Seven Andrews always wanted to fly. It was instilled in him since his earliest memory. The Colonel told him stories of his days in the army air cavalry, gripping the yoke of the Patricia Ann and sliding along just above the never-ending jungle canopy of North Vietnam. The Colonel always smiled when he told the stories. He described each mission with the detail and precision of a jeweler. Seven would watch the old man’s mouth move and digest every word as he envisioned the UH-1 Helicopter that the Colonel had named after his one true love. The Patricia Ann was the formal name given to the Huey helicopter that the Colonel flew through two tours in Vietnam. He was only a lieutenant at the time he flew “Patty,” as he called her, over and into some of the most treacherous and demanding terrain in Southeast Asia. “Patty always got us home,” he said at some point during each of the monologues of his time in the Air Calvary.
“Patty” was no longer a turbine-powered helicopter, but the namesake of the war machine was now the matriarch of the family that had raised Seven Andrews for as long as he could remember. The Colonel named his blessed war machine after his high school sweetheart, whom he married just before joining the U.S. Army in 1968. Seven knew her as “Gran” and it was easy for him to see the comparison between her and the mighty flying machine that always brought the Colonel home. She was a tiny woman, “slight but sturdy,” as the Colonel described her. Her shoulder-length graying hair was always pulled back into a tight bun that seemed to keep her face in an ever-present state of concern and seriousness. She always wore a full-length dress and never exited her bedroom without her face made up in the traditional southern-woman style. For all her slightness she was strong, powerful, and the only force of nature that could contain and control the Colonel. She would smile on occasion, but those moments were few and far between. She was a typical southern grandmother who spent her days preparing meals and maintaining the structure and fortitude of her family. The Colonel and Seven were