Some last wishes are quiet. Lou Tacchi Jr.’s was not.
Last Saturday at St. Charles County Regional Airport–Smartt Field, the late South City man’s ashes were placed inside a pumpkin and dropped from a B-25 bomber — exactly the sendoff he had talked about wanting in his final years. It happened during the airport’s annual pumpkin drop, an October tradition going back to at least 2009, where small planes circle overhead and their crews release pumpkins toward targets on the ground, usually something delightfully doomed like a beat-up car.
Hundreds of spectators turned out as usual, snacking on hot dogs and watching the vintage aircraft maintained by the Missouri Wing of the Commemorative Air Force. The B-25 and its fellow legacy planes dropped whole barrages of pumpkins. But this year the B-25 also made a special flyby carrying one particular gourd: the one holding Tacchi’s ashes, along with the ashes of his beloved Shih Tzu, Sophia. As his widow Barb put it, they belonged together.
Several dozen relatives and friends, some from out of state, gathered under a blue tent by the runway to watch, wearing shirts and sweatshirts printed with the words “Pop Drop.” Barb said her husband, known for his mischievous sense of humor, would never have expected this much fuss. “He would be so shocked,” she said, “but I feel like he’s here with us all the time.”
Lou and Barb raised four daughters in St. Louis’ Lindenwood Park neighborhood and were members of Epiphany of Our Lord Catholic parish. An electrician by trade, Lou spent his career at Schaeffer Electric and poured countless off-duty hours into the Missouri Wing’s hangar, where he helped build the officers’ club, worked on airplane engines, and even built the contraption used to release the pumpkins from high above. “Everyone just naturally gravitated to Lou,” said Mike Marino, a fellow Missouri Wing member who calls himself Lou’s “brother from another mother.” After Lou died in March 2025, his celebration of life was held at the hangar; he had predicted about 40 people would come, and somewhere between 300 and 400 actually did.
The B-25 had been grounded in 2025 for maintenance, so the dreamed-of drop had to wait a year. This time, Marino insisted on flying the plane himself for his friend. Before climbing aboard, he admitted the day was weighing on him — and he brought along Tacchi’s favorite ball cap so his friend would be “part of the crew.”
The pumpkin itself was painted blue, a nod to Tacchi’s favorite plane, the Vought F4U Corsair. Marino flew a big loop, roared over the runway, and let it go. It missed the target, smashing and tumbling into the grass like so many pumpkins before it. Nobody seemed to mind. The family and friends lined up for a group photo of nearly 50 people, happy just to be together.
After landing and taxiing the B-25 back to the hangar, Marino smiled through the emotion of it all. “It’ll sink in in a few hours what we did,” he said. “Tomorrow, it’ll be a new day, and I know that Lou is happy.” As for the ball cap, he’s keeping it safe at home.
