It was a sweet gesture Father Ramon Valera made at the beginning of the memorial service for 99-year-old Raul (Rod) Rodriquez at Mission Hills Catholic Mortuary recently.
The priest looked out at the 100 or so people seated in the crowded chapel, and knew exactly what they were thinking. Ninety-nine. Oh, so close to 100. If only.
Father Valera smiled and with the power vested in him from a much higher authority, he gave Rod Rodriguez the divine intervention he needed to reach the century mark.
“You know when something costs $0.99 cents and sometimes you just give them a $1.00?” the priest said. “I think we can just give this $1.00 to him.”
Father Valera was rounding out Rod’s 99 years to an even 100. Keep the change. Everyone laughed. Rod would have laughed the hardest.
He was the Mr. Rogers/Will Rogers of Jellico Avenue in Granada Hills — a man who always made you feel like the most important person in the room, and always left you with a laugh and a good feeling inside.
He and his late wife, Val — the beautiful, movie booth ticket girl he fell in love with and was married to for 61 years — were godparents to more than 30 children. Thirty. You don’t get that kind of trust and respect without earning it.
“He was a man who stood apart from our frenzied time through his values, decency, respect and discipline,” said Fran Pikhart, who lived across the street from Rod for 38 years.
“He never rushed, never was short-tempered. He was always manicured, dressed in slacks and a button down shirt. I think his first ever ‘pajama day’ was about age 95.”
Times were tough everywhere when Rod was growing up during the Great Depression. The San Fernando Valley was no different. As a boy, he shared one room with four sisters, and his packed lunch for school was too often saltine crackers, said his nephew Dan Somerville.
“With church on Sunday, bath night was on Saturday. He told me the whole family would share the outdoor tub, and he always had to follow his sisters in the same water.
“Being the only son out of five children, he was always the utmost gentleman, treating women with great kindness and respect.”
And, like Will Rogers, he loved to pull your leg. “He told everyone he used to have to walk to school barefoot in the snow,” his nephew laughed.
Rod never lived anywhere but the San Fernando Valley his whole life.
It was around 1934, at the age of 10, that he started building model airplanes, and his future began to take shape. His first job was as a hangar boy in 1939 at Metropolitan Airport, now Van Nuys Airport.
He worked after school and got paid a $1 a week or 15 minutes flying time. He took the flying time.
He moved on to working at a flight school seven days a week from dawn to dusk for $14 a week. He earned his instructor rating and began training military cadets at 18, but quit when the war broke out to volunteer for the Navy.
He received his Gold Wings from Naval Aviation School and, at 20, became the youngest Latino naval aviator in history. He was so good, the Navy assigned him to teach other pilots how to be instructors.
When he finally retired from aviation in 1988, Rod had put in a total of 34 years with Beechcraft/Raytheon — flying 16,000 civilian hours and 2,300 military hours, garnering many of aviation’s top awards.
But, put him in a room full of pilots, and he always found someone else more important, more interesting to talk about than himself.
Toward the end of his life, Rod wrote some words he wanted to be read to family and friends at his funeral. These were some of his last.
“When time allows now, I am taken back to 1934 when I once again return to building model airplanes. Of course, this time they are radio control models, but the memories of being 10 years old and in love with aviation are still with me.”
Raul (Rod) Rodriquez was buried in uniform with full military honors.
The flight log books at the pearly gates had him landing at $1.00 even.
Dennis McCarthy’s column runs on Sunday. He can be reached at dmccarthynews@gmail.com.