Retired Col. Gail S. Halvorsen, a Utahn who gained international recognition as the "Candy Bomber" during the Berlin Airlift following WWII, this week was more eager to talk about another airlift.
It's the Airlift of Understanding, a West German government-supported student exchange that allows Berlin students to live with Utah families and study in Provo high schools - and vice versa.The roots of the educational airlift are as humble as the Allied pilot who flew one of the big C-54 cargo planes carrying food and fuel to isolated West Berliners during the Soviet blockade.
Along the flight path, Halvorsen sweetened the lives of young Berliners who daily gathered behind the barbed-wire fence of Tempelhof Airport to watch the never-ending stream of takeoffs and landings during Operation Vittles. Blatantly disobeying orders, then Lt. Halvorsen changed flight plans to drop American candy to the war-starved youngsters.
That act of kindness launched Operation Little Vittles, which kept the Chocolate Pilot - dubbed "Uncle Wigglywings" for his plane maneuvers - making candy drops (in handkerchief parachutes) in playgrounds around the city. In December 1948, some 90,000 miniature candy chutes - filled with goodies donated by thousands of American well-wishers - had fluttered down into the divided city.
But one child went without.
Halvorsen will never forget the letter from the shy little girl who lived in an apartment house by the airfield. Not only, she wrote, wasn't she getting any candy, but the family chickens were mistaking the pilot's plane for chicken hawks.
With each approach, the chickens scrambled into the coop where they'd molt. Because lack of egg production was especially devastating during the blockade, candy took an even higher priority.
So the child, named Mercedes, asked Halvorsen to drop candy at her house, identifiable by the "white chickens in the yard."
When neither Halvorsen nor his co-pilots could find the chickens, he instead mailed Mercedes a large bundle of candy and gum. Little did he know it would launch a lasting friendship.
Mercedes never forgot the American GI who bombed Berlin with goodies.
Years later when Halvorsen returned to Berlin as commander of Tempelhof, his family accepted a dinner invitation by an unidentified German couple who lives in an old apartment house near the airport.
A letter retrieved by the hostess from the china cabinet brought history to life and tears to the American's eyes.
Dated November 1948, it read: "Dear Mercedes: I can't find the white chickens in your back yard."
"You silly pilot," the young German mother said. "I am Mercedes. If you'll take five steps over here, I will show you where the chickens were."
Today, Mercedes' husband, Peter Wild, is head of the chemistry department at a German high School in Berlin and coordinates the exchange program with Brent Chambers, a German-language teacher at Provo High School.
One of the Wild's four children - Eric - is among the Berlin students now in Utah to study, and Wednesday went with Halvorsen and fellow students on a tour of Temple Square and the LDS Church Office Building in Salt Lake City.
A friendship that started over a bag of candy has survived cultural and religious differences - and likely won't diminish with time.
"Right now, this is particularly significant because this is the 40th anniversary of the end of the blockade, which will be marked by a special ceremony in Berlin next month," said Halvorsen, a former Brigham Young University assistant dean turned full-time farmer.
The celebrated American pilot, after whom an elementary school at Rhein-Main Air Force Base is named, will return to Germany for the celebration with his wife, their children - and their children.
Dad and two sons, all Air Force pilots, will again take the historical flight, dropping candy to the kids below.
But for Halvorsen the highlight of the trip will be his stay with the Wilds. The American and and his wife will sleep in the room where Mercedes penned the letter to the Candy Bomber who's still sweetening lives.