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through the steep hillsides and valleys in that low flying hospital. Eb remembered well his last flight of that war. He thought about how an engine got hit by ground fire and the prop eventually stopped turning. He remembered how he prayed when he climbed just enough so that the two other crewmen could bail out, trying to lighten the load, enough so the aircraft would stay in the air using the remaining engine’s power. He smiled as he mused about the nurse who stayed and tended those soldiers that lay wounded in the cargo bay. Lastly, he recalled his wheels up landing in safe territory. It was a rough landing, and a piece of debris drove its way through the windshield and his flying glasses. He was cut and blinded in his right eye. Tillie, the same nurse who cared for his passengers, treated his facial wounds that afternoon. She would eventually become his wife after the war was over. “Oh, what good is a one-eyed pilot?” he’d thought back then. He worked for a while as a mechanic in a car dealership to earn food for the table, making just enough to feed Tillie and a newborn child. To help his income, he also worked after hours part-time with Jerry, the dealer’s son. He spun wrenches on the young man’s flathead-powered ‘40 Ford race car. Eb worked hard as a mechanic. He also went to school on the GI bill, that is... until the day the memory of his father’s words came back to him. “Keep your eyes on the cross.” The words sounded in his mind when he saw the car. It was like his father stood next to him. There sat a big, old ambulance the dealer had taken in trade. An old white Packard.., one of the last of its kind. It was an easy buy even for his meager means. On its side was painted an old red cross. That old faded cross was his salvation and future. |
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It took some time and a lot of hard work to restore the old Packard engine. Time wore on, and after a few years of working together with Eb as driver and Tillie as nurse, they’d raised enough money to buy another |
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Sparrow... |
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ambulance… then another, and another. After needing more drivers and nurses, they had to hire |
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“And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes be thrown into the fires of hell.” (Matthew 18:9) |
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