Courtesy of Don Newell
Don Newell, left, and Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, in Vietnam in 1969.
The Columbian lost a faithful subscriber last week. And I lost a good friend.
Since shortly after I became The Columbian’s editor in February 2017 — I can’t exactly remember when — I’ve eaten lunch about once a month with a reader named Don Newell. We generally ate at Local Asian Bistro in Felida, not too far from his home. Our last lunch was Sept. 19. I had my favorite green curry, Don ordered the chicken yakisoba, and we chatted about local politics, the news business and ourselves for about an hour. We planned to meet again this week or next.
Last Sunday, I got this note from Don’s wife, Vicki: “Craig, I have some bad news to share with you. … Yesterday early evening he unexpectedly passed away! He had gone upstairs to read the paper about 6 p.m. I hadn’t heard the walker bouncing around for a little while, and so went up to check on him.”
The first time I met Don, I was expecting things to be a little tense. He had called me to let me know he didn’t think that The Columbian’s editorial page did a good job reflecting conservative views. (I still get that complaint.) He wanted to take me to lunch to explain his position. He was polite, and obviously very intelligent, so I agreed to meet him on the condition that we each paid for our own meal.
We ended up having a good conversation. As a journalist, I am naturally curious about people and their lives, and how their experiences help form their perspective.
Don had lived a very interesting life. He had spent his career as an Air Force officer, where he had hoped to be a pilot. Instead, he spent a good amount of his career as a navigator on giant cargo planes.
As we got to know each other better, he admitted he did fly the planes when the pilots would give him a turn. He had a good story about making a hard landing and getting chewed out by the commanding officer, without either one of them actually admitting that Don had landed the plane.
He flew all around the world, and was stationed in the U.S., Panama, Germany and Asia. He was a veteran of the Vietnam War, and in 1969 was part of the crew that flew “The Bob Hope Christmas Special” cast and crew to various points around Vietnam. (For readers younger than I am, Hope was well-known for putting together a comedy-variety show and taking it overseas to present it for free to front-line troops.)
The first time Don told me the story, I convinced him to write it up for our “Everybody Has a Story” Saturday feature that Scott Hewitt curates. Don’s story ran in January 2019, and included the surprising fact that among the cast that year was astronaut Neil Armstrong, who only a few months earlier had become the first human to walk on the moon.
“Neil was probably the shyest and most unassuming celebrity one could encounter anywhere,” Don wrote. “My favorite anecdote concerns a return flight from somewhere in Vietnam back to Bangkok, where we spent the night. I was sitting at the navigator’s station, monitoring radios and radar while writing a letter to my family. Bob Hope was dozing on the crew bunk next to me.
“Neil came up from the back of the airplane to look around. He saw me writing and asked who I was writing to. I told him my wife and four young children, who were all space nuts and Neil Armstrong fans. He offered to add a note, if I would like. He asked for my kids’ names, and wrote about a one-page note addressed to all of them, thanking them for ‘allowing’ their father to be away from home at Christmas. Bob had awakened and offered to add a contribution, as well. I then finished the letter and sent it off to the family.
“So, somewhere in the family archives, we have my handwritten letter, incorporating notes from Neil Armstrong and Bob Hope, followed by the rest of my writing to the family.”
In the last year or so, I noticed Don had slowed down a little. He was in a lot of pain. His spine was worn out. But when he felt well enough, we still ate lunch.
I’ll really miss Don and those lunches.
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