When I reached age 60, in 2005, that was the retirement age. I decided to become a DC-8 flight engineer again. There was no maximum age for FEs. The retirement we had at the time sucked and I decided to work at least to age 65 or until UPS parked all the DC-8s.
My 60th birthday was August 16. My Mom's 81st birthday would have been August 20th, but she died on the 18th. I was in ground school at the time, so I had to take some time off to travel to Pittsburgh for the funeral.
We celebrated Mom's 80th birthday the year before. My mom had survived a heart attack and a stroke. She was tough. As she was walking to the building where the surprise party was to be held with her sister, Aunt Marion, friends and family were waiting inside. My brother Kevin said, "Don't make this surprise too big. Remember, she is 80."
It was a really nice event and she was very happy. I was already in Pittsburgh the day before and called her to wish her a happy birthday. I sensed that she was a little disappointed I would not be there for her birthday, but did not want to ruin the surprise. She learned she had lung cancer about 4 months later.
For the rest of the time before her death, I was still a 757/767 captain. I was senior enough that I could hold good schedules and was able to travel to Pittsburgh to hang out with Mom. She lived in a condo with Aunt Marion and I remember one time I was hanging out with them playing games at which they were kicking my butt and I was accusing them of cheating. Fun.
Doreen and I attended the meeting with the oncologist, when they discussed the fact that her cancer was incurable and whether she wanted to go through cemotherapy or not. She decided not to. As the pain got worse, she was asking people to pray for her to die. She never said that to me.
Doreen, Caitlin, Mike and I drove up there. Mike drove his own car, because he had to leave immediately after the funeral mass. He was very upset that he could not stay longer.
When I returned to Louisville, I had to make up the time missed in ground school on the DC 8. It wasn't too hard, because of my previous time plumbing on the plane, even thought it had been more than 20 years prior.
There is not too much that is interesting to talk about of my 3 years as a DC 8 flight engineer. I was becoming more and more junior every month, because there were people who were senior to me on the list, but younger in age. As they retired and became flight engineers on the 8, they pushed me down on the list. I was flying trips to San Juan, Puerto Rico, New Orleans and Memphis, hot places, in the summer and cities near the Great Lakes in the winter. I remember one night in Toronto, as I was doing the walk around, with deicing fluid dripping on my overcoat. The wind was blowing across the ramp and the temperature was very cold. I thought about retiring as soon as I got home. I wised up and kept working. I didn't like the Great Lakes cities in winter, but the other places in summer weren't that bad. It was in the best interests of my family, that I work to 65. I did not want to reverse the direction of the cash flow into my retirement accounts.
One of the fun bid periods on the 8, was when I flew with a guy who was an instructor for Initial Operating Experience (IOE). That is the final stage of training for pilots and engineers before being released to the line, training in the airplane on line trips. This guy was training a new first officer (copilot) during each trip. I would fly 4 trips with this guy, with a new FO on each trip. He liked to make sure the FOs knew he had flown F-16s. Sometime on the first leg we flew together, he would tell them. On the fourth trip, after hearing this shit 3 previous time, I just could not control my big mouth. I knew it was coming and when he did it I said, "Hey, I did not know you flew F-16s," in a really surprised tone. He just looked at me and smiled, because he knew I was just a smart ass. We really had a great time hanging out, going to good restaurants and busting balls.
I spent 3 years plumbing on the 8. The company and the union settled the new contract at about 2 years or so. This was the one that had a reasonably good retirement plan, so I could have left, but decided to stay.
It wasn't long before there was talk about changing the retirement age for pilots to 65. At the time, it was not clear if UPS would allow geezers like me to upgrade, if still younger than 65. I was around 62 or 63 when the change occured. UPS decide to allow us to upgrade. The first system bid occurred when I was 63 and my seniority only allowed an upgrade to the 747-400, based in Anchorage.
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