The week before Father’s Day would have marked John Brodak’s 24th Annual Fly-In. As his daughter, Jackie, travelled to her father’s gravesite, she noticed the silent & empty skies that lay over Carmichaels. There was no buzzing of engines from control line airplanes. There was no familiar smell of engine fuel that quickly let Jackie and her siblings know, as they were pulling into our home’s driveway, that “daddy was flying.” This year, there were no Brodak Fly-In banners or road signs along the way to her parents’ home. There were no newspaper interviews or TV news segments. There were no RV’s lining the field. There were no voices welcoming friends back for the 24th year. There were no handshakes, smiles, or high fives exchanged. There were no Brodak Fly-In blocks of rooms at the local hotels. There were no once-yearly visitors patronizing local restaurants. There were no people standing in a long buffet line in front of the Brodak’s garage on Friday night. There were no hot dog stands, tee shirts for sale, or award ceremonies.
You might ask yourself, just how much of an impact can one man make? For Jackie, it reminds her of the classic movie It’s a Wonderful Life, in that you never know how many lives you would not have impacted if you had never been born. “My father did exist and his caring touch along with his gentle, giving heart impacted thousands of lives,” Jackie shares. “His businesses provided numerous job opportunities, and most of the people in Carmichaels have worked for my father in some way, shape or form. He had a strong belief in the Chamber of Commerce, and ‘buy local’ is what he always taught us. His annual Fly-In brought people to Carmichaels from around the world.”
Recently, Jackie watched her father’s last Fly-In interview. In it, he was asked how the Fly-In began. John said, “A dream.” That is something that my father has instilled in his children. He would always say to Jackie, “Spottie, if you can dream it, and are willing to work hard for it, put your whole heart into it, and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it, it will come true.”
In John’s last interview, he also was asked what the biggest change over the last 23 years of Fly-In’s was. He replied, “The bell curve changed with the age category of participants. In the early years, mostly the elderly flyers dominated.” He also noted that “over the years I have lost 45 older flyers,” and each of their names is on a plaque in the airfield behind the Brodak’s house. In the later years, the trend was more towards the children. John said “This (last) year, we have more children than any other competitions, including 5Ks, and me and my daughter can relate to the popularity of local 5Ks.”
“It is very fitting that 24 years ago, my father chose Father’s Day weekend to host his Fly-In,” Jackie says. “My father was ‘daddy’ to four [Missy, Jackie, Dena, and Joe], but a wonderful father figure to hundreds. My father has given these children a positive hobby that they can participate in their whole lives.” She adds, “Every Halloween, my father made sure every child received a bag of candy at the Carmichael’s store, as each department in the store handed out candy.”
John Brodak had been seriously ill for over a year before the pandemic arrived. During that year, Jackie did not let anything take precedence over visiting him, no matter if he was home or in one of the different hospitals he had stays in. She “made” him do his physical therapy. When he was home, they would walk (and talk) in the airfield together. “When my father’s condition became life threatening, and he had to be hospitalized as of last December 12th, I began spending every weekend with him, and one day during the week when I had a day off,” Jackie shares. “My father and I talked (while he still could), and he wrote with me when he couldn’t. I asked him for his opinion/advice about my present and my future. We laughed, cried, remembered when, and when my father started to fall asleep, he always placed his foot on my knee to make sure I wasn’t going anywhere.”
When the quarantine went into effect on April 5th, Jackie had spent her last day with her father on the 4th. “He was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t understand. I handed him a tablet and he wrote ‘Not give up.’ At the time, I thought he was talking about himself, and maybe he was. Now that my father has passed, I believe he was giving me his last bit of advice.”
The last two weeks of her father’s life, Jackie and her family were forbidden to visit him. She called hospital personnel and directors twice a day and begged, but was never allowed in. It was not until April 23rd that she received the call saying, “You can have 45 minutes on the 24th to say goodbye to your father.”
“How does a daughter who worshipped her father tell him all that she needs to say in 45 minutes? I’ll tell you how – don’t wait until you only have 45 minutes. Don’t waste a minute, especially when your loved one is ill and suffering. Comfort them and help them along their path,” Jackie shares. “I am an eucharistic minister. As I left my father’s side, after saying a rosary for him, I shared communion with him and said ‘Daddy, I’ll see you soon, and I’ll make you proud of me, I’ll always choose to do the right thing, although it isn’t always my first choice, and I’ll ‘not give up.’“
John passed on April 25th at 1:57 pm. Jackie believes that those who suffer immensely on earth are cleansed here and they go directly to heaven. She trusts that her father was through heaven’s gate before 2:00 pm. Because of the COVID restrictions, John was unable to receive a proper viewing or burial and Jackie was not granted the honor of reciting the eulogy that she had written for him over the winter months as she watched him sleep. She would like to share a version of those writings.
“When I started junior high, I came home from school and asked my father, ‘How old do I need to be before I stop calling you daddy?’ My father replied, ‘When you think you are.’ I’m 56 years old, and I want to share what is was like having my father as my ‘daddy.”
“When I was 9 months old, it didn’t take long to discover whose side of the family I would take after. I never crawled. I rolled to the coffee table, reached one hand up, grabbed ahold of the tabletop, reached the other hand up, steadied my legs, and took off running.”
“I started in my daddy’s stores when I was 12 years old. It was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Children who have electrifying, explosively high energy, as I admit I had and still have, sometimes are put on drugs. Instead, I asked my grandmother to please put me to work. In the stores, my father taught me to respect everyone, judge nobody, always seek ways to help others, and always thank those who help you. My father instilled in me the belief that if you can dream it, are willing to work hard for it, put your whole heart into it, and don’t let anyone say you can’t, it will come true.”
“My father was a powerful man, and he deeply loved his youngest and last living brother, George. George passed on May 1st, the day after my father was taken to his final resting place. It’s said that he died of a broken heart, and this I can understand. The day my father took his last breath, I felt my heart break in half. Half of my heart is in heaven with my father, and it won’t be whole again until we are back together.”
“Daddy, I can still hear you. I can still feel you guiding me, and your electrifying spirit dwells inside of me, encouraging me to ‘Not give up.’ So long as I am alive, you will never die. You were too powerful of a man to become dust to dust, as I know I won’t either.”
In 1954, John purchased his first reel to reel camera. From 1954 to 2019, he recorded every birth, birthday, holiday, vacation, graduation, marriage, grand opening, Fly-In, anniversary, and family get-together; wherever he was, he had a video camera in his hands. “It was critical to my father that our family history would be preserved and passed down through the generations. Every Christmas, my siblings and I would receive a leather box of DVD’s of that year’s events, each dated and titled. My favorite DVD’s are the earlier years when we were all just small children. There was no sound capability at that time, and my father added his voice years later to narrate our family’s beginning and he’ll always be with me.”