Grounded

One of my biggest regrets in life is that I never got my pilot's license. I often wonder what kind of career I'd have had if I took the money I spent on getting a college degree and spent it instead on auction school and flying lessons.

I’ve always been mesmerized by small aircraft, and I come by it honestly. I grew up in a small town two hours north of Hollywood, and many of the stars kept their planes at my hometown’s famous airport because it was seldom fogged in. Steve McQueen had a couple large hangers filled with fast cars and even faster airplanes.

I got scared off flying a little because a couple of my idols had their brilliant careers cut short when they crashed, including Will Rogers and Jim Croce, a favorite singer of mine. Richie Valance also crashed in an airplane called American Pie, which lent its name to a famous song by Don McLean.

The first time I ever flew in a small plane was when my wife and I were going to school in Australia and a nice lady took us up in her Cessna and showed us Australia’s Gold Coast from the air. I was immediately smitten. After that I flew in small planes almost on a weekly basis because many purebred auctioneers flew their own small planes to get from one sale to the next, and I often hitched a ride. I could either spend eight or 10 hours driving or two hours flying. It also often meant I could be home with my wife every night instead of sleeping in some lonely motel.

I announced a video sale once a month for over 20 years, and my friend John Rodgers hauled me to most of them all over the west. We flew in the fog, in the snow and one time over Donner Pass in smoke so thick we couldn’t see a thing. Johnny called the tower in Reno and asked what we should do, and the air traffic controller suggested prayer and told us to try to avoid crashing on anything expensive or inhabited.

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