Taiwan - Chenjean's Village, String of Cups / Captain High's Last Flight

Thought about something captured on a trip to New Mexico while snapping this photo.  Don't know the significance of these little cup things but makes for some interesting content.
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A few months ago I posted a series of coincidences in five segments.  None of them, however, compares to the one I am about to tell.

My best friend in college was Kevin; one of our college adventures was posted here.  One of the things we had in common was that, prior to our freshman year, we both held jobs of high responsibility - he as assistant manager at one of the largest ice cream shops in Houston and me in both TV and radio broadcasting in the Golden Triangle of Southeast Texas.  And the following summer, between our freshman and sophomore years, Kevin got a job as fueler of those huge jets for American Airlines at the intercontinental airport, and me as a very important fat washer at a huge slaughterhouse.

Naturally, when we both got back to SFA for our sophomore year in the fall of 1978 there were lots of stories and adventures to tell.  One that Kevin related was that an incoming Texas International flight was the last for a retiring captain.  It was tradition in those days for a retiring captain of any stature to do a low pass over the runway at speed, then circle back for a landing.  So on that day all work on the tarmac was stopped so that the workers could gather on the edge of the apron to watch the spectacle.  Houston cleared all traffic, and this captain, with a plane full of passengers, streaked by at 300 knots, gear up, only a few hundred feet above the ground.  At the end of the runway he pulled up in what amounted to a shallow Chandelle, then circled back to land.  Kevin, who was among those gathered there on the apron, said he'd never seen anything like it, even at an airshow, and likely never would again.

Flashforward to 1987.  My grandmother died that year, and three of us siblings made the drive from East Texas to Kansas City in order to clear some of the stuff from her apartment.  It was a long, arduous drive, as neither of my brothers wanted to stop, preferring to drive straight through the night in both directions.  I cannot sleep in a moving vehicle, so it fell upon me to either drive or keep the other driver awake as the nights dragged on, usually by talking and sharing stories.

It was during one of these shifts, deep into the night, when my oldest brother, Bob, began to relate how he'd been on a flight that was the last in the career of its captain.  The pilot got on the intercom and explained to everyone that this arrival was going to be a little different.  Instantly I shook myself out of my groggy state.  My gosh, could it be so?  Bob then described how the captain descended, leveling off at what seemed to be a very low altitude, then screamed over the runway at speed with wheels up.

Yes, it was so - my brother WAS ON THAT VERY FLIGHT!  He described feeling the incredible sense of speed as the ground raced by, and catching a glimpse of the crowd gathered to watch.  Then feeling the G force as Captain High - yes, his name was Captain High - pulled up when he got to the end of the runway.

And thus it was that I was able to get two first-hand accounts of that historic event - both from outside and inside of the airplane captained by a man named High.