TERRIBLE TIBOR

Tibor arrived in North America penniless and unfamiliar with the language, but well before I met him he’d established a chain of studios specializing in child photography and become modestly wealthy. This despite the fact that he was a terrible photographer who tended to frighten children and even small dogs. He’s the best example I’ve ever met of someone you have to love, even while they fill you with dread of what might happen next.He was an adolescent in Czechoslovakia when the Nazis invaded, bless his heart. With hoards of others, he ran for his life into Russia and ended up a cadet flying Yaks. Before long, the way he told it, all the ‘real’ pilots from that base had either moved up to combat assignments or… when some general demanded a demonstration. Tibor, still in training, happened to be the most experienced pilot available, and was called on to exhibit skills the command wished he already possessed. He did okay until the landing part.By way of remediation, he was given thirty days in the brig before climbing back in the cockpit. That, presumably, would teach him not to make any more bad landings!Tibor was telling this story the day we met, while getting us stuck in traffic – sideways. In a town so small there was controversy about whether to install the county’s first traffic light, Tibor had accomplished the seemingly impossible, pulling out of a parking lot and somehow blocking both lanes of the main drag. Horns were honking from left and right and I was trying to crawl under the seat, as he finished his story with the triumphant words, “I should have been dead fifty years ago, I don’t give a s- -t.”My dentist in that small town was Tibor’s back-to-back neighbor, and enjoyed regaling me with stories about him whenever I was in the chair. One winter morning the dentist looked out his bathroom window and saw Tibor in his undies, shoveling snow into a wheelbarrow and hauling it inside the house… Crazy? Oh sure, but even for guys like Tibor there’s always a reason. He could easily afford an indoor swimming pool, but was too cheap to buy a thermostat for the pool’s heater, and had inadvertently left it turned up while away for a couple weeks. When he returned the whole house was a steam bath, wallpaper peeling and all the rest.Tibor flew from our field for several years, always displaying the most abysmal judgment. He took a friend up once, a power pilot who’d never been in a glider. Tibor got them out of range and was gliding back too slow in sink, when (really, I ain’t making this up) the guest realized they’d never make it and took over. Speeding way the heck up was all it took, and they did reach the field. He consistently landed his Cessna like a glider, but his glider like a Cessna. One day he stalled his glider so high and so short that pieces flew off from the impact before he coasted through those blue lights onto the end of the runway.Then came the time Tibor wanted to see an airshow a few miles down the road and went there in his Cessna. He arrived a little late and the event had already begun, so of course the airport was officially closed, but he just flew in anyway. Representatives of the FAA were in attendance, no surprise, and that’s when Tibor was found to have never held an actual pilot certificate!Just when we all were sighing relief that he’d not be terrorizing us anymore, we got a call — from Tibor. Seems he was ready now to throw down for some flight instruction, and I would have the honor of being his instructor. Oh joy.