“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
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Accumulating clippings, notes, earmarked books, unmarked photos, mysteriously scribbled-on pieces of paper, meaningless mementos, business cards, and other small pieces of junk. It’s what writers do. We often consider ourselves to be quasi-historians. Known to keep an immense library of outwardly appearing random reference material. Because we might need it someday.
Or sometimes simply because these things are reminders of an inspiring life well lived. Lives about which we are compelled to write.
While performing the once-a-year, whether-it’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 came home to write recently. The obituary will be one year old the 17th of next month. Both related to a friend about whom I wrote in the mid-90s while at the Boerne newspaper down in the Texas 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, Jim Chionsini. Charles worked for A&A, cofounded by Jim’s father. In the years that followed our meeting, he became a faithful reader of my columns. Sending notes from time to time, comments, or additional info about something or someone about whom I had written.
I was honored when Charles trusted me to collaborate with him in writing the history of A&A Machine and Fabrication for the company’s 60th Anniversary celebration.
The radio interview focused on the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) life-like reenactment of the December 7, 1941, Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor known as TORA! TORA! TORA! scheduled at a festival preceding the Kentucky Derby horse racing classic. Hutchins was a member, of the CAF and flew his North American AT-6 converted to resemble WWII Japanese aircraft in the reenactment.
“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. And so was Charles.
“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 wearing blue jeans. In fact, when he’s not piloting vintage airplanes for fun, or racing them at more than 200 miles-per-hour 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 October 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, retiring in 2022 as a managing partner.
The obit noted that Hutchins possessed a quality that is 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.
Outside of business, “Papa Charles” was active in activities with his sons and grandchildren, 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 Championship Air Races AT-6 Gold National Championship in 1995. Cofounder of the Wings Over Houston (WOH) 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 International Council of Airshows (CAS) 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 share the stories of people who have inspired them. And no doubt inspired many others as well.
—Leon Aldridge
(Photo above: Left to right, long-time friend and newspaper business associate Albert Thompson, Charles Hutchins, Jim Chionsini, and me at the 60th Anniversary of A&A Machine and Fabrication in LaMarque, Texas, in 2017.)
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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, the Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.
© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2024. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.
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