Greetings All !

I was invited to this web sight by some friends.. So here I am..

Bio: I was always lucky in that I knew from around 2 years old (according to my parents) what I wanted to do with my life. And to be honest I would not have made it without some words of wisdom from a Captain with American Airlines by the name of Bill Cherry. When I was about 5 or 6 years old Captain Bill let me ride up front and actually fly a DC-7 (passengers and all) which to this very day I still remember... I found out much later in life that there was a movie made about Bill when he was flying a B-17 during WW2.. Much of the over water survival equipment carried on Airlines is a direct result of his crew and him surviving 21 days at sea after a crash.. Bill died several years ago at age 87.. 

 You see I hated public education and was barely passing, never studied and just did what I had to do to make the next grade.. hahaha there were a few questions even about that ! For some reason all I cared about was my horse, dog, hunting and fishing and two neighbor (approx. 3 miles away) girls that liked horses and me...

One day Bill asked me how I was doing in school and I told him I hated it and it was boring !

He just smiled and asked if I still wanted to fly airplanes ? If I did then I had to make good grades which any future employer would check before I was hired... Also no one likes a dummy and it is better to learn and know things than just be uninformed... Something like that... Anyway from the 7th grade in high school I was on the honor roll and made all As and Bs...  From the 9th grade on I was playing in night clubs (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights) and getting paid as a musician.. Man 4 hours sleep a night and all the home work they liked to pile on you back then was a real pisser... But I did it..

About this same time one of my school buds by the name of Harvey would sit in class with his text book held in front of himself while he read a paper back book... I asked him what he was doing and he said these were books by Edgar Rice Burrows about John Carter and Deja Thorus..

No one read for the fun of it... Reading was boring school work !

Harvey reached into his backpack and handed me a book and just said, "Read the first 20 pages and if I did not like it bring it back tomorrow"..

After school and messing about on the farm I finally opened the book around 20:30 hours.... Big mistake ! I finally finished the book around 03:30 hours in the morning... I was hooked... Had never read anything that got my attention so vividly..

That simple action by Harvey opened a new world of reading and enjoyment for me... I think that was the 5th grade ?

When I was 14 I used to go flying in a J-3 cub with a girl I had the hots for... Her father's airplane and we had a blast ! At age 16 I went to flight school and soloed at 3.5 hours ...

After School I joined the military and flew Helicopters in Viet Nam and then went to Ft. Rucker and taught flying to students... After three years teaching I attended Fixing wing school and upon completion was sent back overseas working for one of the intel agencies.. 13 months with them (sucky outfit) and inter theater transfer to another outfit that flew fixed a rotary wing aircraft for big wigs..

8.5 years in the military with some awesome flying but when Nam fell I hung up my guns .. I was terribly pissed about the war and the POWs that were supposedly left behind.. It matters not the reasons we got involved or the lies etc etc what matters are those who died or came back crippled because they thought they were doing right by America and fighting communism...

The next 8 years were spent flying Corporate aircraft... Flew all over the Mid-East and to many European countries.. Met my wife of 25 years while flying corporate.. She died in 2000 of breast cancer or I figure we would still be together.. A wonderful person who wanted to live..

We had a 34 foot sailboat that we usually spent a couple of nights a week on... It was our own world and the kids really enjoyed the adventure and life style at the marina and sailing. 

I finally got hired by a major airline and spent the next 25 years flying all sorts of airline stuff to places all over the world..  Wow how neat...Not really; Just another airport and another hotel with usually a short lay over..

About that time I started buying aircraft and doing some work on them and then selling them.. That worked until I purchased my first Swift aircraft.. I fell in love with the aircraft and ended up doing airshows in two of the aircraft I owned.. Survived all that and had a blast to boot ! Back then you could buy an aircraft for about the same price as a  new car..

I blew a jug on one of the aircraft and had a new cylinder overnighted to my place.. total cost was $379... About 10 years later I was having an engine overhauled.. The price of the same cylinders/jugs had increased to over $1300.. I saw the hand writing on the wall so to speak and got out of private aviation.. I enjoy doing many things but getting ripped off is not one of them..!

 I retired in 2005.

Funny I have not missed flying one bit except for some great friends I had at the airline..

I am interested in just about everything but tend to get bored rather quickly with religion and crystal rubbing new age stuff..

I presently live overseas in Asia with a great wife whom I dearly like and love.  Life has been a struggle but rewarding and fair to me ... I plan on dying here and my wife will do the Buddhist thing with my remains... I will get to answer the great question of is there anything after death etc etc... Some things you just have to experience for yourself but in all honesty I really don't worry about such stuff ! What will be will be...