Flying in the family

I think it all started with my father and his older brother. They joined the U.S. Marine Corp Reserve so they could fly on weekends. They trained as gunners because both thought this was a really fun thing to do on weekends for four years in the Marine Air Corps in Seattle, Washington from about 1934 until 1937. Having served their time in the military before World War II they wound up working together as Electricians wiring Liberty ships in Seattle Harbor during World War II since they were trained electricians.

Then their younger brother Tommy started flying about 1939 or 1940. The story goes like this: One day Tommy who was about 20 then was watching a man fly his bi-plane and after the man landed he asked Tommy if he would like to fly his plane. So, Tommy took the plane up. As Tommy landed the plane the man was really amazed at the perfect 3 point landing which was really hard to do. So, the man said, "Wow! That was the best landing I've ever seen! Where did you learn to fly?"

Tommy said non-chalantly, "That was the first time I've ever flown a plane." Ordinarily I wouldn't believe this kind of story about Tommy unless I had heard of all the amazing things he had already done in his life in regard to mechanical things. It seems he was always, "A very quick study" in regard to anything mechanical. My father told the story of how Tommy once had tried to shoot a buck across a canyon when his brothers had dared him to try. It was an impossible shot of at the very least about 300 yards.  So, Tommy shot and they they laughed and didn't think to much about it other than the fact that the Buck deer disappeared after Tommy shot. So, they kind of took their time laughing and making jokes but then they came upon the deer and he had actually killed it from 300 yards away with a 30 odd 6 which is a World War I assault rifle sometimes known as the M-1.

Another time my Dad whose name was Fred like me and Tommy his younger brother and Bob the oldest brother had gotten jobs driving dump trucks working on the Grand Coulee Dam in the late 1930s on the Columbia River and they were being paid by the load not by the hour. So, what this did was make all the dump truck drivers take a lot of risks to make more trips. So, Tommy innovative as usual Took out the Driver's seat and put in instead a piece of wood. This allowed him to drive faster than any other dump truck driver and any other driver who tried (with a seat) to drive as fast as him crashed their dump truck. To make more sense of this if you have ever driven a dump truck on a bad dirt road or bad pavement it can catapult you against the ceiling and hurt your head or neck and possibly knock you unconscious. But if you sat on a board and maybe stood up partly holding the steering wheel like on a motorcycle over some bumps you wouldn't get a concussion doing this. When I was a partner in a mining company I also drove a dump truck sometimes over bad desert roads and almost died on more than one occasion as a result when I was about 25.  But Tommy consistently made the most money of all the dump truck drivers. Since my Dad was about 21 then and met his first wife there Tommy was probably about 19 and Bob about 23 who was already married.

At some point my father took his first wife and his brother Tommy to the South Sea Islands by Chartering a Yacht from Canada and they all left and sailed down the Coast from Vancouver to Seattle and then down to San Francisco and Los Angeles and then Long Beach, California. From there they sailed to Avalon Harbor on Catalina Island 26 miles off the coast from Long beach and Los Angeles. They sailed 40 days before they saw land again in the Tuomoto Archipeligo (one of these islands was Tahiti).

So, when the war started they came home via Honolulu and a large steamship back to the mainland. At this point Tommy bought a plane (something similar to a Piper Cub with a stick and one seat in front and one in back). He also bought a blue 1941 Century Buick. When Tommy didn't come back one day my Dad got Tommy's car and still drove it until 1956 when he bought a brand new Yellow and White two tone Century Buick. When I was little my father often would race other guys on freeways with both the 1941 and the 1956 because each had the biggest stock engine. This was much more common in those days than now. There were many less people and people generally behaved themselves better than now. Sometimes, Mom and I would be there when Dad won races on the Freeways with both cars. Though I wasn't into being a race car driver he did teach me to drive and I learned to drive on Los Angeles Freeways so I found I could even drive in Nepal in a rented car. (If you have ever been to Nepal or India you know how scary driving in anything there can be). At least it was  then in 1985 and 1986.

The following button will share some of my flying experiences:
Planes I have piloted