Two-way streets...

“Helping others has a double benefit...

to the receiver and the giver.”

– anonymous

We are generally at the YMCA between 6:50 and 6:55 in the morning. Class begins at 7. Almost every time we came, the kid was sitting on a bench in the hall…earbuds in and a distant look in his eye as he fiddled with his phone.

He was young, early teens, and slight in stature…brown hair and eyes…Hispanic.

After a while, I began to engage him. “Hey man, you should come exercise with us old guys,” I said. He just smiled and went on listening to whatever his ears were sucking up, as sounds were shoveled into his mind.

This went on for several weeks. The comments were different, but all intended to find a connection with this youngster. One morning, I asked his name. “Thomas (Tō-mas),” he said.

“I’m Ted,” I replied. And off I went to the exercise class. From then on it was Thomas and Ted.

Over the next couple of months, when we got to class a little early, he and I fist bumped for our morning greeting. You know how it is when a youngster is engaged by an adult. It takes time.

In the beginning, he had the look like, "Hey old man, can't you see I am busy here." Then it was an expression like, "You are kind of strange dude," followed by a smile. Over time, I found him looking for me when I came around the corner heading toward the exercise studio. By now, I was asking him about school and what the heck he was doing sitting on the bench so early in the morning.

As the story emerged, his father brought him to the YMCA where he waited for his mother to pick him up and take him to school. The product of a broken home, his parents, had sorted out a workable schedule.

In those early mornings and brief encounters, I talked to him about school and how important an education was. Nothing substantial, just passing comments…light, but consistent. I discovered he was fourteen and interested in the military. I told him about being an air traffic controller in Vietnam, and how much I enjoyed controlling airplanes.

A couple of weeks before school ended, he said he wouldn't be at the Y anymore, at least for the summer. I had continued the drumbeat of, "Hey, you ought to come exercise with us." His last day, he brought his shorts and tee-shirt and jumped into class until his mother came for him. YES!! It was a win.

That was the last time I saw Thomas, until…

A couple of months ago, as we arrived for class, a much taller fifteen-year-old boy came around the corner. It was Thomas! When he saw me, he smiled, and we immediately engaged one another. Yeah, school was going okay, and by the way didn't I tell him I was an air traffic controller? We talked for a few minutes before I had to go. "I want to join the military when I am old enough," he said with more certainty than the year before. "Is air traffic control a good job?"

“Yeah, it is,” I said. “And, it can be a very good after the military too. If you get trained in the service, you could stay in, or when you get out, control civilian traffic."

I knew, of course, he really had no idea what air traffic control was about.

Sometimes, however, the stars align in the most unpredictable ways. I sit on our local YMCA Board of Managers. It so happens one of our Board members, Sergeant ‘E,’ is in the Air Force AND was an air traffic controller. I talked with him to see if it might be possible to arrange a tour of the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base tower and radar facilities. He thought that it might be.

The next task was to get in touch with Thomas's parents to get permission to communicate with him. I got in contact with his mother, met her and the tour was arranged.

Saturday morning, a couple of weeks ago, a fifteen-year-old kid, his mother, an Air Force Master Sergeant and an old ex-military air traffic controller, found themselves in the control tower at the Air Force base, followed by a visit to the Tucson Radar Approach Control Center (TRACON).

Thomas's eyes were wide and shining as they looked in wonder at the magic that is air traffic control. It was a weekend, so the tower was relatively quiet, but the darkened radar approach control center, run by civilian controllers, was alive with aircraft. All air traffic approaching and departing the Tucson air space was displayed on large digital screens. The supervisor let him listen to the controller/aircraft chatter. Watching his focus as he listened to real-time conversations was gratifying.

When the day was done, I felt Thomas had a sense of the excitement and energy air traffic controllers have for their profession. He and his mother thanked Sergeant E and me for the time and opportunity. 

I don’t know what direction this young boy’s life will take, but he and I found a small common place in our lives on which to stand. I’ll do what I can to continue to encourage him…maybe even get him back in that early morning exercise class.

Epilogue: It should be noted there was another young man in the tower and radar site that Saturday morning. While the technology is light years ahead of the day when he worked a radar site in the military many decades earlier, watching those folks doing their jobs reminded him of a time when he did something he really loved...memories have no age...a gentle smile crossed my face.

Thanks, Thomas…

ted