I came up with the concept of a nation of airports on the Atlantic Aero Ramp crying over the death of Aunt Keaton, who was my mother’s friend, around that time, when I worked at Atlantic Aero from 10 at night to 6 in the morning.
I paid to fly for awhile & then after these other guys on the crew got killed in a Conquest crash I got hired and drew straws to get covered when getting a take off and landing on Radio Traffic Watch flights.
I soloed later in Florida after I moved there & worked at Business Air Center and won flight lessons thru solo for recovering a stolen life raft for Kitty Hawk Flight school. I soloed with something like 25 hours instead of 10 for the way I got to fly.
I think everyone in high school ought be taught to fly.
It has been as much a help to me as was the Boy Scouts.
It bothers the hell out of me that Linemen don’t get well paid. It was and is a tough job with life and death issues involved. How can it be that 25 thousand a year is big money in doing such a job?
I keep remembering being cold & wet with the wind blowing hooking up at the single port with my black gloves soaked in JP4 to fuel some 727 or DC 9. The MD 80s and big fat 727 300s were coming around as I was at the end of my Ground Services career & moved to NYC to run the Grip Truck.
I really enjoyed making movies and commercials & industrials and even Music Videos which made my guts tie in knots since getting paid was so much drama.
It makes a difference that I ran a business in NYC. I had an excellent safety record. I had an excellent safety record because my crews understood I was serious about it and they got into it and helped me be safe along with helped me keep everybody safe.
I keep a pistol in the NC grip trucks I ran. Some understood locations could be dangerous. One night in Winston Salem I stood around my truck in my Yellow rain coat I got for smoking too much, guarding it. Productions like to rent offices in cheap rent neighborhoods. It was raining like hell and cold. I still had my .38 in my pocket.
I want civilization a lot.
It does require force with blockheads to get.
Force comes in varieties. I’ve been loud and firm with orders or soft and reasonable with encouragements.
That textbook on leadership Turn this Ship Around by David Marquet would be in my new reading list if I made another. You can find my 1999 reading list in my book you need to buy for institutional memory and Woodstock Nation dreams on Amazon.com/author/transcendian.
Please do.
Selfie