A third of the way into my journey in July 1988, I had my first visit to Flabob Airport and was given an escorted walking tour through its hangars with hosts and reporters to meet the pilots and aircraft restorers. Then I was taken to the adjoining property which housed a small general aviation aircraft paint company, owned by Ray Stits. My hosts thought it important for me to meet Mr. Stits as he had designed and built small, personal airplanes back in the 1950’s and ‘60’s, and he was a big wheel in the EAA, being the founder of its Chapter #1. After Mr. Stits shared some unique aviation stories, he generously handed me a one hundred dollar bill and told me to turn it into change for my calls from pay phones which I sometimes made by the dozen to arrange my next ride toward the next state.
A month after completing my journey, in late December 1988, I sold my worldly possessions, drove my old motorhome from Florida to Flabob in southern California, set up camp next to the big hangar and in my control tower started learning how use a computer, an old Apple, to begin typing up my book.
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It's hard to see in the photo above, but there was a hole in the overhang, through which I climbed off the top rung of the ladder onto the roof. Once on top, as you can see, it was just a few steps to the door of my little windowed fort.
I needed some sort of part-time employment to support the book writing and Ray Stits offered me a menial assembly line job in his paint factory. I took it. One day, while working there, he told me that I reminded him of Pancho Barnes, which as it turned out was not completely complimentary.
I have removed the details of this from this posting as it is a really good story and I had some wise advice earlier today from a published author that I should keep the full chapters off of the internet, saving them for the printed version of this book.
Is this a tease to get you to buy the printed version of this book? – you bet it is!