Wickenburg’s Gold Rush Days is in progress this weekend. The owners of dozens of classic cars showed them off on Frontier Street today. Verna snapped a hundred and seven images at the event. I selected several of her photos to include in this classic car slideshow. Move your mouse cursor over the slideshow to pause, move out to resume.
Nostalgia
Wickenburg Fly-In
Last month, we went to see the Wickenburg Fly-in and Classic Car Show at the airport on the west end of town. It was a lot of fun and there were over 80 classic cars and many interesting aircraft.
Verna was taking a photo of a Cessna 195 at the same time a Piper Colt was taking off. It’s been a number of years since I flew a Colt. I was in the Navy attending Avionics school in Millington, TN and rented a Colt to keep current. I took one of my school buddies up for a sightseeing tour over Memphis and the Mississippi River.
Click on the image to enlarge.
Treasures Among the Trash
As we continue to sort through all the old junk in the closets and drawers, we find little nuggets like this ancient photo of me sitting at the controls of The Spruce Goose. It was on a slide when I found it last week so I took it to the photo shop to have it scanned onto a CD ROM.
Image – Bob at the controls of the Spruce Goose – Click to enlarge
The story dates back to 1982 when I and a contingent from the Hughes (Aircraft) Radio Club were invited to take a private tour of the H-4 Hercules in Long Beach, CA, prior to opening the exhibit up to the public. The huge wooden airplane was in a dome adjacent to the Queen Mary.
We got the whole deal. We walked out into the wings of the plane where an engineer was stationed behind each of the eight giant R-4400 Pratt & Whitney radial engines. I even got to climb up on the top of the Goose (covered in plastic tarps) and walk on the wings and fuselage. It was incredible! Everything was there – the 20 passenger seats behind the cockpit, the radio rack with all of the original ARC radios from that era and the cockpit itself in its original condition.
Of course, I wasn’t the only guy to sit in the same seat occupied by Howard Hughes that day, but I was the best looking (according to Verna, that is).
Image – Howard Hughes seated in the pilot’s seat in 1948
My Mom (still around at age 90) says I was present the day Hughes lifted the Hercules off in Long Beach Harbor in 1948. My Dad had taken the family, Mom, me and my two brothers, to witness the taxiing-turned-test-flight. Sadly, I was taking a nap in the car and can’t remember the event. I was five at the time.
Bragging Rights
Back in the early 1980s, I had the pleasure of serving as flight instructor to primary student Fraser Heston. A mutual friend and former student, Ralph, introduced Fraser to me and wanted to have Fraser take his primary instruction in Ralph’s Piper PA-18 Super Cub, a descendant of Piper’s Venerable J3 Cub. I was one of the few taildragger instructors at SMO then, so I got the job.
Clickable image: Fraser Heston posing by Ralph’s Super Cub (found during the big house cleaning)
One of the big events was when Fraser was to have his first solo flight. His Father, the immortal Charlton Heston brought the family to witness the event. After a few trips around the traffic pattern as dual instruction, Fraser was ready to make his three take-offs and landings to a full stop (touch and go landings don’t count for taildraggers). I got out of the airplane near the gas pit where there was an observation deck. I introduced myself to “Chuck” and his family as Fraser taxied out for take-off.
Fraser’s three trips around the pattern were flawless. His landings were smooth and uneventful – which is a good thing. We cheered from the observation deck as Fraser taxied back for each subsequent takeoff. after the last landing, Fraser taxied to the tie-down area next to the observation deck and we all met him there.
Chuck proposed a toast to the event. The family brought a bottle of champagne and several little plastic champagne glasses. Chuck had to pour the champagne into glasses on the horizontal stabilizer of an adjacent Cessna since Ralph’s airplane’s horizontal stabilizers aren’t horizontal on the ground. We toasted to Fraser’s perfect first solo flight. The family then adjourned to have brunch in Westwood Village.
Verna and I were honored to be invited to the screening of “Mother Lode” a few weeks later. We both met with Charlton Heston, the star of the film, and with Fraser, the writer and producer. On the way out, Verna (literally) bumped into Lou Ferigno, star of “The Incredible Hulk.” That was a fun night.
I am very proud to have these events in my pilot logbook. I still brag about having this experience from time to time. This is one of those times.
Cleaning Out the Attic
Well, not the proverbial attic, but rather all of the nooks and crannys and cubby holes where we have stored pictures and documents over the years. Since we’re now committed to building our home in Arizona, we’re starting to dig out stuff we’re NOT taking with us and either dispose of it, shred it or give it to family.
Verna has been at it since a few days ago, going through our vast collection of photographs (non-digital hard-copies), sorting into keepers and non-keepers piles. Today, I got into some old boxes and cabinets upstairs and discovered documents such as my original application for employment to Hughes Aircraft (now Raytheon), tax records, old trust deeds, legal papers of all descriptions, some not fond memories, I must admit, and a set of plans to add on to our California home 25 years ago. I even found my original DD214 Navy discharge papers. Talk about a trip down memory lane.
Some of the old papers went into the safe but most went into the shredder. Many of the old photos were sorted into several large envelopes by Verna, destined for family to see and dispose as they see fit. A lot of old kid pix of nieces and nephews who now have their own kids. I still have a crap load of old 35mm slides in the garage – they’re next.
We have really a lot of stuff to clean out over the next months and we’re transitioning to Arizona. We’ve only scratched the surface of 30+ years accumulation of stuff in our California house.
Red Rose and Remembering Dad on Father’s Day
A little over a year ago, Verna’s Dad passed away. The company I worked for sent a bouquet with a nice variety of flowers. Among them, this bright red rose caught Verna’s attention so she took this image of it. She took the photo exactly one year ago. Click on the image to enlarge.
