Christians, and I got to know them and their children well. Every
Saturday David held an hour-long vigil outside an abortion clinic in
Concord. He became active in Howard Phillips’ U.S. Taxpayers Party,
becoming chairman of his state’s affiliate.
The last time I had seen David was when he invited me down to help
him and his son-in-law work on the curriculum for the Covenant Classical
School, which he had founded. I spent a wonderful day with David, Ann
and their family. When it was time to take me back to the airport in
Charlotte, David decided to fly me there in his private helicopter,
flown by an experienced pilot. For me it was a scary flight in the
bubble, with the landscape moving directly below my feet. Previously,
David had driven me to Charlotte in his car, which took about an hour.
By helicopter it took ten minutes. When we parted, David gave me his
habitual hug of friendship.
What the helicopter ride meant to me was that David had become
increasingly prosperous in his business and now could afford using
private helicopters and planes. It was good to know that David was
doing so well, but private planes and helicopters also increased the
risks to life and limb. But 20th century life made such risks
unavoidable. We all live with the risks of car crashes, train
derailments, and such horrors as the downing of TWA 800.
News of the death of David and Ann in a plane crash put me in a state
of shock for days. I could not believe it. How could a well-cared-for
private plane crash on takeoff? I will probably never know the answer.
But we always wonder why God permits such accidents to happen to such
good people.
Thus, the news of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife and sister-in-law
losing their lives in a private plane crash produced in me a similar
sense of shock and disbelief. But as the details of this tragedy became
known, it was obvious that this plane crash was quite different from the
one that killed David and Ann. Kennedy had decided to fly his
single-engine Piper Saratoga to Martha’s Vineyard at night when
visibility is poorest, with his rather limited experience as a pilot,
and one foot in a cast due to a paragliding accident. That his wife and
her sister were willing to risk the flight indicates to what extent
Caroline had attached her destiny to that of her husband’s.
It was one of those dumb impulsive decisions that often lead to
disaster. Kennedy had learned to fly at Flight Safety International and
had gotten his pilot’s license in the spring of 1998. Since then he had
logged 46 hours of flight time. He had learned to fly in a Cessna,
which he then traded up to a three-year-old Saratoga, which he bought in
April for about $300,000. The Saratoga had more carrying capacity and
power, but it was also a more complex machine.
Experienced pilots, such as Myron Goulian, who heads a flight school
in Bedford, Mass., questioned why Kennedy took off Friday evening from
the airport in New Jersey. There were reports of poor visibility due to
haze possibly caused by the high temperatures. Kennedy was not licensed
to fly using instruments only, did not have a flight instructor
accompanying him. In other words, he was completely dependent on his
own visual observation on a moonless night. The less-than-perfect
visibility conditions required a pilot of great experience and know-how,
which is what Kennedy was not. Kyle Bailey, an experienced pilot who
had planned to fly from New Jersey to Martha’s Vineyard that same night,
changed his mind when he saw that the sky was too hazy. “I didn’t want
to chance it over open water,” he told a reporter.
So why did John F. Kennedy take the risk? He was on his way to the
wedding of his cousin, Rory Kennedy, youngest child of Robert Kennedy,
at the Kennedy compound at Hyannisport on Cape Cod. He was going to
drop off Caroline’s sister Lauren at the Vineyard and then go on with
his wife to Hyannisport. Flying his own plane to the wedding, at night,
and in adverse conditions would have greatly impressed his cousins. Is
that all there was to it? We shall never know.
Samuel L. Blumenfeld is the author of eight books on education,
including “How to Tutor” and “NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education.”
His books are available on amazon.com or through the Paradigm Company,
208-322-4440.
This might be the dumbest anti-hate campaign ever
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