Thread: Wayne Baldwin's Amazing Story: Baldy's Eual Eldred Baldwin

  1. #781
    Team Member ProHydroRacer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ketzer View Post
    Great start, Wayne. Oddly, I've been working on a story about my father, Steve Ketzer, that, after a few dodges that include everything from recipes on how to make candy cane cookies, four tortillas and Knotts Berry Farm, ends up being about boat racing--around 25 pages, thus far.
    Great start? Where you been for the last 4 years?

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    Well, uh, I kinda got busy. Retired as an inspector with the FAA (I have no opinion on the Malaysian aircraft), and after 21 years in Alaska, my wife was fairly adamant about moving some place to "get warm," so we re-positioned to Hernando, Florida, which resulted in two drives across the North American Continent, one in my old F-350 Ford and the other in her 4-Runner with her and dogs, fixing up the new digs, etc., etc., and since I've been most busy fighting armadillos, moles, bugs, spiders, mowing lawn, whacking back the swamp, and picking up after several huge live oaks that rain leaves, Spanish moss, nuts and seeds. I'm about ready to move back to Alaska, but finding a new mate in Florida is difficult--the odds are good, but the goods are odd. Sorry I haven't been keeping up, but, WRITE ON!

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    Wayne, Thanks for all that you do. You are now in to the era that i stared racing and the music that you refer to is spot on for me. By 68 I had been racing for a year, six months of that was spent racing in my first classes, B stock runabout and Hydro. While testing one day, a friend by the name of Bill Hosler, let me take a ride in his C hydro. It was an old Marchetti with a FC Konig. That was all it took for me to sell the B Merc and by my first A Loop from Hap Mulvaney. It was game on from that time on for me. Thanks for the memories as i was at that time in High School, going with the prettiest RED HEAD in school and racing with top notch guy's Like Nicholson, Cooper , Parker, donald and Simison in A runabout with Dortch and others to give me training! Ah The day's of past, Thanks Steve

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    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
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    Thanks Steve L. I enjoy every minute of it. I just wish I could find everything I'm looking for at the time so I don't have to stop and start all the time. Sometimes I have to work though and I just got in a few hours ago from a 28 hour stint running a tool on a drilling. Rig. 28 hours on a 2500 foot well. Unbelievable.

    Steve K......glad to hear you writing about your Dad. Our Dad's were good friends and mine always thought that your Dad was the inspiration for the cartoon hydro driver with a big mustache for one of the early 70's T shirt at Alex. Several years ago you sent me a CD or DVD with photos, but I never could open it. I took it to Joe's and other friends to see if it was just my equipment, but no one was able to. Would it be possible for you to try again maybe while you are writing about your Dad? We always enjoyed his company.



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    I recently tried it again, Wayne, had Steve Sr.'s old slides copied on a flash drive. Mostly, these are pictures of the Ketzer Racing Team and friends, Bill Van, Stan and Butch Leavendusky, others, and the pits at St. Louis, Alex, and the Jerry Waldman Memorial Cup held at Diamondhead in Hot Springs. I'll post them in the Encyclopaedia section under "Ketzer Racing Team." It'll probably take a few or more posts to get them on. Good stories. I am re-inspired.

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    Thanks Steve....you start that up and I will add some to it. Including a picture of that T shirt and what my Dad thought about it.



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    Wayne, I got on intending to add to my thread, but ended up on yours and starting from the top, so I'm still a few years behind. Amazing what shared experiences boat racers have, from airplanes to oysters. Makes sense, I guess. And I shared your apprehension of the power on stall, especially when one of the wings fell over. I was an airworthiness inspector with the FAA, so I wasn't required to keep my pilot's license current, although I got in much stick time with my operations compadres. Still, about to hit 50, I decided I wanted to solo again and joined the aero club at Eielson AFB where I flew the military version of the old CE-172. It wasn't much of a challenge as the runway at Eielson was (is) so long, it was used as an alternate landing site for the space shuttle, but was never needed--you could almost land and stop on the numbers and certainly do a few touch-and-goes before you reached the end. Landing at Fairbanks International and Ft. Wainwright was a piece of cake, too. I guess I could have ventured out into the bush and tried landing on riverbeds like a real bush pilot, but I had investigated too many accidents out there to temp fate.

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    I have really enjoyed the thread you started about your Dad, his life, and racing career Steve. We had a lot of the same interests. I was not the marble champion like you were, but I remember that stuff, along with the baseball cards, etc. I had a Willy May's card and a McGregor glove, Willy Mays edition. Still have it. My son used it when he played Little League.

    While cleaning out, refileing and straitening up my darkroom I was filing negatives when I found some negatives of our boat trailers I haven't seen in many years. The photos must have been lost during Hurricane Celia in 1970 because I never remember seeing the pictures much later after they were taken. In the corner of one is a partial picture of the inboard 48 hydro Baldy bought. These pictures were very interesting because they confirmed what I could not remember. Baldy built a garage next to the alley to house our racing boats. It was just west of the shop he had built a few months earlier. I kind of thought maybe I dreamt that when I was doing this story, but I was very pleasantly surprised to see that it actually existed. I don't remember that much about it because I didn't spend much time in there at all. I can remember some of the stuff I see in the picture, including the hydro and the safety net because I built it, but the rest is like a dream to me.



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    Team Member David Everhart's Avatar
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    Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

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    I'm sorry David, but I don't get it.



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