Mayday Over Wichita by D. W. Carter Page B

ceased to roam the earth. They are extinct. The axioms they lived by and left behind are not. As they discovered, it is only by understanding and confronting an unsettled past, no matter how traumatic or ugly it might be, that mankind can take hold of the peaceful present. Clyde G. Stevens, now in his fifties, is headed toward that peaceful present. Clyde was six years old when his father, Dewy Stevens, perished inside of 2037 North Piatt. His father gone and his mother abusive, Clyde was placed in a boys’ home for abused and neglected children in Los Angeles, California. He grew up bitter, angry and confused, never knowing who his father was; he bounced in and out of jail as an adult, abused drugs and alcohol, attempted suicide, but eventually—through God’s grace, as he declares—received his life back. 420
    In 2013, forty-eight years later, Clyde returned to the boys’ home and learned for the first time how his father died. He had never heard of any Piatt Street crash. No one ever told him. He was not alone.
    Without warning and without question, a montage of pain and intertwining fates fixed together by a defining moment of time on January 16, 1965, bequeathed many with grief. But Clyde now believes that the choice to learn from it and move forward or to remain captive is in his hands. He is no longer hidden by giant shadows or ominous clouds; his existence is no longer defined by tragedy. Faced with the vicissitudes of life, Clyde—among others—has gleaned from the value of forgiveness. The skies, for the first time in his life, are clear. And in Wichita, the forecast, too, is sunnier.

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