Roberts Field, liberia

It is surprising the people I meet when I'm out flying with the Collings Foundation. Not only the veterans of World War II, but other individuals that I would not have expected to meet at all. About a week and a half ago, while in West Virginia, a gentleman came up to me and we were talking about the different aircraft or what have you and he happened to mention that his father had worked for Pan-American. Since I had worked for Pan-American also from 1966 until 1986. I mentioned that I had mentioned that to him. It turns out that his father had been a station agent for Pan-American at Roberts Field in Monrovia, Liberia in Africa.



The two of us were soon putting times and dates together and realized that we had been part of a very special and different part of Pan-Americans history. Roberts Field was a sort of hub for Pan-American operations in Africa. Flights originating in New York at John F. Kennedy Airport would go to and depending on the day, branch out to different parts of Africa. If say, you left on a Thursday from New York, you would stop in Roberts for one or two nights as a crew, and then proceed to Nairobi via Lagos, Nigeria. If you left on a Monday, you might go to Abidjan. Then to Roberts, and on to Johannesburg in South Africa. Coming back. You would stop in Roberts once again, it became a crew layover spot for all the African operations of Pan-American.


The hotel where all the crews stayed while in Liberia was the Roberts Field Hotel located just about 100 yards from the terminal. Crews would land at Roberts, and simply walk off the airplane through customs and immigration over to the hotel and could go right to their rooms. However, the Roberts field hotel was a Mecca for all the Europeans whites or otherwise educated Africans to congregate. A meeting place of international ideas and international people. In a country that lacked everything of normal everyday life. Roberts field hotel had it all in one place.


There were a number of companies, that had Caucasian/European employees based there in Monrovia. A large pharmaceutical company had a facility for raising chimpanzees used in their testing. One of the world's largest tire companies had huge rubber plantations nearby as well. These same employees would show up at the hotel bar/restaurant in time to meet the arriving crews from New York or arriving from other parts of Africa.   At the same time, outbound crews would be eating a dinner before departing to other points on the African continent or back to New York and Europe. Therefore there was a constant coming and going at the hotel. And one of the best attributes of the hotel was the food, which was not only very well done, but safe to eat. The hotel's decor for was not elegant, but basic and more importantly clean. The food staff at the hotel always seem to do their best to put out the best menu and serve it almost eloquently when compared to the rest of Africa.


The hotel was not located in the midst of Monrovia as one would think as the international airport was a good one hour drive from the capital city of Monrovia. The entrance to the hotel was only 100 yards from the arrival gates of the airport and after a long flight. Just walking that hundred yards to the entrance of the hotel was the first chance a crew would have after spending hours and hours on long-range flight would have a chance to really stretch their legs and appreciate the anticipation of having a beer and maybe a hamburger before hitting the sack in their hotel room. Also, the crew that was departing only had to walk 100 yards to an airplane that would be ready to go into the far reaches of Africa or back to New York.


One of the rooms at the hotel was set a side strictly for the crews use. It was no different than the other rooms at the hotel except it had no beds, but had extra chairs, a large coffee table, plus two refrigerators. These refrigerators would be use by the stewardesses to store cheese, caviar, breads, fruits, and other stuff that were leftovers from the flight. The "crew room" was an exclusive place for the crews. Seldom, were outsiders invited there. "Crew parties" were a constant happening, and almost nonstop, considering the comings and goings of crews through the station. The decor of the room reflected the personalities of Pan Am crews. In particular the personalities of the crews that flew the African routes. The walls were festooned with wine bottle labels. Cartoons, a few of sexual nature, but most dealing with crew views of company policies. My favorite one, showed a group of mushrooms growing on a pile. The caption read "Management must think we are a bunch of mushrooms. They keep us in the dark and feed us a bunch of shit". But properly, the most significant piece of "artwork" that festooned the walls of the room was the body pressing. A little history here. At that point in Pan Am's history. Flight attendants were not supposed to be married and they had to quit their jobs when they did. One such lady was about to leave the company to get married, and on her last trip with Pan-American there was a crew party in the crew room. It must have been a great party. For the crew was able to convince the young lady to undress, and they poured red wine all over her body. And then they made fore and aft pressings against the wall all around the room. This young lady was well endowed and the pressings showed that perfectly.


As I said above, the Pan Am crews that flew the Africa roots had a personality far different from the normal Pan Am pilots and stewardesses. First you must realize that Africa was not the most comfortable, nor the easiest of routes to fly in the world. Air-traffic control was nonexistent. Weather reports and forecasts were guesses at best. Communications in any form was pathetically nonexistent. Layover facilities and airports were often unsanitary and crude. There was always a danger of catching malaria or ingesting some other weird and malignant bug that Africa can only seem to make up. And since medical facilities were as close as the moon, chances of survival with a serious bug were almost nil. It was not a popular place for Pan Am crews. As a result, the ones who did fly there, had an adventurous personality, cast-iron stomachs, and somewhat masochistic to begin with. They tended to be more self-reliant, more curious of human nature, and willing to be a team player in an area of the world where such cooperation would mean survival.


As a result of the above, it turns out that a small group of personalities continually flew these routes. The stewardesses earned the nickname after the movie, "African Queens" and for the pilots of course, earned the nickname of "African Kings". Often that moniker stuck to a pilot or stewardess, just like a name tag. Often, you would hear someone refer to a stewardess as "Mary York?. She is a Queen out of Kennedy." The same happened to the pilots, where they were often referred to as a "King". Sort of like saying he has red hair. This was a phenomenon particular to the New York Kennedy-based flight crews since all the Africa trips originated from New York. Since I flew African trips, almost exclusively for a three year period, I most likely have this tag stuck to me too. Although no one ever called me a "King" directly to my face, it was not a derogatory handle at all and it was something I wore with a certain amount of pride. Flying African routes was much more difficult and required a higher degree of professionalism than flying any other route in the world. More skill and understanding of the elements that made up Africa was essential.


The captains, flight engineers and stewardesses I've flew with during that period, well, they are stories that would fill a book or two. Some of the captains would be legendary. One who was one of my favorite captains was Roger M. He stood right at 6 feet high. Weighting at most 170 pounds. Dark wavy hair, slightly gray at the temples, deep set eyes and a prominent chin. His eyes look like they were always squinting into the sun, and he reminded me of an indian looking for some unexpected element that nature was about to pull on him. Before World War II, he had been a student at the University of Cairo in Egypt. Just before the war broke out, Roger set out on a bicycle trip from Cairo to England. The bicycle was nothing special. It had a single speed yet he would make up to 100 miles a day, at times. His trick, was a short piece of rope that he would loop on the back of trucks, that would then pull him along, particularly up the long inclines of the Alps. He told me that one day on this trip he ran into a bunch of Hitler Youth in a group. They couldn't believe that Roger had come so far on that lousy bicycle. They thought he was some kind of superhuman. He said he let them believe that and never told them about his rope trick.

I learned a lot from Roger on how to be a captain in command, and also how to read the skies of Africa. I swear the man could have drank water from a puddle in Africa, and not got sick because he had been there so long.


The "Queens" were a class unto themselves. There were few American women amongst them, most being either Europeans and Scandinavians. All would have called them selves liberated , that is for sure, even by today's standards. They were no more sexually promiscuous than any other group as far as I could see. But I also learned that just because a lady goes topless at the beach doesn't mean she is an easy or on the make. But of all the flight attendants and stewardesses I've ever had dealt with in my career, as a group, they looked after the pilots and stayed close by more than any other.


Not all of the African Queens were happy. Some had real problems and drinking being the worst. One middle-aged redhead named Vivian had her problems. She had been dating one of the captains, a married man, and their plan was that he would get a divorce and she would marry him. It did not happen. He died of a heart attack long before any of that happen and Vivian became an alcoholic. One day I'm sitting in my room at the hotel I hear that the pitter patter of bare feet coming down the hall. That particular day, the hotel had lost all local power and was without air-conditioning. So I had the sliding doors to the patio open and the room door to the hallway opened, in order to get a breeze through. I was basically just sitting there reading. Soon Vivian appeared in my doorway, stark naked as the day she was born. In one hand in her fingers she had a cigarette and in the other hand, she had a bottle of Jack Daniels. She let it be known in no uncertain terms that she was ready for a role in the hay. Quite frankly, I was never interested. Vivian had problems and messing with her would only cause me a whole lot more. I was not interested and let that be known to her, at which point she called me all kinds of names, turned around and went back down the hall still looking for someone else.


That kind of thing was really rare although I'm certain such affairs happened now and then. Most of the long layover that I had at Roberts were spent at Caesars Beach about a 45 minute drive from the hotel. There I and other crew members would do a lot of reading and or playing Liberian dice. A game, I still play to this day. Most of the stewardesses would go topless while there, and after a while I became used to seeing all kinds of shapes, sizes and colors that such displays became a non-issue nor exciting to me. I often took my sketchpad, as at that time in my life I was doing a lot of drawing and sketch the ladies, beach scenes and house boys or whatever caught my fancy. A lot of this stuff was done by pencil on newsprint. And I either gave it away or just threw away.


Food, not only the preparation of it but the safety of it was always an important factor at Roberts Field. Safe local food suppliers were almost nonexistent. We were able to supplement our meat supplies through Nairobi. The normal flight schedule had flights going to Nairobi, about three times a week. In Nairobi, crews would purchase a side of beef or other exotic African game meat and bring it back to Roberts Field. The hotel restaurant would often have special barbecues just for the Pan Am crews, using that meat. Thompson gazelle was my personal favorite.


One of the real dangers was sunburn. It did not take very long to really get a good tan or get a really bad burn. I once found that I had been out in the sun too long one day and had a really nasty sunburn on my back. There was no medication to kill the pain. I remembered the crew had once talked about teabags and the tunic acid in tea as a pain killer for sunburn. Desperate for relief, I went to the hotel kitchen, and grabbed a handful of teabags. Back in my room I put the teabags in the room sink and soaked a towel in the water and tea bags. I then put this towel over my back and was pleased to find relief almost instantly from the searing pain.


Another malady that struck crews quite often was food poisoning. Diarrhea and dehydration being the biggest factors to deal with. Old Africa Corps hands would have a small supply of different pills. Lomotil was very effective for most ailments. Pan-American also supplied quinine to the crews to prevent us from catching malaria. This particular pill had a very rancid taste. Also, the employee clinic at Kennedy was very good about keeping flight crews up to date on the inoculations. The one I hated the most was for cholera, which needed to be taken every six months. After the shot I always came down with a short three day bout of cholera. There is a little story I like to tell about that evil tasting malaria pill. Because of a change in the flying scheduled in the Pacific at the time, a number of flight engineers from the West Coast were transferred to Kennedy. These flight engineers were unfamiliar with policies and procedures of flying to Africa. At the start of each trip, Pan-American would provide a pill package for the crew that contained these quinine pills. These packages were issued to the flight engineer when he checked in. His job was to distribute them to the rest of the crew. On one particular flight, a West Coast engineer asked what he was supposed to do with these pill packages. I piped up with the procedure that he was supposed to distribute them to the rest of the crew. Then, I told him that what was not in the instructions was that one needed to chew the pill because it had a coding that did not dissolve easily. This of course was not true. I could see the captain, across from me, biting his tongue realizing that I was setting up the flight engineer. Later in the flight, both the captain and I were gratified to hear the coughing and wretched gagging from the unsuspecting flight engineer. Welcome to Africa and the corpse.


Not many people can say they have seen all the sites of Africa. I have flown through the middle of the Sahara desert. For over 950 miles I saw nothing but sand, from horizon to horizon. There was no navigational radios, nor anyone to talk to. I have seen the city of Timbuktu and crossed the Nile. Seen the snows on Kilimanjaro and marveled at the mists from Victoria falls. I've flown over the desolation of the Skeleton Coast and the Kalahari desert. I peered down at the deep green mystery that is the Congo. I have walked the streets of Dakar, Nairobi, Lagos, Monrovia, Keno, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Mozambique and Libreville. I have watched cheetah, stalking, Thompson gazelle, hippopotamus and crocodiles dominating a stream in Kenya. Shared a view with a baboon from the roof of the Treetops Hotel in Kenya are. Africa for all its beauty was a daunting and dominating place.


In the years that I flew into Roberts Field before Sgt. Doe's military coup. I never felt unsafe around the locals. They were nice to me that I was nice to them. I was very aware of the fact that I was the minority there. And whether it was out of fear or respect I try to respect each one of the locals that I met there. It was only after the military coup of Sgt. Doe, that Liberia went downhill. It became unsafe and very uncomfortable to be around those who are now in charge. One night while walking to the hotel after arriving on a flight I was made to salute the Liberian flag by a drunken guard with a M 14 rifle pointed at me. Most likely, the rifle was not loaded, but the intent was there. I saluted their damn flag, and that was my last trip to Roberts Field.


But back to the gentleman I met whose father had been an agent at Roberts Field in the 60s. His twin brother had been back to Roberts Field just two years ago and while there he took some pictures of the Roberts Field hotel as it stands today. For me looking at the pictures brings back memories of good friends, good times, and adventure. But at the same time, I feel a real sadness. For the savageness that is part of Africa has claimed that small part of civilization that held on at the edge of the vast jungles of that continent. Not unlike the great predators of the Serengeti Plain, Africa devours everything. And like the pictures of a lost hotel, so are gone the “Kings”, “Queens”, “Africa Corps” and Pan Am.

The Roberts Field Airport Terminal.
I understand the terminal look much the same as it did in the 60s & 70s.

This is the front entrance to the hotel, just a short walk from the airport terminal.   Because of snakes, we never walked in the grass, specially at night.

The east wing of the front of the hotel on the left and the “back rooms on the river” to the right.

This is what is left of the bar. At one time the whole white wall behind the bar was shelved with different liquors. The bar tender could make any drink you could think of.

The hotel pool and cabanas. Here is where all the BBQs were done.  Behind the palms on the left was the Farmington River which was a source of cobras swimming from the jungle on the other side.

This is what is left of the high school. So much for the objectiveness of tribal self determination.

Jimmy Leeward

It’s not always easy to describe a relationship with someone to other people. Some people you just know are your friends though you don’t spend a great deal of time with them. Somehow you know that you and they ‘see’ eye to eye on many things. And when they die, you feel you’ve lost a “close friend” even though, over the years, your time with them may be one or two days at a time once a year.

I guess that’s how I feel about Jimmy Leeward’s passing. It was spectacular to say the least and I know Jimmy would not have wanted it the way it went. I only hope he knows, we know he was trying his best.


But why should I consider myself a friend, even a grieving friend of Jimmy’s? I think it has to do with our mutual passion. Our lives run a sort of parallel in pursuit of that passion. Though just 3 years older than me, we both grew up with the examples of WW2 vets to live up to. We most likely read the same comic books and saw the same movie serials at our local theaters at Saturday matinees. We most likely built the same model airplanes, and devoured every detail about the great WW2 fighters and bombers and the men who flew them.


We both started flying in our teens, and that passion has lasted even now. We both became professionals in this passion and that is how I turn this relationship into friendship. We reached a point where he knew my name and flying background and I his. We both respected each other, because we had lived the same “life,” if you will, as aviators. He became a “speed freak” maybe, pushing the limits of science of powerplants and airframes. Me? After an airline career, I push old airplanes around in a ‘show & tell’ in an exercise I hope to bring to life that immense struggle of a generation both Jimmy and I love and owe so much too. I respected his part in this passion and I know he respected mine. And respect is part and parcel of friendship.


Those that died that day with Jimmy were killed by the weakness in aluminum molecules and adverse aerodynamics, not by the lack of skill on Jimmy’s part. The video clearly shows he was still trying.


And this is the basis of my grief. A family man, a dreamer, and traveler with me in this passion we call aviation. A respected aviator. “Blue skies and strong tailwinds, my friend”. And you can now really touch the face of God.

MIAD (Miami International Air Depot) Going. Going. Gone.

The area where the Eastern Airlines Engine Overhaul shops were. Slightly right of center was where the plating shop was located

My brother John, has been taking pictures of the demolition of the Eastern Airlines maintenance hangars at MIA. A place where my dad worked for 30 years and my brother over 24. John's last years were spent working in the test cells. Somewhat fitting that it’s the last building to be demolished. Of course the walls the #3 test cell were 3 foot thick reinforced concrete. Don't know what they plan on doing with the space now available but it will never produce the history made on this site from just before WW2 until EAL went under. From DC-3s to the first jets, it all happened here.

I remember the times as a kid I'd get to visit Dad in the plating shop, or see Santa in one of the "Connies" on kid’s day near Christmas. EAL was a family company and many of our neighbors in the housing project where we lived in Hialeah, worked for the different airlines, EAL, PAA, NAL - now all gone. Later on I'd get to visit my brother while he was testing an engine in the test cell. I still marvel at the skill of him and his co-workers, on making sure an engine was ready to go on the line.

So many stories could fill a book or two, on the life and times where these building once stood. The sorrows and joys of ordinary people doing the very best job they could, to make an industry safe and trusted. Some stories are of great ideas made by ordinary people that saved the airlines millions of dollars. Others are of personal tragedy.

I remember one day my father coming home very distraught and on the verge of tears. This was way out of line for a man who had seen a tough life during the depression and definitely not the emotional type. Dad being foreman of the plating shop, was in charge of many of the chemicals used. Including cyanide “eggs” that was part of some plating process. These cyanide eggs were also used in welding, and often times, welders from that shop would come in and get these cyanide eggs for a particular job. You could not handle these eggs with your bare hands, as it would instantly poison you, so it was normally put in a paper cup to be carried back to the welding shop. On this particular day, a good friend of Dad’s who worked in the welding shop came in and ask Dad for a cyanide egg for a job. Something he had done dozens of times before. Dad got a paper cup and using tongs, put in the ‘egg’. Chit chatted with his friend for a minute or two. The man than stepped out of the shop and though the shop windows, Dad watched the man simply walk across the hall to a water cooler, fill the paper cup, and drink. He was dead before he hit the floor.

There were grand triumphs also. I remember my brother and I, carefully polishing our brand new blue 55 Ford station wagon, because Dad was going to meet with EAL CEO Capt. Eddy Rickenbacker at his home on one of the islands in Biscayne Bay. “Capt Eddy” was every ones hero back than. An Ace from WW1, he started Eastern, and was still its hard driving boss whom my Dad loved and honored. On this particular day, Dad was to present to Capt Eddy an idea he had come up with and that the “boss” was interested in. I forget the details now but it had the potential of saving the company thousands of dollars in aircraft tire ware. This particular scheme did not bear fruit, but some years later, Dad came up with a plating idea that saved the industry (not just EAL) tens of million of dollars. Dad never made a nickel off it, but he was modestly proud of it.

Things were tough money wise back than and Dad would make extra money by doing extra work out side of EAL. Dad was an excellent carpenter. He built a 2 car garage behind the house in Hialeah where a number projects were done. One I remember was the mammoth wooden “test clubs”. In the days of piston engines, when they had been overhauled, they were taken to a huge concrete room called a “test cell” to be tested before being put on an airliner. A “test club” was a huge wooden propeller used on the engine for cooling and simplicity. These would sometimes get damaged by loose tools or hoist chains not tied down during testing. They were gigantic! Some ten feet in diameter! Dad’s little green 48 Chevy truck could just barely carry it home. Once home, Dad would very carefully cut out the bad sections of damaged wood. He finished of the surfaces of the cuts so that they were almost glass smooth. He than cut the splice (called a scarf splice) so perfectly that it would just fit into the cut out section. Than using Weldwood plastic resin glue and clamps, when cured, the section would be stronger than original. Now came the shaping. Dad worked very carefully with different planers and draw knifes to get the original airfoil shape, before finishing it off with 8 coats of spar varnish. What he haul from the airport as “junk”, he sold back to the airlines, at a price that made them both happy.

That money lead to Dad’s first dabble in buying land and the infamous “Triple G Ranch” a.k.a. “Goolsby’s Gator Gulch”. But that’s another story for another time.

Hialeah back than was an airline company town. The pilots lived in the up scale area across the river in Miami Springs, but Hialeah was where the rest of us lived. There was the next door neighbor, Joe Canova and his wife Judy. He was a mechanic for PAA. They were a young couple and Joe looked just like a famous actor Cesar Romera. My earliest memory of them was the 1950 hurricane. Both our families had just moved into the new housing project. During the storm we heard screams from Judy as their roof (and than our) was torn off by the high winds. During the lull of the eye, they came over to our house and stayed. Being ‘Yankees” it was their first hurricane and needless to say, a little nervous. Joe worked his way up the PAA latter as a mechanic and than sign up to become a flight engineer. After he had finished training and had checked out, he’d tell me about his trips to far flung shores and adventures there. When I was 12, (1952) I had to do a “career book” for school. I decided to become a Pan American pilot. In this book I was to interview someone in that profession. Joe introduced me to Pan Am Captain O.H. Johnson. Years pass. Joe and Judy get a divorce. Joe bids back to mechanic and moves back to New York. In 1966 as a brand new Pan Am navigator, I run into Joe at Hangar 14 at JFK where he is happy as a lead mechanic. We had come full circle. I have that career book to this day. As amateurish as it looks and reads, I am proud of it. My kids can’t understand how I could have made up my mind as to what I wanted to do back than at that age. And I don’t understand how folks can’t ever seem to make up their mind about anything.

I often wonder what happen to those people who facilitated my dreams. We weren’t close “bosom” friends back than, but they were the ones who were there at those very spots in my life where directions were change. I remember some important advice. As a kid I had a bad nervous habit of biting my finger nails almost to the quick. One day P.L. Plotts, my science teacher and in the Naval Air Reserve out at Master Field, told me that the airlines when looking at prospective pilots, didn’t care for the ‘nervous types that bit their finger nails’. That very minute and for the rest of my life, I quit doing just that.

So now it’s gone, Hialeah has a foreign language and culture. The airlines that made south Florida the gate way to South America, and were the engines of upward standards of living for that generation that won a world war are gone. Eastern Airlines, National Airlines, Pan American, and Braniff. They are gone forever and many who work at the airport today, were not even born when these airlines ruled the skies. They don’t even realizes, they are standing on the graves of thousands, who made the industry.

The folks responsible for the demise of these great airlines and the torn lives of the men and women that put so much into their jobs, still are out there with heaps of praise and allocates next to their names. The likes of Borman, Swell. Lorenzo, Acker and the Union Chiefs; truth is they did a lousy job and in the end are not worth a pile of shit.

So take a last look at Eastern Airlines Test Cell Number 3.

And “remember for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

It's The Height of Summer Here.

It’s the height of summer here. The temperature and humidity are usually the same numbers. Most folks find that uncomfortable. I don’t. Being a child of Florida, I relish the tropical wildness of my home state. It might be the American Indian blood from both sides of the family, Cree & Catawba, or just that there aren’t that many native born Floridians. Anyway I feel special.

At sundown this evening, after putting a long day in my hangar, I drove my golf cart down to the lake (we call it a pond but its really a lake in size). The sun had already set and just the milky gray of twilight was left in the sky. The surface of the lake was dead smooth. So much so that the reflection of the trees on the far shore looked like a mirror image. Even a giant CB far to the south was reflected on its surface also. This big boil of clouds towered up to the point where the jet stream had already started tearing off its top. Occasionally it would spark some lighting and it too would eco itself on the surface. To far away to hear any thunder, one could still feel wary of its presents.

Quite. Well for a while anyway. I hear a squawk like call from the south shore of the lake and soon a gray shape looms from the far shadows. With slow majestic effort a giant gray heron appears over the pond and it and its mirror self cross to the northwest, heading for its night time roost. You would normally find him during the day at the edge of the pond but there is good reason the heron does not spend the night there.

That reason soon shows itself. The reflected images on the water of the far trees become alive. Unlike the ones on shore, they dance in disappearing light. Soon I can just make the cause as what looks like a stick floating on the water, is actually making headway toward the middle of the lake. Mr. Gator is out for a swim. No noise, only the rippling reflections giving him away. For whatever reason, Mr. Gator stops, the water goes still and his dark shape milts in with the reflections again.

Total stillness and quite. The first of the stars come out. From the time I first became a navigator, my favorite star was Betelgeuse, a super red giant in Orion. I always loved Orion. It was the first constellation I ever learn to recognize and the unbelievable size of Betelgeuse just made it perfect for one to remember. And there it is, in the same place for thousand of years. And thousand more to come. I imagine that some antediluvian cave man may have sat at the edge of a lake, and like me, stared in wonder at that star.

The surface of the lake is totally dark now. One would think that nothing was happening out there. But a Florida lake at night is full of adventure and danger. The small things become dinner for larger things, which in turn become dinner for something larger. At the top of that chain is Mr. Gator. And I know he is still out there, - - - in the dark.

William “Wild Bill” Walker

William “Wild Bill” Walker

1953-2011

In the grand scheme of God’s universe the human race has not been around very long. Just a little over 10 million years they say. I liken it to a 4^th of July sparkler, giving off sparks, some big and bright and some very small and of short duration. The whole time line of human history represented in the length of that sparkler. In that time some people come along and make an impression. Some not at all. But the ones that do, well they are those long bright sparks off the sparkler. And for just a short while we get to revel in their light. Then they are gone and where they were the brightest there is nothing. Or is there?

Scientists tell us that energy is never ever destroyed, just changed. So what was that bright spark that burned out into nothingness, there is something left behind. We, like the spark, only change to a different state when we die, and once again return to our origins. And where are our origins? Well look to the very universe for we are made of the very stuff stars are made of.

Light travels at 186,000 per second. It takes about one nanosecond for light to go across the width of this page. And in the scheme of the universe, a sparkler the width of this page would represent human history in its entirety. And how long does one spark off that sparkler last? The answer is “too short a time”.

Bill - - - “Wild Bill” was taken from us too soon. But his spark was brighter than most. With him we reveled in our different passions that mark our short lives, - - - for me aviation. He will be missed. His jokes, quick wit, they are gone. But he – is still with us. For that energy that was his soul has NOT been destroyed but merely changed. And we will simply follow Bill’s example - - someday.

It is poignant to me that Bill’s last maneuver was part of a big heart that he and Jimmy performed. Like Bill’s own heart it was big - near perfect in shape and in the element he loved. Some of us feel that somewhere near the top of the next loop, Bill’s spark went out. And just maybe that is the way it should have been.

Blue skies and calm winds my friend. And keep the “blue side” going round and round.

Jim “Pappy” Goolsby

It's a good time to be on the ground

Yesterday I stood out on my patio and watched a wild and active squall line screaming in from the west. NOAA had issued tornado watches and to our north were tornado warnings. This fast moving front was full of maliciousness. It’s a good time to be on the ground.

In my flying career I had some experiences with the worst violent CBs (cumulus nimbus) and during that time watched science in boring detail only confirm what my first instructor, Buck Greenfield, warned me of. ‘Only the gods live in the CB, not man’. You never forget your first or worst encounter but, also, you tend not to forget any of them. The first was as a student in a T-craft. The shifting winds from a nearby CB had me chasing the wind sock around the runways of the wagon wheeled North Perry airport in the late summer 1956. A relieved instructor, Buck explained to me how wind near CB would seem to change direction and velocity at a whim, and the need to keep that in mind. This later would be codified by meteorologists as ‘micro burst’ and ‘wind shear’.

(Me as a lineboy in 1957)

But I was in for more instruction ‘la natural’ later. August 2, 1958. By this point I had my private license and was building time toward my commercial. My brother John and I sat out on a long cross country in the Luscombe 8a, my father had just bought ($2,500) just so we could build our flying time. Again the weather gods were laying for us nymphs. I headed north for GNV Gainesville with a fuel stop in Sebring. Out of Sebring the sky ahead grew nasty with huge towering Cumulus. At that point I was IFR (I follow roads). Up ahead I saw what looked like a path between heavy rain shafts and sunshine on the ground just beyond. What I actually saw was big open pits of white and yellow sand. I flew into a real sucker hole. Next the sky around me dumped its heavy wet load right on us. My visibility was fast departing and I pushed the old Luscombe over to maintain visual contact with the ground. My altimeter soon read 200’ and I found myself with a forward visibility of about ½ mile. I could just make out the pines trees and the path of the road I was following. I needed to do something fast. I reached over to grab a chart (the one my brother was using), a quick glance told me if I stayed on the road, I would come to a fork, and if I stayed to the left, Groveland airport would be ahead on the right side. I just had to hang on.

Sure enough the fork came up and I veered left staying to the right of the road. The rain came down harder and my visibility was about ¼ mile. Meanwhile my brother John had not said a word but was definitely watching out the right side. Suddenly, directly below me I saw a tetrahedron! It showed the wind was from the same direction I was flying. I was able to just discern an opening in the pines beneath me. John yelled “Runway!” I made a hard 360 left turn and lined up on what appeared to be nothing more than a lighter opening amongst the vast green of the pine trees.

At this point I was just feeling for the ground. We bounced hard than settled firmly on the ground. It was a rough runway and muddy. With the rain crashing down, mud flying, all I tried to do was keep the airplane level and straight. As the airplane started to slow I became aware of “objects” going passed the airplane. Bushes? I could not discern what they were. Soon we hit a big bump, the airplane bounced and rolled quickly to a stop. Up right and engine running.

It was some time before the rain let up and my brother and I were able to get out of the cockpit and survey the Luscombe and our surroundings. The airplane was fine even though throughout the rain and the landing she sounded like she was coming apart. But the rest of our discoveries - - - well it left me wondering. For we had actually landed in a cow pasture- - - full of cows - - - who were now in a somewhat state of panic. Those “objects” I was aware of during the landing were those cows, we were barely missing! And what I thought was mud was the “cow pies” i.e. manure being kicked up by the wheels. The bottom of the wings and parts of the windshield were covered with it. The big bump we hit just before stopping was either a cow path or very shallow drainage ditch. Off to our left I could see the tetrahedron, firmly encased in vines, making it unmovable even in a hurricane!

Over to our right was a house. The oddity of it was, it was built on top of a hangar which contained no airplane but a tractor. At this point we noticed a lady standing there, hands on hips and in a state of panic just like the cows. What kind of airport is this?

The answer is, it had been an airport – once. The chart I had grabbed from my brother was over 4 years old (my newer chart showed no airport at all) and thus as confirmed by the lady, had been closed about 4 years. Well, the skies, the cows and the lady all simmered down after awhile. The three of us herded the cows off to one end of the pasture and my brother and I fired up the somewhat smelly Luscombe and bounced our way into the air.

In all my years I never forgot the very details of that day. One that lived on to form a life time goal. You see that was the first time I had ever seen or heard of an airport home. To live on an airport with my own hangar, own runway, became a life long endeavor that to this very day, is one of the dreams I’ve been able to fulfill.

Same Subject forward to mid summer 1962.

I am now a newborn DC-3 co-pilot flying for DuPont Aero Finance out of MIA. Every day we fly a 10 leg group of trips for Bahamas Airway between Florida and Freeport, Grand Bahamas. The Freeport Port Authority is actually subsidizing the trips, but Bahamas Airways does not have enough airplanes nor crews, so we (crews and DC-3s) are leased out to them and we fly under their colors and call signs. The DC-3 we fly (N142HD & N203ZZ) are well used and in good shape. They have Wright 1820s engines (no cowl flaps) and dual VHF and one ADF receiver. Plane basic.

The trips are easy, short, and almost always perfect with weather. But there are days. On this particular day I learned that not all captains should be captains. But when they are captain, they ARE the captain. Period. At least that was back then. Now with the new concept of cockpit crew management and leadership, calling out a captain with an obvious flaw in his command decision has enhanced safety though the industry. Not back then.

The weather along the Gulf Stream that flows north along the Florida east coast, takes on its own character in the summer. When conditions are just right, the warm stream water will build massive CBs along its length just off shore, making a sort of non moving front between the Bahamas and Florida. As the day progresses, this “front” moves on shore, seemingly sucked in by the on shore breeze created by heated air rising up and down the center spine of the Florida peninsular. It was thus on this day I got my third CB scare.

We and our trusty DC-3 were headed for West Palm Beach from Freeport. We had seen the CBs building on the trip out of Lauderdale. My captain, who didn’t like me, decided that we were going to make our trip at something like 6,000 feet (I remember the altitude higher than normal). Anyway that’s about the altitude we penetrated a massive CB - without help of an on board radar. The first thing that hit us was the rain. A gigantic roar engulfed us and static filled our headphones. Then the bumps, just trimmers at first that got more pronounced to the point I looked out at our wings. Yep they were bending all right! Now the rain was blowing around the windshield seals and through openings I didn’t know existed. I was getting wet! Then suddenly there was a mighty slam and I felt myself pushed down in my seat by G forces as the airplane hit a massive up draft. I watched the artificial horizon which showed us wings and nose level, but the rate of climb was pegged at over 3,000 feet per minute!! There is just no way a DC-3 can do that, but the altimeter confirmed it. The captain pulled the power back and pushed the nose down. She continued to climb with the Wrights at idle. Not only that the airspeed was building up! “Gear down”!! “Flaps down”!! I did as I was told, but none of this was making sense. Here we were power at idle, gear and flap down, airspeed climbing, rate of climb at 3,000 feet/minute. It seem to last forever. Then the rate of climb stopped and we seemed to hang in the air suspended. Then wham! I was now floating in my seat as we hit a down draft! The rate of climb became a rate of descent! “Shit”!!! I checked my right wing. It was still there! I saw the captain push the throttle forward. “Give me full RPM. Gear up! Flaps UP”!! I obey. I shove the prop governors to the high stop. Reach down and pull the gear valve lever up and than the flaps. The Wright 1820s are now screaming at max power. I check the attitude gyro horizon. The wings are level but the nose is high. Why aren’t we climbing?!! At our altitude and rate of descent, we’re going to hit the water in a minute or so. I am scared.

Suddenly we are out of it. All of it. The CB has literally pissed us out of its bottom. We are in clear air and it’s almost smooth. The captain quickly brings the engines back with the throttle and calls for cruise RPM. As I finish setting the RPM, I happen to look over at the captain but I immediately could only focus on what I saw beyond him. For there, not a ½ mile off our left wing, was a silver, snaking, wavering, water spout.

I’ll not go into all the details with a long story, except some 2 or 3 months later I’m at a meeting with my boss and our chief pilot. My observations and those of others got this captain fired. Sometime after that I did some soul searching, listened to the older sister of a school friend, made my confession of faith and was baptized (full dunking brother). That December, I quit the airline, and enlisted in the Army (I was about to be drafted). But just before that I met a beautiful black haired, almond eyed beauty. Neither she nor I knew we’d be man and wife some 3 years later but I knew the moment I saw her I was in love. And where did I meet her? On the very steps of the church where I was baptized.

It’s Christmas and memories abound.

It’s Christmas and memories abound. Especially at my age, (70). And what is a man when he dies but only a mire collection of memories to other people. And maybe that’s why at this age I’ve become very nostalgic and feel the need to pass on some of my collection.

The earliest Christmas I remember is Christmas of 1945. I was going to be 6 in March. WW2 was over. My uncles were already home from the war in Europe and my father, John Henry had just come home from the Pacific. These were the earliest memories of my dad. He was not as ‘loud’ as my uncles (both Goolsby and Morgan), who often drank a little too much. I remember Uncle Bob, thin and 6’4”, rolling around on the ground drunk and giggling as his wife Aunt Maurice (barely 5 foot) jumped up and down in frustration, trying to kick him, in our front yard. Like a Benny hen after a snake.

Dad was a ‘tea total-er’ compared to my uncles. But that Christmas - - - well the war was over, I guess there was much to celebrate. From the time I was three until Dad came back home, there was only my mother, aunt, grandmother and a black woman (I remember she looked just like Hattie McDaniel in the movie “Gone With the Wind”) who took care of me and my brother and cousins since all the women working on the war effort. And having a father was really new to me at that point so perhaps I was particularly watching every move this “new man” in my young life was doing. That year the uncles and my dad, decided that us boys needed to have Bebe guns. I remember they were lever action Daisy “Red Riders” and from them I learn much, both good and bad.

One evening the whole family was together. It might have been Christmas eve or Christmas night. Besides the Bebe guns I remember an electric train set that was running and the uncles and dad were playing ("setting it up and testing" they said) with it. Somehow they needed to "test" the Bebe guns. Targets? Why the Christmas tree ornaments of course. Much the chagrin and loud protest of the woman, they took turns at marksmen ship they learn in the war I guess. To 3 of my uncles I believe this was more fun than the beaches at Omaha or Anzio.

At one point Dad took a pot shot at my Mom’s passing posterior, which must have really stung from the yelp she let out. That didn’t help her disposition any of course, but for the men it cause great hilarity. I seem to remember, it was my diminutive grand mother “Mud Pud” Lola Bleaka, who put a stop to the shooting, where her daughters had had no effect at all. At this point all that remained of the ornaments were 5 or so bulbs.

To this day I have those 5 bulbs that survived that Christmas. My wife thinks these bulbs are old and ugly, and that makes sense because she has no “history” to them. I put them on the tree in memory of my father, my uncles, my family in its happiest days and each time I see them, I remember my earliest Christmas. And though they have faded color and rusty hooks, their memories are still bright to me.

And what will happen to these “memories” of mine when I’m gone? That part of me which IS me will be gone too. In other words more of me besides my body will disappear too. We pass on our genes in our children, and though them our grandchildren and great grandchildren. Our bodies changed back to the basic elements they were made from to begin with. In this world our souls are really nothing but memories that made our character which become memories to others. The family of long ago still lives in my heart. The only way can I see to keep them alive in time and place is in those old faded and dusty Christmas tree bulbs.

Maybe I can give them to my only granddaughter Elise. In her I see the very personification of Christmas. She has been wearing Christmas colors and singing corals constantly around the house since Thanksgiving Day. She is so full of joy and excited spirit, it is unbelievable she has so much energy. She is now going on seven. She spent a good deal of time, busily making personal Christmas cards for each and every one of the family. When you opened the card there was no doubt who it was for, for in either picture or word you knew instantly it for you. So much love poured out them.

So maybe sometime in a distant future as a little old lady with grand children, she’ll tell my story of my first Christmas after a great war. She’ll show them the old bulbs that survived that Christmas night of 1945. That way I still be alive as well as the family I loved on that Christmas. Maybe seeing those old beat up bulbs, they’ll wonder about me and those I loved. We will still be alive - - - but in their memories.

I hope you had a Merry Christmas my friends. May you make many memories with those you love and love you and live forever.