The Last Time I Saw Him

It has been nearly 22 years. I don’t remember the exact date… the very last time I actually saw him…spoke to him. But I know it has been nearly 22 years.

Summer 1985…we were moving from Maine to Delaware. Changes…big changes going on in our lives. Our first son was born in April of 1985. Ten days after his birth I learned my job would now be in Wilmington, DE. Ah the joys of “corporate life.” So the summer of 1985 was spent loving our son, getting used to being parents, finding a new house, selling the one we were in and organizing our move.

August 25, 1985…we were ready…for the most part. We had found and purchased a house in Delaware. We had sold our house in Maine. We were back in Maine for the final time…to watch the emptying of our house, the loading of the moving van and then to head south. We went to sleep that night looking forward to seeing all our neighbors one more time, saying goodbye, promising to stay in touch and more.

Early the morning of August 26, 1985…knocking on the door…frantic knocking on the door. My wife went downstairs, opened the front door, I heard muffled voices, then her scream. Our next-door neighbor had come over to tell us there had been a plane wreck in Lewiston/Auburn. A Bar Harbor flight out of Boston…bad weather…the plane had crashed…all eight people on the flight had perished. And he was on board.

We bought the house two years earlier. Only about 5 years old…a quaint, 3 bedroom, two bath, New England cape. Cute, very functional and well insulated to withstand those fierce Maine winters. What a great neighborhood! A loony lawyer and his family on one side. An executive recruiter and his family on the other. Across the street were the police chief and his family, a merchant marine and his family, a Scott Paper executive and his family and more.

We were the youngest couple…childless at that time. But we all melded into a group that had a rather joyous two-year run as neighbors. People liked us…we were from the South…they liked hearing us talk!! We liked hearing them talk because after all, they had the accents, not us. We baby-sat so those with children could have an occasional night out. We bought firewood together…cut it…split it…carried it into the various houses to be consumed in the ever-burning woodstoves. Cleared the driveways of snow together. We hung out in the yards. We ate impromptu meals. Cooked out together.

We played all manner of practical jokes on one another. He left dead fish in our mailbox after I asked him to bring us some from a fishing trip. I, with the legal prowess of my next-door neighbor, “sued” him for “harassment by fish.” We filled his van with helium balloons one night and watched…snickering as he opened the door the next morning going to work. He retaliated later by disconnecting the battery cable in my car…snickering no doubt. Calling on the paper mill where he worked, one day I showered the inside of his van with hundreds of my business cards. We had loads of fun.

He grew up in Massachusetts. He went to the Citadel on a track & field scholarship. While at the Citadel he studied literature in the same class with a guy named Pat Conroy. He was told he had talent for writing, for literature. He pursued and earned a degree in engineering. Mr. Conroy went on to write novels that became movies.

He survived the rigors of the Military College of the South and went on to serve in the US Air Force. Vietnam was raging at the time. By luck…sometimes he said he didn’t know whether it was good luck or bad luck…he landed in Goose Bay Labrador instead of Southeast Asia. He said Goose Bay was as cold as Vietnam was hot but at least no one was shooting at you. He clearly understood and was more than grateful for his good fortune in this regard.

He met his wife at the Air Force base in Goose Bay. They married…had two beautiful girls…he embarked upon a very successful career in the paper industry. They ended up in Maine while we were there. Simply by chance, we became neighbors.

We knew each other only two years. He has been gone from my life for nearly 11 times that. Yet he had lasting influence and impact on my life. Having lived in the South for a while, he appreciated much about my wife and me, our families, our traditions, our “Southern-ness.” He laughed about much of it too!!! Though our first child was born in Maine, he thought it wise to make sure our son had a firm grip on his Southern heritage. He thought “Diesel Freight Train” as the boy’s given name would go a long way toward this. He was a mentor to me…a sage…understanding and smart…kind and compassionate…the older, wiser brother I never had. He taught me how to make sure a lawnmower blade was balanced after sharpening it. He taught me how to fish for white perch. He taught me about being comfortable in one’s own skin in the professional arena. He taught me to put lime on my yard to kill the weeds…lime was much cheaper and just as effective as some of those high priced “weed & feed” products.

He was nice to my wife, my parents, my sister and my brother. He held and comforted “Diesel Freight Train” more than once thus comforting us. He laughed and smiled a lot. He tolerated my cigarette smoking. He played the harmonica. He was my friend.

Alan Carroll Saveall died on August 25, 1985 with seven other people in the crash of Bar Harbor airlines flight 1808. He was 38 years old and left behind a wife and two daughters. A little over two years later, our second son was born in Wilmington, DE. Alan Price Carter is now a freshman at UNC Chapel Hill. He is there on a NC Teaching Fellows Scholarship. He is pretty fair writer himself, loves literature too. He never met the man he is named after. I am quite certain however that the two of them would have gotten along famously.

Listen to Dick's interview with David Carter