Page 6 - World Airshow News Spring 2023

Jeff Parnau: Editor at Large

Ilopango, Finally

T he past four-plus ILOPANGO AT LAST

Our most recent trip to the Ilopango Airshow prior
years found me
and Sandy on a
possible for us to attend until 2022, but due to Covid,
strict airshow diet. How to 2023 was in 2017. Our caretaking duties made it im-
did that happen? Simple: there were no Ilopango Airshows during 2021 or 2022.
Family comes first. Now, things seem to be back to normal (if there is
On July 23, 2017, we such a thing). In early February, we had the pleasure
had our annual family of attending the first Ilopango Airshow since 2020. As
picnic. Jim, my moth- you can see in this issue, I was no match for the pho-
er’s husband, took me tographers who contributed to my report. I am begin-
and my brothers aside, ning to think that Skip Stewart married Cari because
and explained he was she takes fabulous photos of him.
urgently looking for a
full-time memory care AN AFTERNOON WITH THE DARDANOS
facility. Taking care of Bubbles (her lifetime nick- IMO, Carlos Dardano definitely qualifies as a living
name) was becoming a 24/7 job. aviation legend. Sure, he flies airshows in his Christen
Early the next morning, Jim had a massive stroke Eagle II. But 35 years ago, he dead-sticked a Boeing
and died. During the following week, several rela- 737 to a flawless landing on a levee. That nifty feat is
tives split the task of spending days and nights helping now often called The Miracle on the Levee. As I men-
mom dress, preparing her meals, and keeping her oc- tion in our Ilopango coverage, Carlos performed the
cupied with crossword puzzles and card games. landing using one eye.
A week later at Jim’s funeral, Bubbles was lu- The other eye? It was shot out by some bad guys
cid enough to greet all of those who came to the while Carlos was preparing for a takeoff, with passen-
“Celebration of Life,” although she didn’t recognize ev- gers in his single-engine airplane. He took off as the
eryone. After that there was a lunch, and after lunch, shooting continued, and escaped. He’s been flying on
everybody disappeared except mom, Sandy, and me. one eye ever since.
We were alone. We realized there was no plan for tak- Somehow, Sandy and I were invited to visit Carlos,
ing care of Bubbles. We drove her to Jim’s condo, and his wife Chiqui, and daughter Andrea. Shortly after
thus began our stint as full-time caregivers for my we arrived at their seaside home, Sandy, Chiqui, and
92-year-old mother. Carlos took a dip in their pool, while I sat in the shade
taking photos.
CAREGIVING VS. AIRSHOWS We then hopped into their ocean-worthy boat,
What’s that got to do with airshows? A lot. We found docked at a restaurant for lunch, and did some addi-
it difficult to talk relatives into spending three or four tional sightseeing while returning to their home.
days and nights in the condo. Our annual week at Do a web search for “Carlos Dardano Interview” or
AirVenture was slashed to an arrival on Monday, and anything similar to that. You’ll find this guy to be ex-
departure on Wednesday or Thursday. We decided to tremely interesting.
attend one airshow in Des Moines, bringing Bubbles
along in our RV. We learned that it takes just as much
time to caretake whether you’re at home or 500 miles
from home; whether you’re in a condo or an RV. Publisher Sandy
Years passed slowly for us until July 2021. Then sud- Parnau livin’ it up in the
denly, mom awoke one morning, and she wasn’t mak- Dardano’s seaside pool.
ing sense at all. She began singing the song Show Me
the Way to Go Home all day. She wanted to do some of
the cooking, which meant keeping an eye on her at all
times. We finally realized we couldn’t give her the at-
tention she needed. We selected a facility 15 minutes
from our cottage. She had no problem with the transi-
tion, and we visited her frequently.
On February 12, 2022, she slipped away at age 96.

www.airshowmag.com 6 Spring 2023