Grandpa Washburn died when I was 4 years old. I don't remember much of him, but I remember the love. I remember an Easter egg hunt at his house. At that time in my life, it was the biggest one I had ever been to, maybe it still is.

True Life Story by AlDean Washburn (around 1967): In the Stake presidency, I use to have to travel 120 miles from Ridgecrest where I lived to Palmdale Calif. where the Stake Center was located. I would fly into Lancaster in my Cessna 182 (a small 4 seater with a single prop.) and then drive an old 4 door Hudson car I had stored there the 15 miles from Lancaster to Palmdale. I made many trips that way to Stake Presidency and other meetings that were held there. In December, I was on my way back from a late Sake Presidency meeting in Palmdale and I got into a snow storm between Mojave and Ridgecrest. So I dropped down and followed the highway out of Mojave past Four Corners towards Red Mountain flying just about 100 feet off the ground staying under the clouds. Just before I got where I could see the lights of Red Mountain, it began to snow very hard. I knew I was in the clouds and should do a 180 turn and get out of there. But I also knew I was almost to the pass in Red Mountain so I set forward in my seat straining to see the Red Mountain lights knowing that if I could make it through the pass the weather should be clear. Then I noticed that the motor on the plane was revving up much higher than it should be and automatically pulled back on the yoke to raise the nose and lower the speed. However, instead of slowing the motor, it sped up even more. I quickly checked the instrument panel and saw what every piolet dreads and that was that I was in a dead-man’s spiral. I was circling to the left and headed towards the ground. The only thing pulling back on the yoke had done was to tighten the spiral and speed up my descent. At this point my air speed indicator was maxed out and in the red. I knew I couldn’t be very far from the ground, so I quickly leveled the plane using the horizontal indicator. However, because of my air speed and the fact that I was still pulling back up on the yoke, once I stopped the spiral and brought the nose up, it didn’t just level off, but shot me almost 2,000 ft straight up into a big thunder head and very violent weather. Up there the winds were terrible and tossed my plane around like it was nothing and also completely though off my sense of balance. Every time I felt like I had straightened out my flight my instruments said I was in another spiral. But when I followed the instruments to straighten out the plane, I felt like I was hanging upside down and was spinning in a dizzying manner. I first thought my magnetic compass was broken because it was turning around and around, but then checking on the electronic compass, I saw it was doing the same thing. And during all of this I was being buffeted and kicked around by violent winds. I decided that I need to have faith in my instruments and so I jumped on the controls with both hands and both feet and held it in a steady decent according to the instruments even though it felt like I was flying upside down. I flew that way a couple of minutes feeling disoriented, mixed up and still feeling out of control of the plane when I came out of the clouds and could see a tiny light down below. Some farmer was up at 2am in morning. I don’t know what he was doing, but I am so grateful he was up and had turned on a light. Because as soon as I saw that little light my whole orientation straightened out I was once again in full control of the plane. And sure enough I was sitting upright just like the instruments indicated I should be. I dropped down under the clouds and turned around and headed back the way I had come thinking I would land at Edwards military base even though they would probably impound my plane. But I that point I didn’t care. However, by the time I made it to Edwards I could see underneath the clouds to the lights at Fox Field where I had taken off. So I flew on to it and landed about an hour and a half after I had left. I tied my plane down and got in my old Hudson and drove it into town where I took a motel room for the night. I called Clara and told her the weather was bad and I would come home in the morning. The next morning right at the crack of dawn I was in my plane and flying home. It was still cloudy and it had snowed about 6 inches where I hit the storm the night before, but in the light of day, I was able to fly under the clouds and was safely home in just about 20 minutes. The thought came to me then and often sense what a great difference it makes walking in darkness vs. walking in the light in this life.