A "thank you" for a memory

It isn't often I'm touched personally by something associated with the sim
community, and I'd like to take a moment here to say thank you to a
gentleman I never met.
Several interesting things happened to me today; one quite pleasurable, and
the other quite sad; both related to each other.
I just happened to be browsing through Avsim's files today when I came
across something that caught my eye. It was a scenery for FS2004 by Leon
Louis of the old DuPont Airport outside Wilmington Delaware. The airport
doesn't exist any longer and has been gone now for many years. It piqued my
interest because I learned to fly there. In fact, I worked there on the line
as a young boy; and I soloed there; two solos in one day; the first, my
"official solo" in a PA11, and the second "unofficial solo" an hour later
in an AT6 belonging to a friend of my fathers. (Yes, quite a difference
between the two airplanes I had spent considerable time in the T6 and it
was no big deal at all.
Getting back to Dupont Field; I noticed in the Readme that Mr. Louis had
done the scenery with the help of Tony Necastro. The name was quite familiar
to me, as Tony was an instructor for Atlantic Aviation who ran the field,
and I knew him quite well at the time. It was another instructor however, a
friend of Tony's, Dick Zebley who taught me to fly and soloed me.
Anyway, I looked at the two jpegs on the Avsim site and stared in shock at
what I was seeing.
It was all there; exactly as it was then back in the 50's, and very nicely
rendered too; surely not the finest scenery by today's standards, but easily
recognizable to me exactly as I remembered it.
I of course downloaded the files immediately and installed them. Then on a
whim, I picked the J3 from the default list and put it smack in the middle
of the same grass runway I soloed on.
Granted, the J3 was just a tad different from the PA11 I soloed that day
over 50 years ago, but it was close enough for "government work" if you know
what I mean
As I looked down the grass runway, it all came back in my memory. The hangar
and the All American Engineering building were there exactly as they were,as
was the beacon tower sitting right behind the little flight office where I
used to sit and plan my cross countries when I wasn't busy washing down an
airplane or gassing up one of those "brand new" Piper Tri-Pacers that
Atlantic had brought in for "advanced flying )))))
After calling my wife down to see what was happening and explaining it all
to her, she stood there and watched as I relived one of the most memorable
moments of my life.
I flew the pattern in the simulator at Dupont today, exactly as I flew it
over fifty years ago the day I soloed, and over realistically rendered
scenery compliments of a very talented designer who had allowed me through
his efforts to relive this wonderful moment in my life through his talent
and good will. The scenery you see is freeware.
I discovered today sadly that Mr. Louis has recently died. This of course
means I will never get the opportunity to thank him or to tell him how much
I personally appreciated what he did.
I sincerely hope that sharing this post with you thanks him for me.
Thank you Leon , and God Speed!
Dudley Henriques