We Can't All Be D.B. Cooper

F.B.I. composite sketches of hijacker "D.B. Cooper."

Wearing my Dad's charcoal, pin-striped suit coat and black sunglasses, and holding his briefcase, I walked into the kitchen and sat down for breakfast.  It was early on a wet December morning in 1971.  I was eight years old.

"Good moooooooorning!," my mother cheerfully sang, as only a mother can.  She gave me a look. 

"What are you doing with your father's coat and sunglasses?  And his briefcase?"

"I"m D.B. Cooper."

"That's nice, dear.  Now eat your breakfast."

"D.B. Cooper" was the name, or more likely alias, (we would soon learn that the actual hijacker had given his name at the ticket counter as "Dan Cooper," and that the erroneous "D.B." was a mistake, which stuck, made by the media) of a man who had hijacked a Northwest Orient Airlines Boeing 727 flying between Portland and Seattle on Wednesday, November 24, 1971 - the day before Thanksgiving.

A Northwest Airlines 727 with its aft airstairs deployed.

Cooper received $200,000 cash in ransom money and a parachute, and jumped - no one to this day knows exactly where or when - out of the aft air stairs of the 727 into the cold, dark night over Washington State, never to be seen or heard from again (Although three packets of the ransom money were found along the banks of the Columbia River in 1980 - adding further fuel to the legend).

My six year old brother came into the kitchen and started to grab the briefcase.

"Let go of that," I commanded.

"It's not yours," he sniveled.

"It is, too, I'm D.B. Cooper," I argued.

"I wanna' be D.B. Cooper."

"Well, you aren't and you can't."

"Waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!" he whined.  Cry baby.

"Why are you boys fighting?," my mother inquired.

"Because I was D.B. Cooper first and now he's trying to take my briefcase and be D.B. Cooper.  We can't all be D.B. Cooper!"

"Oh, you two," my mother said with an exasperated sigh, "what am I going to do with you?  Now learn to get along or I'll take everything away and Mr. Nobody will get to be D.B. whatever his name is..."

My brother stuck his tongue out at me with satisfaction.  Damn.  My mother had played the "Mr. Nobody" card.  I had to think fast.

"Okay.  You can be the pilot," I told my brother.

Just as it appeared me and my brother had reached a Cooper detente, my Dad finally entered the kitchen.  He walked in, gave my Mom a peck on the cheek, and sat down at the table, doing a double take at the sight of me wearing his suit coat and sun glasses at the kitchen table.

"Can you tell me why you're wearing my good suit and sunglasses, and holding my briefcase, at the breakfast table?

"I'm D.B. Cooper," I helpfully replied.

"You can't be," my father countered, "your uncle Steve is D.B. Cooper.  He was a paratrooper at Fort Lewis and always went camping along the Columbia River."

"Oh, honey, please don't scare the children," my mother pleaded.

"Well, why not?  He's as good a guess as anybody at this point.  And your Uncle John is an airline mechanic up in Portland..."

Flummoxed, I just sat and sulked.

"Dammit!," I thought to myself, "is there ANYONE in this family who isn't D.B. Cooper?"

We all sat silent in the kitchen for a moment, pondering any other family friends or relatives who could have been D.B Cooper.

"I still say we can't all be D.B. Cooper," I finally uttered.

My Dad finished his cereal and started to get up from the table.

"Okay, sports fans, let's finish our breakfast and pack the car.  We have six hours of driving until we get to your Aunt Margie's house."

I knew that at least Aunt Margie wasn't D.B. Cooper.  Although come to think of it, she HAD been a stewardess...