Back in the '90s, me and the wife use to go on weekends to the local RC Club (Mountain RC) and watch them fly; we always had a great time. Then in 2000, I was sitting in my house when there came a knock at the door. Not knowing that answering the door was going to change my life forever, I opened the door to be face to face with two sheriff's deputies and a priest.
They began to inform me that my wife of 16 years was killed in an auto accident. After that day, I became a hermit and started trying my best to drink myself to death. In no time, I was drinking a liter of whiskey every day on top of 16 or so beers. I took an early retirement and just sat there in the house and was slowly drinking myself to death. This went on for a couple of years, till one day I just had to get out of the house, so I decided to take a drive out to the river where me and the wife had made so many wonderful memories. And that drive to the river just happened to go right by the RC Club we had sat many a weekend and watched them fly. I almost didn't stop but I did.
As I was sitting there watching and thinking and missing my wife, it dawned to me that I was drinking my life away and in doing so I knew she wouldn't want that for me. So, after all the times we had been there, this was the first time I got out of the car and walked over to where all the fliers were ... next thing I knew, I was talking to the friendliest group of people I had ever met. And one gentleman came up to me and hand me a pamphlet that literally changed my life. I learned to fly and have been flying for 25 years and been sober since the time I learned to fly. So, in a way, flying RC planes saved my life.
