Yeager: An Autobiography

When the time came, I was ready to get out, and I think Chuck was, too. His retirement was the Air Force's loss, and although I don't think he would have been happy serving seven years longer without being able to fly, in my opinion-prejudiced of course-he should have received a second star. We spent our first month in retirement at Jackie's place in Indio because the house I bought for us in Grass Valley wasn't ready-a big, sprawling house with redwood siding in a forest of madronas and Douglas firs, with a big pond out front where mallard and wood ducks brood in season. We planned to stock it with trout and bass. Grass Valley is in the California Gold Rush country, in the foothills of the Sierra, and my family has lived there for three generations. The house was really the house of our dreams.

Starting our new life at Jackie's was a good idea, a way to just unwind with not much to do but horseback ride and soak up the sunshine. While we were in Pakistan, Jackie had suffered a serious heart condition and now wore a pacemaker. During our time at Norton, Chuck did weekly grocery shopping for Floyd and Jackie, who, as a retired Air Force colonel was entitled to use the commissary. He bought about three or four hundred dollars' worth of groceries every week and drove it down to them

She and Floyd were really in poor health, and it was sad to see. Jackie just couldn't accept growing old. She hated it passionately-couldn't stand it mostly because she was forced to retire from competitive flying, and finally had to sell her Lodestar, which really crushed her. She was in her middle sixties. But I'll hand it to her, she decided Chuck should have the Congressional Medal of Honor and went chasing after it and nailed it down. It was a wonderful honor that might not have happened if not for her. But after all her work, she felt so poorly that she couldn't make it to the ceremonies in Washington. Neither could General Boyd, who died only a few weeks later from cancer. That news was really a depressing shocker.

We were Floyd and Jackie's closest friends and saw a lot of them in the last years. Floyd died at age eighty in 1977, and Chuck was named executor of his estate. Floyd asked that his ashes be scattered over the ranch to nourish his plants and flowers. Chuck and another friend took care of that, but some ashes were blown back inside the airplane. Chuck and I agreed that was the way to do things when our time came-only be neater. And no services, nothing, we had had enough of those during our years in the military, although it was impossible to get Chuck to go to any of them. He'd say, "What difference does it make? The guy won't know whether I was there or not." I'd say, "That's not why you go. You go to lend support to his survivors." The only one I could get him to attend was when Eleanor Anderson's mother died; he did that out of respect to Bud and Eleanor, and he put on a suit, too.

After Floyd died, Jackie began to rapidly decline. I think she just gave up and wanted out. She suffered heart and kidney failure, became swollen and had to sleep sitting up in a chair. It got to the point where friends didn't want to visit her because she became so impossible. Chuck continued to visit and was about the only one on earth who could get her to smile. She died in August 1980, in her seventies, living in a modest house because the ranch was sold to a condominium developer.

I started my own little business, buying properties around Grass Valley, and kept very busy, but it took Chuck a while to adjust to retirement. He kept a sixteen-pound sledgehammer in the garage that his dad had used in the gas fields of West Virginia, and used that to break up firewood. It was great exercise, but it meant he was bored. He chopped mountains of firewood. He'd putter around, building cabinets, chopping wood, wondering what to do with himself from one minute to the next. He drove me crazy, he drove Bud crazy, and I thought, "How many years is it going to be like this?"

Gradually he got into the swing, and, as always with Chuck, things began to fall into place. He had invitations to go out and make speeches-that had never stopped since the sound-barrier flight-and he began accepting. Friends invited him to hunt antelope in Wyoming, and he and Bud hunted dove and quail in the fall, and still, every July, they go on a two-week backpack into the Sierra. Those two carry in fifty-pound packs and trek about 125 miles up to a lake where the golden trout spawn, at thirteen thousand feet.

Somewhere along the trail he discovered hang gliding, and took up that. Then some West Virginia Republicans came along and tried to get him to run for the Senate against Robert Byrd. Chuck just laughed and said to me, "Can you imagine me doing that?" I said, "Nope." A Hollywood movie director named Hal Needham asked him to work on a rocket car speed record and on the movie, Smokey and the Bandit 2. They raced at Rogers Dry Lake and got the car up to Mach 1.

And, of course, he couldn't keep away from Edwards; he went down there to fly every chance he got. Northrop also hired him as a consultant, which gave him a chance to fly their F-20 and F-5 airplanes. The amazing thing about Chuck is that his eyes are still perfect. I can't even thread a needle with my glasses, but he does it for me in a flash. Of course, he can't hear worth a darn. He and Bud both, from all those years of roaring jet engines, but Chuck says he just turns up the radio in his headset so that it rattles the whole cockpit and he gets along fine.

Over the years, I was much more apprehensive about his driving than his flying. But now, when we go somewhere, he sets that darned cruise control at fifty-five and that's it. It's so boring I actually complain. But Chuck really hasn't changed. He's off and charging as much as ever. The publicity over The Right Stuff turned up all the burners, and that phone rings off the wall. He could be traveling every day of the year, but Chuck does what he wants to do, when he wants to do it. We have an agent to handle the commercials he does on television. A.C. Delco's sales went through the roof after Chuck began appearing. The nicest part is knowing that his accomplishments are appreciated out there. We could use a couple of secretaries to handle all the mail, but you know who does that chore.

We've had a good life. I wouldn't change a whole heck of a lot, even if I could. I have my routines. I feed the ducks out on the pond and take care of our pet, TDB, which stands for "That Damned Bird." TDB is a male quail that we found while walking in the woods. Its mother was killed by a hawk. I took him home, and he thinks I'm his mother now. He has the run of the house and follows me around pecking at my shoe. But he'll allow only Chuck to pick him up and pet him. He has been with us for five years.

My mother lived with us for four years, until her death in November 1983. She was an invalid from a stroke and needed my constant attention. So, the nine years since Chuck's retirement have just zipped by. This year we celebrated our fortieth wedding anniversary, which hardly seems possible because we're still relatively young. I figured we had it all because we had our health and were active. Chuck is probably in better shape today than he was years ago because he gave up drinking, watches his weight, and walks two to three miles every day. But my annual physical examination last year was a shocker. I felt fine, no complaints, but they discovered cancer in my pelvic and abdominal area, possibly the result of all those X-rays back when I was carrying Susie. I spent some time worrying what would happen to my family, thinking "Why me?" I was angry. But after thinking it over, I decided to fight. Will and determination can sometimes defy the odds. Having lived with Chuck so long, I know that's true.