Chapter seven
Glenda Clinton
San Francisco, CA is the home of Glenda Clinton. She was born and raised as an only child in the place they call ‘The City.’ Her parents, Dr. Cecil and Dr. Louise Clinton, practice medicine at St. Luke’s Hospital in downtown San Francisco. Needless to say she had a lot to live up to when she was young.
Her Dad, Cecil, is a pediatrician and learned a lot of his procedures practicing on his own daughter. Louise Clinton is a surgeon specializing in eternal medicine. They both are heads of their departments in the hospital and had high expectations for their daughter.
Glenda was an average student throughout her years in public elementary school. He parents constantly push her, yet to no avail. Entering high school they thought they would try a different tactic and put her in a private high school which had high standards.
Dr. Clinton was raised Catholic but Louise was raised Baptist. So there was much discussion in which high school Glenda would attend. They visited Abraham Lincoln High School on the western side of town and a nearby Catholic High School, St Ignatius College Prep School. Cecil leaned toward the Catholic so he liked St Ignatius. They also visited a large prep school near San Francisco University called SF University High School, one of the top rated high schools in the country. Glenda chose University because she liked the cheer leader’s jerseys, and Mom picked the one closer to where they lived which was Abraham Lincoln.
Who would win this epic battle to determine poor Glenda’s ultimate home for four years? The eighth grader just wanted to go to school and have fun, but her parents had different ideas. Finally all three agreed on SF University High School where she spent four long years trying to please her parents.
One thing that did please Glenda’s parents at UHS was that in her freshman year she made the junior varsity cheer leading team and in addition, she made the varsity team the rest of her high school days. Glenda was very outgoing and loved to direct people in almost any endeavor accept her school work. She had to be tutored and directed in that.
Because of her determined personality, a tutor and great mentor throughout high school days, her final GPA was a presentable 3.1. She made all state in cheerleading and was a whiz in all her science projects.
One of her Science projects for her junior year in Physical Science was a homemade wind tunnel to simulate heavy winds and hurricanes. Her passion was anything about the weather. Her parents were, needless to say, disappointed.
Now it was time for college and the Clinton family had prepared for another battle. Each had an idea where Glenda should go to college. They all wanted it to be close by and have available majors in the fields Miss Clinton preferred. It was a tough decision. They all chose Stanford University. Just down the freeway in Palo Alto.
Mom and Dad Clinton had Glenda at an older age in life. While she was in college her mom got deathly sick and later she had a stroke. Glenda’s remaining years at Stanford were extraordinarily tough. The college student was force to come home almost daily to assist her Dad in the care of her Mom. Eventually Louise Clinton had to have a full time nurse which freed more of Glenda’s time for more school work.
Again with determination and persistence, Glenda finished her degree in Earth Science with a major in Environmental Earth System Science. She graduated with honors and decided she desired further study in the Science of Weather so she enrolled in a Masters of Science program at the graduate school of Stanford University.
After finishing graduate school, Glenda decided that living at home through all these years of high school and college, it was time she found her own place and got a job to take care of her own expenses. Her Dad was getting rather old and her mom was in Senior Care.
Immediately after finding her own condo on the north side of San Francisco, she got a job at a local TV station working odd jobs and doing secretary work. She enjoyed the daily work but what she enjoyed the most was watching the live broadcast of the weather. She used the skill she had learned to assist some of the on-the-air personalities with their weather lingo and simple forecasting.
A few months later it was natural that she would find a job on the air at a local channel because of her vibrant personality. She was hired as the chief meteorologists at Channel 33 in Salinas CA. It really wasn’t the place Glenda wanted to move to, but it was a good job, with good pay for a couple of years and she obtained plenty of firsthand experience.
After her tenure in the Salinas Valley, Glenda again looked for an on-the-air job in the bay area because she wanted to return to her home. Her dad was failing in his health and he needed her to be around. Glenda helped her dad move into a small apartment that he could handle and she rented a room from her him.
The young reporter found a job as a part time weather personality for channel two in Oakland. Her duty was to help write the scripts and research the weather numbers before they were broadcasted on the air. Glenda was also the personality they would put on the air to fill a spot when someone wasn’t able to be there. The management of the station was impressed with her investigative journalism and her knowledge of meteorology.
It wasn’t long before that the management at channel 2, hired her as the weekend weather personality and later as the daily morning meteorologists.
Glenda was in her arena on the morning show. She loved working with the others on the show. After a few months one of her male colleagues on the morning show, decide he wanted to ask her out. The young female reporter was very ambitious and focused. She was not ready for a boy friend and really not even ready to go out at all so she told him no. He was not pleased.
Management got wind of the male reporter pursuing Glenda. The female reporter had hinted leaving and running to the competition. They did not want to lose her at any time let alone now. Not only did the General Manager get rid of the male reporter, he offered Glenda the lead position on the morning show with a substantial wage increase. Needless to say in the future, male employees thought twice before confronting the young Clinton with unsolicited invitations.
Glenda Clinton met Dr. Suyaki and Dr. Cochrane when her bosses ask her to attend a hurricane conference in Philadelphia, PA. This was the very same conference that Pe and Josh Deerly had attended but they didn’t meet Glenda at that time.
She kept close contact with Dr. Cochrane of whom she had studied in her Master’s program at Stanford. Frequently he would come to the City and do workshops that the young reporter would always attend. Dr. Cochrane was one of the foremost lecturers on typhoons and hurricanes in the world.
Dr. Cochrane, Dr. Kuyaki, Glenda, Josh and Pe all studied this new hurricane and came up with the same conclusion. This storm was one of the most powerful storms in the history of the world and at the present time, according to their calculations, it looked as though it was heading straight for the most heavily populated metropolitan area in America.
Chapter eight
Mason McNabb
Mason was born in Alaska before it was a state. His family were pioneers and were able to stake a homestead in the Matanuska Valley in the 30's. They farmed the land in the long daylight of an Alaskan summer. Mason and his four siblings learned the art of subsistence. They were schooled not only to survive in the harsh wilderness but to thrive.
At times when McNabb was young, things were really tough. In the bitter winter of 58 when he was quite young, he lost a sister who wandered off in a blizzard and they found her body a week later frozen in a nearby creek bed.
Life in Alaska can be bittersweet. Mason was an avid hunter and the family survived from the meat he and his brothers brought in from the wilderness. His sisters dressed and prepared the meat even in the dead of winter.
Most households in the Alaskan frontier were not able to send their children to college. If they were lucky enough the families either home schooled their kids or sent them to the one room schoolhouse in the nearest large town.
Mason attended a majority of his schooling including most of high school in a one room school. He didn’t' go to college but he learned plenty from his parents about running a small business and survival in extreme circumstances.
Shortly after he graduated from Palmer High School in the 60’s, he enlisted in the Air Force and became a pilot. Mason was able to avoid Vietnam because he flew mostly cargo planes. He used this experience later in his business delivering cargo to the bush of Alaska.
Mason was in the service for four years and brought his skills back to the Great Land. He and a friend, George, bought a single engine, four passenger airplane and began a small business of shuttling missionaries and supplies to many villages in the interior of the state. Throughout the 70’s they flew almost daily to the bush. Their company was well known all the way to the lower forth-eight.
As he grew older as a single man he missed his family back in Palmer and the old farm that the McNabb’s had owned since the 30’s. He visited them very rarely. His older brother took over the ranch and his parents were able to retire with a pretty good income coming in each month.
When Mason’s parents became feeble and ill, the pilot decided he’d better spend more time with his elderly mom and dad. Weekly he would fly his little plane into the small airport at Palmer and his brother would pick him up and they both would visit with his parents in a senior home in Wasilla.
Both of the pilot’s parents passed away within a few months of each other. This was really hard on Mason who had spent so many years away from them when they were strong. His small business suffered tremendously until something incredible happened.
Many years before at Palmer High, Mason met Julie Jennings. In those days McNabb was not interested in girls because he and his siblings worked night and day keeping the farm productive especially in the long Alaskan summers. Julie had eyes for Mason but he ignored it and she left Alaska for a while.
When Julie returned in the 90’s she was still a single woman, but she came back as certified public accountant. In fact she did the books for Mason and his partner, George Gear, who was also a pilot, in their chartering business.
After a short courtship, Julie and Mason were married and they decided to expand their business into larger cargo planes like the ones Mason flew in the Air Force. It was an expensive step for the little business that George and Mason started many years before. Julie added a tremendous amount of clout and experience to the business and profits went through the roof.
Twenty-five years and three grown children later, the McNabbs were expanding again. They were purchasing two cargo jets from Hunter and Palmer based in New Jersey and manufactured in Los Angeles. His first new plan, an Antonov AN-26 light cargo jet, was waiting in LA for pickup. Mason and Julie with their pilot, George Gear, were preparing to pick their plane up.
The same day ........................Anchorage, AK
Mason and Julie walked hand in hand toward gate 24. George was already waiting for them at the gate. They were running late and it took them a while to get through the TSA check point. Julie spotted George first and waved. Their plane was boarding.
Julie spoke first, “George, I’m glad you got here in a hurry. We had to see the grandchild before we left and we…I didn’t want to give here back to her mom.”
Mason quipped, “I’m glad you said, I….I knew we would….”
“No, we aren’t late, yet….We are boarding, now…So we are not late.”
George inserted, “Let’s go…We have first class and they are boarding right now.”
The three friends hurried down the walkway toward the Alaska Airline’s Boeing 737. They boarded and in a few minutes they were heading for LAX.
Later in the flight, the pilot reported that there was some weather in Los Angeles but nothing that he and his co-pilots couldn’t handle. He told them to sit back and relax and have a great flight.
