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Midway Airport: The First Seventy-Five
Years by Christopher Lynch Lake Claremont Press |
At last, we were home, on the West ramp, and our van glided past the old darkened Monarch hanger, that used to be the main one, before the newer hanger was built. It was in front of this new hanger where we had begun our circuit, as our driver Steve backed the van into the spot in front of the main lounge.
Our tour was over. But we still had much to do before the hour of Midnight, and the transfer of ownership to Signature. We wanted to have a champagne toast, but as we stepped out of the van, the bottle slipped in the darkness, and smashed onto the tarmac. I thought that was a more fitting tribute to Monarch, like Christening a ship. But now we still needed something to toast with at Midnight, and we had only 20 minutes.
My brother walked up to me and said, "there's still something we have to see," and with that, he motioned us towards the old hanger, dark, except for the red lights on its roof, to signal aircraft to steer clear.
We walked past a fuel truck, there is one almost inevitably parked between these hangers, and into the side door, and into the older hanger.
For me, this hanger will always be the hanger of my youth. It was dark inside, with a few large jets parked, but for me, as a kid, this was the only hanger Monarch had. I glanced at the counter, where countless luminaries and pilots came to pay for their fuel, and I marveled at how small this area appeared. As a young boy of 5 or 6, I could not see over the counter. Now I marveled at how short it was in the faint light.
This was the hanger that my grandmother, Rose O'Carroll, used to bring us to, when she drove her big Cadillac on the inside of the field, and she was give us Tums, which we thought were candy.
It was at this hanger that I met Edgar, and my brother Brendan and I loved him. He used to show us how to box, and treated us like adults. Edgar, a Marine, and a veteran of Iwo Jima during World War II, was hired by my grandfather, when Edgar came to Chicago in search of work. My grandfather respected Edger, and the example he set through his hard work. Scotty O'Carroll didn't make many friends when he hired Edgar, since the airport was an all white domain. But my grandfather didn't give a damn what people thought, and hired Edgar anyway, making him the first black employee on the airport.
Hiring Edger was a civil rights first for Midway, so its appropriate that among the many dignitaries to come through this hanger also included Martin Luther King. Pilot Phil Felper recounted the time he met Martin Luther King at this hanger, when Dr. King had chartered an airplane. Felper told him how much he respected what he was doing, and Dr. King thanked him for the comment. Phil had known a similar form of racism. While in an interview for a position in the airport, Phil gathered from the way the line of questioning was going that the interviewer was angling to try and determine if Phil was Jewish. Finally Phil, who has a temper, said, "Look, do you want me to work or pray?" The message got through, and Phil got the job.
As we stood by the old office, Brendan motioned for us to walk towards the center of the hanger. We ducked under the tails of two Gulfstream 4 jets, dodging their massive wings, until finally we were in the center of the hanger. Brendan surveyed the floor, as if he was looking for a lost contact lens. "Ah, here it is," he finally said, as he walked towards an area of the floor below, and bent down to confirm it. "Check this out,", he said, motioning me to examine the spot. I bent my knee, and noticed that this part of the concrete floor was different from the rest of it. It was lighter, due to a patch job to repair a crack. On this patch, of wet concrete was written, "Fred, 1968".
I couldn't believe it. I knew that going around the airport one last time was going to be hard, but up until that time, I had kept my emotions in check. Seeing Fred Farbin's signature there really made the moment come alive. It was Fred who had filled up Wilbur Wright's plane in 1945. Fred Farbin had been hired by my grandfather at the age of 17, and except for a stint in the Merchant Marines, he had never known any other work, spending his whole life at Midway. It was Fred who had put down money as a deposit to get this very hanger in the first place, when he had heard it was for lease, and Monarch's original hanger on Cicero avenue was in need of repair. He told my grandmother about its availability, and the rest, as they say, is History.
Brendan and I stood there a moment, silent. We told our younger sister Katie, but she remembered Fred, even though he had died back in 1985. I remember his infectious laugh, and cool sunglasses, and the green station wagon that he drove. He used to give me jobs as a kid working out there, and it seemed like I was always assigned to weed whacking work, or painting a fence. But an assignment from Fred never seemed like toil, since it was such a pleasure to be around him. He would talk to me for hours about the old days, and what the changes he had witnessed in aviation throughout his life. He had seen it all, and from Orville Wright to Ronald Reagan, it seemed that everyone who was anyone came through Monarch on his watch. I sat down with him years ago in a decrepit space in the old Army hanger, that Fred used for an office, and I interviewed him with my tape recorder about the old days. I was only about 15 years old, but he always treated me like one of the crew.
I was flooded with all of these memories, as I'm sure Brendan was as well, and after a moment of reflection, I reached down and touched his name in the cement, before standing back up, and sighing. "Let's go," before walking towards the exit, and onto the dark tarmac.
End of Tour.
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