Col. William W. St. Clair, RIP

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 03 Dec 2001 19:41:46 GMT

12/3 - 14:15

My dad died on the evening of Sunday, December 2, 2001. This memo tells a little about him and relates the story of my learning about his death, traveling to visit my mother and my siblings, the funeral, etc.

My dad retired at age 55 from the Wyoming Air National Guard. He was a Lieutenant Colonel at the time. He flew fighters and then transport planes, was a champion rapid fire pistol shooter, flew sailplanes, hunted deer, antelope, elk, and moose, played tennis and golf, built and flew radio control sailplanes, and taught me more about life than I will likely know for a long time.

For the last couple of years, he suffered from one of the multitude of nervous system degradation diseases. He was quite often confused, and this was made worse by the fact that he didn't hear very well; one of the hazards of being a champion pistol shooter. I last saw him near the beginning of August. We took a trip to the Snowy Range, places where he often took us, my brother Steve and me, fishing. It was a nice visit. Now that he's gone, I'm really glad I went.

I talked with him on the phone on Saturday afternoon, December 1.

A couple of weeks ago, he fell backwards down the stairs in our house in Cheyenne and hurt his back. Apparently he fractured some vertabrae. It had been hurting him quite a bit. My mom took him to the hospital on Sunday, don't know yet exactly why. They called her Sunday night saying that he was having a hard time breathing. She drove right there, but he was gone before she arrived.

I'm a junior, named after my father: William W. St. Clair, Jr.

My mom called me in the office on Monday morning, and told me what had happenned. It was like being sucker punched. I knew he was likely to die in the next two to three years, but didn't expect it so soon, without any warning.

I arranged for a trip from Albany to Denver, 100 miles south of my parent's house in Cheyenne, Wyoming. US Air gave a sizeable "bereavement" discount on the fare. This was my first airplane trip since 9/11.

I arrived at the airport over two hours in advance. There was no line at the ticket booth. I showed my virtuallythere.com E-ticket receipt and my driver's license, and received a boarding pass. Security was a little different than before 9/11. The computer had to come out of its case and ride through X-Ray in a separate plastic container. The box full of pocket metal also went through X-Ray. I walked through the metal detector without setting it off, put the computer back in its bag, and went on my way. Total time from when I entered the airport to when I cleared security, about 10 minutes. The ticket counter lady told me that it gets lots busier around 3pm. I came at 1:30.

On the other side of security was a woman soldier in camos with a rifle slung over her arm, barrel pointed down. There was also a black-uniformed sherriff officer present. Noone asked me anything.

I sat in the meditation room and cleaned myself out a bit. This helped the sucker punch feeling quite a bit. Then I sat down and wrote this essay up to here.

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