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     As I finished my coffee in the dispatcher’s office, I heard the Huey - which was picking me up - radio the dispatcher that it was five minutes out.  Picking up my suitcase, I dashed outside and climbed the stairs to the roof where the secondary helipad had been set up.  This was the crew-change helipad, and was larger than the one I worked off of at the foot of the living quarters.  It was the highest point on Delta Platform and could easily accept a Huey.  I found roughly a half-dozen pilots and engineers clustered in one corner of the helipad – so I joined them and dropped my suitcase.

     I happened to stand next to a PHI pilot that I hadn’t seen before – apparently stationed on another platform – who had come over here for his ride to Morgan City.  Many of the pilots wore ball caps, this fellow didn’t; instead his bare head sported shaggy hair that shimmered in the sun.  He was nearly my height, a bit lanky, and appeared a few years older than me, with high, prominent cheeks bones, making me think he maybe had Cherokee blood.  His eyes were small and a piercing blue.   

     He turned to look at me.

     I nodded, and smiled in friendly recognition. 

     He then said, in a relaxed, soft-spoken drawl, “How y’all doin’?”

     “I’ll be d-doin’ one helluva lot better once I’m aboard that Huey,” I replied with a grin.

     He smiled warmly, and said, “Ain’t that the truth.”

     It was about then that we got our first indication of the Huey’s arrival - its unique “thump–thump–thump” began pounding away in the distance.  In time the silhouette of a Bell 204B materialized – the same type of troop transport seen in many Vietnam War newsreels and movies of that period.

     The Bell 204B Troop Transport in Vietnam.

      “Our” Bell 204B  with pontoons.

     It’s strange, dear reader, why Bell designed this bird to send all of its noise ahead of it – alerting the enemy.  For when the Huey passes overhead...this racket quits and it becomes almost silent.  As I watched it approach – for a moment in my mind – I was the Viet Cong waiting to pop up out of my hole and send an RPG up its ass.

      Since this was just before pop-out floats were invented, the Huey also had two giant, sausage-shaped, air-filled rubber pontoons in lieu of the usual skids. 

     After it landed, I followed my lanky-pilot friend to the Huey’s baggage compartment in the tail cone, where we tossed in our suitcases.  Except when we attempted to board the passenger cabin, we discovered it was filled up with bodies bound for – what we thought would be – the main PHI base at Morgan City. 

     I started to return to the baggage compartment, to retrieve my suitcase, when my lanky new-found friend said,

“Might as well leave our suitcases in there, pard.  They’ll be gettin’ to Morgan City before we do.”

     His suggestion made perfect sense, so I waved “bye-bye” to my suitcase as the Huey departed with it.

     A half-hour later another Huey showed up and my lanky friend obtained a seat, but alas, I once again got bumped.

     Twenty minutes after that another Huey showed up - finally I had a seat and was happily on my way.

       Morgan City.

     Upon reaching Morgan City, my Huey sat down in what was then the largest commercial heliport in the USA.  PHI even had its own proper control tower - supervising the hundreds of flights launching and arriving from dawn till dark each day – not to mention keeping track of all those helicopter flight plans throughout the gulf.  The Morgan City Base was a big operation.

     The PHI Heliport at Morgan City, in 2019, before the company went bankrupt.

  

        The occasional visitor to the PHI Heliport, which kept pilots and mechanics fleet of foot.

     I checked in with dispatch to locate my suitcase and, much to my horror, was informed the Huey carrying my suitcase was making the rounds of other rigs.  I also searched the pilot lounge and passenger waiting room for my lanky friend, and was informed he had already left for Nashville.  Apparently he wasn’t interested in waiting for his suitcase.  I, on the other hand, had to wait for mine as I had a new Nikon camera and other important items in it. 

     I ended up waiting five hours – pacing, kicking rocks and fuming - before that goddamned Huey showed up with my suitcase. 

     Man...was I ever pissed off, dear reader, for listening to that soft-spoken pilot.

     I would never encounter that lanky-pilot again, even so, during the next year idle company gossip concerning this guy kept following me around.

     Alright, dear reader, let’s play my favorite game: “Name That Celebrity.”  These are your clues.    

     This pilot came from a military family, who had wanted a career in the army for him.  He was also evidently bright; becoming a Rhodes Scholar.  He did well in the army, learning to fly helicopters, rising to the rank of captain and was offered an instructor’s position at West Point.

   

          Then he hit a rough patch – deciding he needed to “find himself” – chucked his career in the army, was disowned by his family, divorced his wife and wound up as a ragged-assed helicopter pilot flying the gulf for PHI. 

     So why the Gulf of Mexico, dear reader? 

     In a word: solitude.  While the rest of us fished, played cards or Ping-Pong, and read tacky/trashy paperbacks – “our boy” used this dead time to sit, think, consider his future and write songs.  This was why he was commuting to Nashville, Tennessee, in the hope that he could peddle his songs.  At first success eluded him.  In fact, he became so desperate that he rented a helicopter and landed it in the backyard of Johnny Cash. 

     Oddly enough, Cash was home and came running outside.

     “Our boy” feigned engine problems and asked if he could use the phone.  Once inside, he chatted Cash up, and, before he departed in the helicopter, left Cash several tapes with his songs on them.  One of those songs was “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” which Cash would later win “Song Of The Year” for at the 1970 Country Music Association awards ceremony - helping to launch “our boy’s” career towards stardom.

     Cash performing at the awards ceremony.

     I’ve given you all the clues I can, dear reader, without hitting you on the head with a coke bottle.  So who was this ragged-assed, Gulf Coast helicopter pilot?

          You are 100-percent correct.  It was Kris Kristofferson.

     Even to this day, I’ve never forgiven him for losing my suitcase for five hours.  I’m certain Mr. Kristofferson still loses sleep over it.

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