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“To do what you wanna do, to leave a mark – in a way that you think is important and lasting – that’s a life well-lived.”
— Laurene Powell Jobs
Accumulating clippings, notes, earmarked books, unmarked photos and mysteriously scribbled- on pieces of paper is what writers do. We of ten consider ourselves to be quasi-historians, known to keep an immense library of outwardly appearing random reference material because we might need it someday.
And sometimes simply because it’s about an inspiring life well lived, one we feel worthy of documenting.
While performing the once-a-year, whetherit ’s-needed-or-not, organization of outwardly appearing random reference material last week, I matched up a picture, an obituary and one of my old columns. The photo was taken in 2017: Albert Thompson, Charles Hutchins, Jim Chionsini and me at the 60th Anniversary of A&A Machine and Fabrication in LaMarque.
The photo hung on my office wall until I left there recently. The obituary will be 1 year old Oct. 17, both related to a friend about whom I wrote in the mid-1990s while at the Boerne newspaper in the Hill Country.
“An old friend popped up in the news this week and stirred up lots of memories,” the column starts. “While listening to NPR radio early Friday morning at the office, I heard the name Charles Hutchins.
“I met Charles in the early 1980s. We were introduced by a mutual friend and newspaper associate, Jim Chionsini. Charles worked for A&A, co-founded by Jim’s father. In the years that followed our meeting, he became a faithful reader of my columns. Sending notes, comments or additional info.
“The radio interview focused on the Commemorative Air Force’s lifelike reenactment of the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor. Hutchins, and the CAF of which Hutchins was a member, were scheduled at a festival preceding the Kentucky Derby horse-racing classic to perform their reenactment known as ‘TORA! TORA! TORA!’” “The pounding of horses hooves running at full power at Churchill Downs creates excitement,” I wrote, “but equally exciting is the pounding horsepower of WW II era aircraft engines at full power. If you’re addicted to that sort of thing. Which I am.”
“Charles Hutchins is as nice a man as you’d ever want to meet,” my column continued. “He’s quiet, polite and best resembles a corporate executive. In fact, when he’s not piloting vintage airplanes for fun, racing them at more than 200 mph just above the desert floor, he’s working as vice president and general manager of A&A Machine Shop.”
I smiled, then reread the 2023 obituary. Charles Leo Hutchins passed away on Oct. 17, 2023, in League City at 86. He was a 1955 graduate of Texas City High School. He worked for Union Carbide as a machinist apprentice before he was invited to work with Manuel Chionsini and Fred Heinemann who, in 1957, started A&A Machine Shop.
He worked there for 62 years, first as a machinist, then retiring in 2022 as a managing partner.
T he obi t not ed Hutchins possessed a quality too often lacking in business today. He was interested in his employees, frequently visiting and talking to each one, shaking their hands, and showing an interest in their lives.
Out side busines s, “Papa Charles” was involved in activities with his sons and served as a lay preacher at a church in Texas City. He was involved in the Celebrate Recovery program because he cared about those addicted to alcohol or drugs.
Hutchins learned to fly in 1959 in a Piper J-3 Cub. He joined the CAF “TORA! TORA! TORA!” Airshow Demonstration Team in 1975, flying his first airshow in October 1976. He became “TORA!” lead in 1987, serving for 23 years.
His honors in aviation were many: winner of the Reno National Champion ship Ai r Races AT-6 Gold National Championship in 1995; cofounder of the Wings Over Houston Airshow at Ellington Field; awarded the Lloyd P. Nolen Lifetime Achievement in Aviation presented by WOH Airshow; the Marvin L. “Lefty” Gardner Flight Excellence Award; and the CAF’s Lloyd P. Nolen Achievement Award. In 2006, he was awarded the Sword of Excellence presented by the International Council of Airshows, for which he was chairman, the highest honor in the airshow industry.
He was inducted into the CAF Hall of Fame in 2013.
I smiled again. Then I carefully placed the photo, the column and the obituary in a file, labeling it “Charles Hutchins – inspiration for a life well lived.”
Because it’s what writers do. That, and write about people who have inspired them and no doubt many others.
—Contact Aldridge at leonaldridge@gmail. com. columns are archived at leonaldridge. com
