When I was seven, I could identify the difference between several common passenger aircraft by the shape of their wings and tails.
By nine, I kept a notebook filled with drawings of airplanes I had seen from my bedroom window.
And by twelve, I had decided that one day I would own an aviation company.
My father laughed when I told him.
Not because he thought I was foolish.
Because I had announced my plan while sitting on the kitchen floor surrounded by cardboard wings, glue, and pieces of a model airplane that refused to fit together.
"Own an aviation company?" he asked.
I nodded.
"Yes, sir."
He leaned against the kitchen counter.
"That's a pretty big plan."
"I know."
He smiled.
"Then I guess you'd better learn how airplanes work."
My father, Robert Cole, was a maintenance technician at an airport equipment company. He repaired ground-support machinery, inspected electrical systems, and sometimes worked overnight shifts when equipment failed before morning departures.
He wasn't a pilot.
He didn't own an aircraft.
But he understood the machinery that kept airports operating.
He also understood the people.
Mechanics.
Fuel technicians.
Ramp workers.
Cleaners.
Caterers.
Dispatchers.
And the countless others whose labor made air travel possible long before passengers stepped onboard.
My mother, Evelyn Cole, worked as a public school librarian.
She loved books almost as much as my father loved machines.
Between them, they taught me two habits that shaped my life.
My father taught me to understand how things worked.
My mother taught me to understand how people were treated.
Neither lesson was easy.
My father often returned home exhausted, his hands rough and his shoulders aching from long shifts.
Some nights, he ate dinner standing beside the kitchen counter because he was too tired to sit.
But whenever I asked a question about airplanes, he found time to answer.
He explained how lift worked.
Why maintenance schedules mattered.
What weather could do to flight operations.
And why small errors in aviation could become serious if people were too proud to acknowledge them.
"An airplane doesn't care how rich you are," he used to say. "If something's wrong, it's wrong."
My mother approached life similarly.
She believed every child deserved to be treated with dignity, regardless of their parents' income or position.
She helped students who struggled with reading.
Stayed late to organize school programs.
And reminded me that intelligence wasn't measured by how confidently someone spoke.
One evening, when I was thirteen, I returned home angry after visiting an aviation exhibition with my father.
A representative at one of the displays had repeatedly answered questions from white children while overlooking mine.
At first, I assumed he hadn't heard me.
Then I watched him turn toward another boy standing behind me and answer the exact question I had asked.
I stopped trying.
On the drive home, my father noticed I was quiet.
"What's wrong?"
I stared out the window.
"Nothing."
He waited.
Then asked again.
I finally told him.
My father listened.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he asked, "Was your question worth answering?"
I turned.
"Yes."
He nodded.
"Then remember that."
I frowned.
"What?"
"The fact that he didn't answer doesn't make your question less important."