Chapter ten
Captain James F. Kirk
Beginning when he was born, James Kirk has always been a character and kept his parents laughing or crying. He was the youngest of five children to James J. Kirk and his wife, Jane. His home town was Carson City, Nevada.
James’ parents own a small casino on the Carson Street in Nevada’s capital city. Basically this future pilot was raised differently than most children. He learned early, that his parents ran a business. As a toddler he spent his time in a playpen in the office at the establishment.
As he grew older, his usual baby sitter was his older brothers and sister, and when he was bad they were the ones that got in trouble. From his early childhood, Jim loved to fly things. He flew kites and paper airplanes. When he turned 17, for Christmas, he received a remote controlled airplane that he crashed almost daily.
In Kirk’s high school years, he was known as the trickster of Carson High. He knew or invented every trick that you could play on another person. Halloween was his favorite holiday because it was open season for tricks if he didn’t get a treat. He even tried it with the girls when he wanted a kiss for a treat. That one always got him in deep trouble.
After Jim finished high school he went directly into the Air Force and became a real pilot. In the service he continued his trickery and almost got kicked out due to his hurtful ticks.
Jim Kirk flew missions in Iraq and Kuwait during Desert Storm and received many honors for his bombing accuracy. When he left the service after four years, he went into training to become an airline pilot for United Airlines.
Stewardess would say that James Kirk was a playboy and a jerk. He was constantly jumping from relationships to relationship and never even realizing that he might have hurt someone. It was getting to the point where some females wouldn’t fly on the same airplane with him.
A few years later he decided to settle down with a stewardess, Maggie Scmidt, who lived in Houston, Texas. They were married, but with both of them on different schedules every week as well as financial problems, they were divorced after five years. He and Maggie had a cute little boy whose name is Joey and he is now ten years old.
Because he was single he volunteered almost every week to pull an extra shift. This really added to his woes since he had so much money coming in every week someone wanted to help him spend it.
The same day…………………………Houston, Texas
“Daddy, Mommy told me to wake you up. You have to fly today…In a few minutes…We didn’t get to spend very much time together this time. Wake up.”
“Uhmm, What? What time is it?”
Mary walked into the room a called to Jim from the door, “You’re going to be late again if you don’t hurry. I guess they’ll have to wait the flight for the pilot….Maybe.”
“I’m coming…I can get there. That Trans Am is fast when it needs to be.”
“You can’t take my car…What am I going to use to take your son to school?”
“Then call me a Taxi…I have to go. The plane is waiting.”
Ten minutes later, the Taxi was speeding Jim Kirk to the airport for his flight to LA. Jim mumbled, “I hope that co-pilot filed the flight plan cuz I sure didn’t.”
Jim Kirk, carrying his back, sprinted the full length of the airport in Houston, arriving at the gate just as the standby passengers were boarding. The attendant at the gate rushed him down the ramp and handed him his paper work as he entered the plane.
His co-pilot for this trip had never flown with Kirk before. He’d only heard stories about Kirk and his antics. Danny Denner had been a pilot for only three years and usually had great respect for the older experience pilots. The co-pilot was beginning to get a bad impression from Captain James already.
The first thing Kirk asked Denner when he walked into the cabin was if he had filed a flight plan. Denner looked at him with a frown and told him, yes. This was a great relief for the Captain.
Denner spoke, “So Captain Kirk is it? I thought for a moment when I saw your name on the manifest that it was a joke. You really are Captain James Kirk.”
“Yea, what of it? I’m not Captain James T. Kirk, that’s my dad.”
Again Denner gave Kirk a strange look.
Kirk continued, “Not really, his middle name starts with a ‘J’. JJ Kirk they called him. And you are?”
“Denny Denner, I’m not a Captain yet. But I heard a lot about you.”
“I bet you have….We better stop gabbing and get this bird off the ground. We are late already. How’s the weather in LA, Denny?”
“At the moment it says cloudy with light turbulence over the coast. Some weather coming in, but nothing special to speak of…they say there is a tropical storm or possible hurricane winds one hundred miles off Baja.”
“That sure is a lot of no weather. OK, here we go to runway 14C and fourth on the list. Denny, why don’t you do the honors of speaking to the people before we say bye, bye.”
“Yes, sir.” Denny clear his throat and gave the welcome aboard speech. In addition, he did the short version of the weather in LA. “Mostly cloudy with a chance of rain by evening with wind gust twenty five to thirty miles per hour.”
It was a beautiful summer day in Houston as the United flight climbed in elevation in order to cruised at 30, 000 feet. Kirk turned it over to Denner so he could catch up on his sleep.
Denny Denner was anxious to get home to Los Angeles to spend some time with his young family. Denny’s wife and three young children were to meet him at LAX in four short hours from now. He had been traveling away from home for over a week in New York, Boston and even London since he was LA last.
When they were flying over New Mexico, Kirk woke up and started a conversation with Denny. “So Denner, were you ever made fun of for having a name like that, Denny Denner? It’s kind of a strange name isn’t it?”
Denny politely said, “Well, no…Made fun of? They didn’t’ make fun of my name as much as they fun of me being a pastor’s son. I was OK with it…It is what it is.”
“That’ a pretty good attitude… You a Christian then? One of those holy rollers or something?”
“I guess you could say that…except I never rolled around and never saw anyone roll around. If you mean did we praise God and love him with all of our hearts and soul…I plead guilty.”
“Whoa, I didn’t want to preached at….I think I’ll go back to sleep. Wake me when we get over Barstow, OK, preacher man.”
“Yes, sir, I will”
As soon as the airplane crossed into Arizona the turbulences pick up. It was as if a giant hand was shaking the airplane from side to side. Denny took complete control of the airplane because the auto-pilot kept switching off due to the movement. He tried to wake up the captain but he couldn’t let loose of the stick or the plane would lose control.
Finally, he had to call back to ask the lead stewardess to make an announcement for everyone to fasten their seat belts due to the heavy turbulence. Denner told her he was really busy in the cabin because the Captain was still asleep.
A huge turbulent hit the plane and Kirk woke up in fright. “Denny what’s happening? The plane is jumping all over. You didn’t tell me about this.”
“Sir, I tried to wake you but this was not on the wire. It was windy on the coast but we are over Arizona.”
Kirk got up to take the stick and another turbulent hit the airplane. The Captain fell to the floor of the cabin and was knocked out cold. Immediately Denner notified the lead stewardess and he unlocked the door of the cabin so she could get in.
Susan, the lead stewardess, came in and looked at Kirk. She told Denner she was going to make an announcement to see if there was a doctor or a nurse on the plane. Susan quickly left the cabin.
Denny Denner continued to battle the wind and now the rain that was pounding the plane as they approached the border of California. The co-pilot notified the nearest tower that the Captain was injured and they advised him to change his flight plan to another airport further north.
He informed the tower that he couldn’t authorize changing course because he wasn’t the pilot so he continued toward LAX which was a half hour away.
When Denny finally was able to contact LAX tower it was too late to head north to Fresno or Sacramento. With the airplane jumping all over the place, he was told to climb as high as feasible and circle until further notice.
