Greg : I notice a few pens in front of Günther and Chuck Yeager at the presentation table. Now were they both sharing their war time experiecnces, and did you get some books or items signed..... ? ~E
Most excellent Greg!!!!!!!!!! P-51 Mustangs!! (Heart)(heart)(heart) Pic of Gunther Rall No wonder he has no time to answer mail, he's never at home to read them. Yeager--ditto as with Gunther Rall. Thank you for the B-17 ride as well. Now I know what my dad must have felt hving been a 17 crewmember.
Your all welcome. What position in the 17 was your father in Carl? The line for Yeager was really long, but I did get Gunther Rall's book and had him sign it for me. Plus I got another book on the Tuskegee Airmen. Greg
Very nice air show. I wish you had posted a picture of the British Agorsy transport that was in the background of the quad 50 picture. I like old rare transports. The Agorsy was similar to the C-130 but never caught on like the C-130 did. I liked the TBF Averger picture the best.
Hi Greg--i'm not sure--he was either a waist gunner or a ball turret gunner. He was fairly small and skinny so--i'm pretty surr he was a ball turret gunner. He stood at 5 ft 3 in and weighed about 130 lbs.
I do hate to see the P-38, and P-47,and P-51 of the 94th Aero Squadron stuck on a stick and out in the weather. These aircraft are getting too rare to leave outside and corrode. It reminds me of all the aircraft I have seen at VFW posts, and American Legion Posts that have been left to the elements and now are eye sores. Where I live there is an F-4D Phamtom that has been in the Texas sun for about 5 years and looks terrible now. Anouther place has an F-100F that has been in the sun for years and looks like junk. The canopy is yellow and crazed and the paint is peeling off.
Hi TA--at least you get to see aircraft on display. Back in Kingsville (my home town) there used to be one on permanent display at Dick Kleberg Park to the south of town--it vanished many many years ago. Was supposed to be "cleaned up a bit and returned) well--it never has been returned. Then--at a park across the street from my house was an older Navy Jet trainer on display and for kids to play on. After years of non-maintenance, street punks painted gang symbols in and on it--tore things out of the cockpit like wires and such that were still there, paintes swaz's on it, smoked their dope in it and left piles of trash in and on it. Well--the Navy came and got it too and was supposed to put a TA-4J in it's place--this was about 15 years ago--and they still have never replaced it. A few yerars before this happened--I used to get some of my dads paint (he used to own a paint store) and I would go over there and re-paint the white areas white--and the Red areas red. The paint job would look goood for a few days--then the punks started spray-painting their grafiti on it again. I caught them at it one time just after I started re-painting the white portions and threatened to beat the hell out of them but, as a few of these punks were maybe 1-2 years younger than I--(I was maybe 16-17 at that time) and they would run home to tell "daddy" and since I knew where they lived--I also told their "daddy" what thye were doing--trashing out the aircraft and showed Poleroid pictures of what they did after I went through all that trouble to keep the area nice and the aircraft in good looks. Their "dads" sometimes set the punk kid straight because they saw I was making an effort to keep up the site and sometimes didn't give a damn. At that time--and I still do believe this: I thought--take care of an item and it will last you--and I slightly changed the thought to: take care of what is provided for you and it will always be there for you to enjoy, trash it out and eventually it will be taken away from you. Well--it was taken away and never replaced. Another thing I used to do was re-paint their picnic tables and shelter--BBQ pit and garbage cans. All on my own free will and with my dads donated paint or paint I purchased myself. Well--that all ended after the City Park officials griped about the paint job--saying some crap like "were supposed to re-paint and take care of those items." Well-hell--after about 2 years of non-mantenance--I took matters into my own hands and maintained the picnic site that was across the street from my house. So much for being appreciated.
I would not confront any gangbangers these days Carl, they tend to carry knives and guns and I would hate to lose you to those punks.
Hi TA--this happened about 15 or so years ago. Even then I never really cared to stick my nose into anothers business. I agre with you, many all too many of these gangbangers carry weapons as they cannot "handle business" by being unarmed. My last confrontation with gangbangers actually happened in about March or April of this year. I was driving down McArdle road here in CC and had Sarge as the passenger in the car. Neither of us were doing anything that could in any way be construed as "wrong" and as I was driving on McArdle--a car with two punks pulled from behind my car to the side of my car and started yelling and cussing Sarge and myself and throwing gang signs with their fingers. Sarge and I just laughed at their state of stupidity--and basically tried to ignore those two punks. It turned out that these punks were accusing us of throwing a rock at their windshield--as they were totally behind us--I found that that was funny. What am I supposed to do? ask Sarge to steer the car while I turn around in the drivers seat--trying to keep my foot on the pedal just so I can chuck a rock at their rattey car? Anyway--they continued to follow me on McArdle--to where it opened up into a 5 lane street from a 2 lane. The punk pulled next to my car and showed me that he was armend with a cut-off wooden broom handle. I pointed at him and laughed and continued on my way. All Sarge and I were trying to do was to go to Sears to pay the bills on our credit cards. Eventually we reached a mall where Sears is at and went into the parkinglot. The punks followed us into the lot and I then stopped the car--got out and stood by my car as I had had enough of their stupidity. They pulled their car to a stop about 150 feet away from mine and cursed and acted tough. One even got out--the twirp with the broomhandle "club." I simply walked to my trunk and opened it and grabbed a 4 way tire iron and another tire iron--I was ready to rumble. Naturally the punk did not come near my car--got back into its car and then they circled the area we were at--which had very few cars around--and drove fairly close to my car--cursing and throwing gang signs again. By that time--Sarge had had enough and also started to get out of the car. I went after their car--which of course sped up faster than I could think of running. Since they were cowering away--I turned my back and walked back to my car. They then drove near my car again--stopped--and Sarge and I came to the drivers side of my car--waiting for them to get out as we both were then rip-roaring mad and wanted to beat the hell out of them. Naturally when confronted (again) they "ran away." Sarge and I knew then that they were waiting for me to park the car somewhere and go inside the mall. I knew better than that as I knew they slash tires and do whatever damage they could do to the defenceless car. Instead--I got onto S.P.I.D--the busiest streets through Corpus, and I drove down the road about 1 mile. I took an acess road made a left under the overpass and went directly back to Sears. I knew that we had lost those twirps in the traffic and we both went to pay out bills at Sears. Came back outside and went straight back to the car and then we went to have lunch--pretty much forgetting that anything had happened. To this day--I have never seen these punks again. One thing I do that if I am threatened--is that I make it known that I will fight back with whatever it takes to win the situation. Im not brave but--im no coward either. These punks do not impress my at all and I do my best to laugh at them. a good 95% of them will end up in prison and will become the "girlfriend" to some 7 foot tall 400 lb inmate.
