"John Ashcroft gives a different side of [his father] J. Robert, an amateur pilot, in his memoir. It opens with the words 'John, I'd like you to fly this plane for a while,' a command issued when John, all of eight, found himself placed at the controls of a flimsy 1940s Piper Cub in midair. The impact of this experience was indelible. The plane went into a swoon over a Springfield farm while the boy gaped, helpless, frozen with terror: 'My stomach came up to my throat and I lost all sense of time or place as fear gripped my insides.' His father, John recalls, 'had a good chuckle.'"

["I had a good lesson," Ashcroft recalled: "actions have consequences."]