rough draft of my book, "Have Goggles, Will Travel"

[AAC Cadet Leader]

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Originally Posted by FliegerJG1

These photos of you swearing in new members to the AAC always make me smile. I really love them! How many people eventually became members?

FliegerJG1

Hi FleigerJG1,
One Saturday, I was at an antique flea market in Zellwood, Florida while I was in the planning stages of my journey, and I bought a stack of brittle, old Air Trails magazines dated from 1936 - 1952. I found within their pages, the "Air Adventurers Club" and became intrigued and charmed by the variety of members with their questions, news items and photos they sent to the club's "Flight Commander" and "Wing Commander." Readers could get a free membership card and a tin AAC wing pin for ten cents. It was a grassroots club of correspondents, the magazine's young and old readers.

I thought it would be fun to restart the club with the same ideals, so I wrote to my friend, A. Lee Spencer in Iola, Kansas and asked him to be the new "AAC Flight Commander." He agreed. I appointed myself as the "AAC Cadet Leader." Then I had 5,000 Air Adventurers Club membership cards printed with the original pledge.

The Air Adventurers Club Pledge
"To the best of my ability,
I pledge to support the ideals and principles
of Air Adventurers and will do all in my power
to further the advance of aviation."

The only membership requirement is that the person must love old aeroplanes. I haven't met very many people who don't qualify, so it's pretty easy to find new members.

And three more selling points are:

No age limits
No membership dues
No meetings! - but we have parties every once in a while

I managed to swear in one to several people at a time throughout my journey, handing out about half of the cards I had printed. Add to that number, around 1000 more people took the pledge in the three years afterwards when I was presenting the slide show and swearing in entire audiences at once. I still occasionally swear people in when I meet them if we get on the subject of old aeroplanes, so add another 500 over the last dozen years.

From 1988 - 1994, A. Lee Spencer printed columns for our new Air Adventurers Club on the pages of his "Sportsman's Aviation Booster" quarterly newspaper, right up until he passed away. Lee had about 300 faithful subscribers across the USA to his wonderful aviation newspaper.

Also, I've encouraged members to do ceremonial Air Adventurers Club swear-ins with others, too, pointing out that they can read the oath right off their card. Over the years I've heard back from a number of the folks I met who told me that they swore in their airplane clubs, or their kids, or parents, or friends - even a few teachers who swore in their classes. And why not?! It's all in support of aviation and old fashioned fun.

So, to answer your original question, I would take a guess that around 5,000 people have taken the Air Adventurers Club pledge to become lifetime members - perhaps even more!

And to any of you readers out there who have yet to become Air Adventurers Club members, all you have to do is raise your right hand and read the above pledge out loud. Please, do it!

[Dyoll]

Hi Martha

Read your post on page 22 yesterday and wanted to reply to your generous compliment to me. A big thank you, I am still learning that the little things we share in life can be meaningful to someone else. Glad I have been able to share flying and making good memories with you.

One of the past adventures that came to mind while reading your reply post # 217, was our trip over Lake Erie to Troy, Michigan. I believe that trip was when I was able to show you the “round rainbow” with the shadow of the plane we were flying silhouetted in the center, with the clouds for background. Very few people that I know of have ever seen this phenomenon. Great memories, with more to come.

Hope to read more about Johnnie Vincent and Joe Kittinger, (I’m still in aha with his accomplishments, as he related to us) and your preparation for departure from Orlando, for the HGWT adventure. Keep it up, from what I have seen (pictures) and read so far, much good stuff will be in this book. “The older? Lloyd-Dyoll”

Hi to Laserlloyd, your OK!, Dyoll thanks you for the welcome. Hope some day, “The Aerodrome Forum” members can make an opportunity for a mini convention like Oshkosh, at some appropriate aerodrome, so we can meet each other. Maybe one exists now?

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Originally Posted by Dyoll

Hi Martha

Read your post on page 22 yesterday and wanted to reply to your generous compliment to me. A big thank you, I am still learning that the little things we share in life can be meaningful to someone else.

agreed, and thank you, lloyd! but i must say that all the flying you generously shared with me was a no little thing.

Glad I have been able to share flying and making good memories with you.

likewise. and thank you also for sharing the joy of flying with my kids last summer. that experience is a treasured memory they'll always have.

One of the past adventures ... I believe that trip was when I was able to show you the “round rainbow” with the shadow of the plane we were flying silhouetted in the center, with the clouds for background. Very few people that I know of have ever seen this phenomenon.

yep, i remember how amazing that was to see. since then, i've seen the round rainbow with the aircraft silhouette about five or six times - twice from airliners, three or four times in small aeroplanes.

Hope some day, “The Aerodrome Forum” members can make an opportunity for a mini convention like Oshkosh, at some appropriate aerodrome, so we can meet each other. Maybe one exists now?

lloyd, a few meet at oshkosh, many meet in dayton, and some of us get together at old rhinebeck among other places. i'll send you a link to the dayton thread.

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Mom's Log
Day 87
Monday, August 22
Oregon to California
Terry Weathers flew M from Grant’s Pass, Oregon in his 1947 Piper Clipper to Montague, California. At Montague she flew three glider flights and entered in back of her logbook – 1968 manufacture, too new, but okay, as they were not legs of the journey. Dan Niles gave her two rides.



[These were my first glider flights ever. Terry Weathers in his Cessna was our tow pilot, pulling us up to altitude from a long cable, before releasing us. On the first flight, after being released, we couldn’t find any updrafts over Gunsight Peak, so headed directly back to the airfield. It was a very strange feeling to me to not have any power controls, and have to rely on updrafts. Then, not finding any, to be only going downward even though at a shallow angle. We were five miles away from the airport. It was beautiful and quiet, but I was sweating bullets that we weren’t going to make it back. We did though – just barely, with a straight in approach. Glider pilots are a brave breed!

On our second flight, we found the updrafts we were looking for and spent 45 minutes soaring over "Paradise Craggie." My time at the controls, 35 minutes; lazy eights, updraft climbing, descents, stalls and the landing. Fantastic fun!]

On the third ride, Lloyd Rugg a Glider Flight Instructor, gave M dual instrument glider instruction and they were launched by a winch, something that is a rare way to get a glider into the air.

M stayed this night on Rohrer Field in Montague, in a nice motor home she had all to herself.

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Mom's Log
Day 88
Tuesday, August 23
California
Terry Weathers flew M to Redding, California in his 1962 Cessna 182. Then Harry Smith flew her to Chico, California in his 1941 Luscombe,

and Charles Mueller in his 1958 Cessna 182 flew her to San Martin, California and on to Watsonville, California, where they had dinner at the airport restaurant.
[Charles first flew us to San Martin because he wanted to take me to "The Flying Lady Restaurant," located on the field, which looked like a really neat place with old aeroplane artifacts and photos decorating it. When we got there, sadly it was closed. We looked in the windows and determined it had been closed for a few months.]


Becky (lifetime friend since childhood in Ohio) picked M up at Watsonville Airport and she stayed the night with Becky, Chris and their daughter, Sinead Katana in Santa Cruz, California.

[AAC Cadet Leader]

saving for later text addition

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Mom's Log
Day 89
Wednesday, August 24
California
Chris O’Loughlin drove Martha to Watsonville Airport early in the morning on his way to college classes he was attending.

[insert here Chapter: The Kindness of a Stranger]

continued...

[AAC Cadet Leader]

The Kindness of a Stranger
Day 89
Wednesday, August 24, 1988

It was 7:30 a.m. on a beautiful sunny Wednesday morning, though getting hot in a hurry. Chris O’Loughlin, my friend, on his way to his college classes, drove me back to the spot where I’d been flown in and dropped off by Charles Mueller the night before at Watsonville Airport. Now it was time to find my next ride out.

For such a big general aviation airport with a wide asphalt runway and huge tarmac tie-down area, the flying activity was woefully sparse. I quickly became educated that other general aviation airports closer to San Jose had more mid-week activity. This airport close to the coast, near Santa Cruz, California came alive on weekends.

I started out by walking up and down the rows of airplanes on the tarmac. All were airplanes, unfortunately, no "aeroplanes." Then, I spent the next two and a half hours talking to people. I told everyone I could find what I was doing and asked them if they knew anyone with an old plane on the field or at any nearby airfields.

In order, the people I queried: the receptionist at the FBO; the line boy – actually he was more of a “line man” since he was around thirty years old, but I’ve never heard anyone call the guys who gas the planes anything other than “line boys.” Even the girls or women who fill up the planes get called “the line boy.” I know, because I was one during my flight training at Kent State Airport. Now, where was I…oh, yes; the aircraft mechanics in two hangars; some people wearing business suits in two offices on the field. No luck and I wasn’t getting any encouragement from any of them.

There was a student pilot with a modern Cessna doing touch ‘n go’s and a Piper Arrow had stopped in to the pumps for gas, but again, both were too new for my "vintage requirements."

Then I tried the three or four phone numbers I had of people within a couple hundred miles. Again, no luck. I started wishing I’d been left off the day before at a smaller, more intimate airfield, where old birds were more plentiful.

My next stop was the mostly empty airport restaurant where I set the world’s record for eating a grilled cheese sandwich slower than anyone has ever done. I sat by the window overlooking the airport tarmac and when my sandwich was gone and soda had been refilled by the nice waitress for the third time, I got out my Rand McNally and updated my line across the last three states, wondering if this airport was where my penned-in line was going to stop for good. Then, my hero arrived before me.

“Um, hello, are you Martha?”

“Yes?” I said, looking up from my maps.

“I understand you need a ride in an old plane?”

“Yeah, sure do. Do you have one?” I asked with a new outlook on life.

“I have an old Aeronca Champ.”

As if he had just informed me I’d won the state lottery, I rose to my feet and think I may have scared this soft-spoken man half to death, when I hugged him with joy and gratitude while jumping up and down for a full ten seconds. Then I stopped and asked...

“You are offering me a ride in it, right?”

Thank goodness he was and wasn't change his mind after I undoubtedly embarrassed him.

He said he’d just flown in to get a cup of coffee and someone told him there was “a girl named Martha somewhere on the airport, dressed like Amelia Earhart, looking for a ride out in an old plane.”

His name was Harry Linder. Not only did he give me a ride out, but he spent the whole rest of the day flying me to three different airfields until nightfall to help me find another ride to get me further along my way - and he bought me dinner. Pure generosity.

During one of our flights, Harry told me he was really happy to be a participant in my journey, that it was "a meaningful thing to do." He said it was a lot more interesting and purposeful than just flying to get a cup of coffee, which was why he made most of his flights. He also said assisting me to find my next ride was like going on a treasure hunt. He really liked my restarting the Air Adventurers Club and said he remembered the club in Air Trails Magazine from when he was a kid.

Meeting many of my pilots and other people like Harry holds sad irony for me. The sad part is that I made such a nice friend that day, never to see him again, nor have I heard from him ever again.

I should look him up. I hope he’s still alive now, twenty years later. I’d like to say thank you to him again for spending that whole day flying me around and for his kind friendship to me, a stranger. Maybe he could even take me airport hopping again for an afternoon. Wouldn’t that be fun!

Lesson learned: The real treasures in life are people like Harry. Material things are nothing compared to cherished friendships. And some friendships are so fleeting. I only knew Harry for a few hours of one day, but I remember what a dear friend he was to me. I wish I could just pop in on him and spend some time. And I feel the same way about so many others I've met. That’s the whole sad part about all of these wonderful friends I've met. They are so special to me, but it's likely I'll never see them again.

~

[AAC Cadet Leader]

So, What’s This All About, Anyway?
January 5, 2008

Dear Reader,
Yesterday after reading aloud to my son and daughter from Day 89 of the Mom’s Log, followed by my short chapter I wrote just yesterday on meeting Harry Linder and the quick friendship we made, my son said, “I want to know more description of Harry.”

Problem is that now, twenty years later, as with most of my pilots, I don’t remember much about Harry Linder.

In hindsight, while we were flying, I should have written all the details about him, but I seldom did that. I was usually too busy looking out the windows of the planes and trying to write down what I was seeing. If I got the correct spelling of my pilot's name and their signature in my logbook, I figured I'd done well. I don’t remember what Harry did for a living, his background, anything about his family or really any more than what I wrote in my logbook and what the picture I took of him tells. I remember laughing a lot with him, and that he was on the shy side, super nice and seemed to really enjoy having me to fly around with to different airports for the day. He was someone that I’d love to meet with again for coffee, anytime, at any airport cafe.

During my travels, I was asked countless times, “What is the purpose for your journey?” I could never think of a good answer to give. I wasn’t doing it for any charity or any special agenda and I wasn’t asking anyone for any money. The Air Adventurers Club part of it, well, that was real, but that was mostly a fun way to get some discussion going about old aeroplanes and about times past. It also was a way I could give people the membership card, by which they might remember me.

Of course I loved flying and old aeroplanes, for sure, but I think perhaps at the time I really didn’t know, or rather, I wouldn’t admit to the real reason I was making the journey. But now, twenty years later, while I recount this story after shelving it several times, the real purpose for it is beginning to come to me. It boils down to this: I was lonely and wanted to make some friends. There I go again, baring my soul.

Now, I had friends then, and have friends now. But for some reason, just as with Harry Linder, my friends have always been fleeting. That is to say, I spend a lot of time alone and only get to see my friends on rare occasions. And that’s more my fault than theirs, since I’m usually the one who’s “just passing through.” In between seeing my friends I can get really lonely. Now, reader, don’t cry here. Realize that as I am typing this, I am laughing through my pitiful tears. But it’s true. The lonely part has always been that way with me. With that thought, I presume am not alone. (Pun intended.)

I remember as a little kid, when my older sisters and brother were off at school and my dad at work, when my mother needed breaks from listening to me demand her constant attention. Many times she told me, “Go outside and pretend you live on a desert island.” So I did. I got pretty good at playing that island game all by myself. But I still was really happiest when the school bus dropped my siblings off at the end of the day. They were my ships coming in.

Then they all grew up and went away off to colleges, dispersing in different directions and then so did I. After that, we’d get together eventually only on holidays – and fewer of them as time went on. Then my sister, Nancy left and never came back. Okay, now I’m really crying. And my Dad left, too. But hey, we’re all leaving this great big island eventually, right? So what’s the big deal?

So I guess that is the real answer to that question I got so often during my journey. I was doing it because I was tired of living on a desert island. I was lonely, alright!?

~