Ketzer Racing Team

[Ketzer]

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(I can’t help myself...Beavers in Juneau.) Sent down to Juneau one summer to help out during the height of the tourist season, I did an inspection ride, also known as “en route,” in a Beaver on floats. In the back were paying passengers from a cruise ship. It was a good ride with no problems up to the Taku Glacier and back, a regular highway of airplanes on either side of the channel hauling tourists back and forth. When we got back to the Gastineau Channel in front of Juneau, a boat had just departed and left a couple lines of rollers behind. I kind of expected the pilot to fly over the waves or do a go-around, but, no, he settled right into them. Only doing an airworthiness check, not being a seaplane pilot myself, sterile cockpit and all, I said nothing. Well, we kissed the top of the first roller, kissed the second more in the French fashion, and then hit the third one hard, so hard my David-Clarks fell down around my neck. While I glared at the pilot, he recovered, set her down, looked over at me and shrugged, somewhat sheepishly. During the landing, passengers in the back yelled, “Weeeeee!” They thought it was all normal and part of the ride. As they say, any landing you walk away from, or maybe swim away from, is a good one. And here’s a picture of my buddy coming in at the float pond in Fairbanks.

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[Ketzer]

Cool Cat: As I was transitioning from community college to university up in Denver, Dad was down south transitioning to Konigs: rotary valve, expansion chambers, sliding stacks. Hooah! Some of that Konig equipment, he got from Harry Marinoneaux, father of Bruce and Lucien. Dad and Harry worked out a big deal. Apparently, the Marinoneauxs were totally upgrading their fleet and getting rid of all the old stuff, including a few boats, flathead Mercs, some Konig stuff, miscellaneous parts and pieces, and a couple buckets of props, no doubt the ones Wayne Baldwin saw a few years earlier mounted in their trailer. In exchange, we, but mostly Dad and Uncle Ed, would rebuild a wrecked Cessna 180 with Harry’s mechanic supplying all the parts, sending them up from Louisiana. The shop on Douglas was packed. In addition to the Cessna fuselage, we had two long engine stands full of modified Mercs, flatheads, C-Service and Konigs, two Harley-Davidsons, shelves overflowing with parts, a hydro or runabout in the paint booth area that could be enclosed with a canvas curtain, and we had airplane parts on the floor and hanging from the rafters. Dad had some trading material, and I don’t know where all that boat racing stuff ended up, but the shop thinned out and got back to normal in a few years, just about the time we finally finished the airplane.

We were smokin’ on the Cessna to begin with, overhauled the Continental engine, got some of the major repairs done, installed a new windshield and windows, but work ground to a halt when we ran out of parts, always needing this before we could do that. Parts came up from Louisiana, but the wrong ones, and we’d have to ship them back and start over. As I said, it took years to wrap it up. The Cessna took up so much space, that Dad rented a T-Hangar out at Memorial Field to store and work on it. One job I had that was a real nut-buster was taking the protective paper off the plexi-glass windshield and windows. The paper and its gooey stick-um had been on there so long—although new parts, they were old to begin with, and then we made the mistake of leaving it on longer—the stick-um had dried up. I finally got it off the windshield okay, but on the side windows, it came off in little strips if it came off at all. The rest, I had to remove with a razorblade, and no matter how careful, it left a few scratches. So then I went to work on the scratches with a Micro-Mesh kit, a wet sanding process, all by hand, of course, with at least a dozen levels of grit, the final few grits being so smooth, you thought them grit-less. Of course, Dad wanted to be done with the airplane, but didn’t seem too bothered until I, after spending many days of my summer Micro-Meshing away up in that hot T-Hangar, came around saying, “We need to finish that damn thing and get rid of it!” From what I could tell, Harry didn’t seem too concerned, either. But, we finally got ‘er done, and I was there to watch Dad take it up for first flight. I have a picture of the Cessna 180 with Ed, and I’m not sure, but that might be Harry.

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The new Konigs were a bit much for Soooie-Pig—we might have ended up in that straightaway disaster Bill Van predicted—so Dad bought a used C/D Marchetti that came with the name “Cool Cat” and we kept the name and the red and white colors. After driving the Warren and the Goff-Hagness, that Marchetti drove like a dream. I hadn’t been in a hydro that handled that well since I climbed out of the Neal for the last time. You could enter a turn with speed, crank it in, and have every expectation of coming out the other side.

(Dad and Uncle Ed working on Cool Cat at Birmingham, and me, same race.)

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In June of 1976—at least that’s what the photo stamp dates are; could have been May ’76—we made the long trip to a boat race near Birmingham, Alabama. I don’t recall if it was A.O.F. or A.P.B.A., and all I have for information on the back of the photographs is a note on one that reads, “Kicking Butt in Birmingham.” I raced “Cool Cat” with the C-Konig (rotary valve, sliding stacks) and finished 1st in one heat, and I believe 2nd in the other. While we did well at Birmingham, pickleforks were faster, and had already taken over. So after only a few races, “Cool Cat” went away.

(Dad working on Cool Cat, and me going out.)

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[Ketzer]

Why Me: During the fall and winter of ’76, I studied Shelly and Keats, Wordsworth and Blake, Shakespeare and Chaucer, Henry James and W.D. Howells, Mark Twain and Hamlin Garland (while working part time, over the years in Denver, as a janitor, hot roofer, construction laborer, painter, extruder operator in a plastics factory, and cook to supplement the G.I. Bill), and Dad studied boats for sale. We ended up with a picklefork—I think it’s a Butts Aerowing, but not positive—and one of Marshall Grant’s “Ring of Fire” runabouts we renamed “Why Me” and the hydro “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” It was a good, fast runabout and we raced B and C Konig’s on it. Although I didn’t like runabouts, I raced it a couple times, once on Lake Catherine in Hot Springs, I think 1977 after the Diamondhead races went kaput.

We set up our pit a couple days before the race and had plenty of time to test. I came back from a test run in “Why Me” with the B Konig, and Vernon Ashley got on me, started whipping me on the butt with a start rope. He said, “Stevie Jr! Boy! What were you doin’? You need to get your butt in the back of that boat! All the way back!” I told him it felt pretty good where I was riding, but he said, “I want to see your butt against the transom next time! That boat’ll take it! Hell, they ran a D on that boat!” So I got back in for another run with Vernon whipping me on the butt as I climbed in. After rounding the first turn buoys, I headed into the back straight, squeezed the throttle closed, grabbed the sliding stacks, scooted my butt back until it hit the tank or transom or both, and hunkered down.

I’m telling you, that little “Why Me” boat just started cookin’. We were going fast, ripping down the back stretch. About the time I decided Vernon and Dad were right, things took a turn for the worse, and all I saw was sky. The boat was pointing to high noon, or at least 11, and doing that brief dancing-on-the-stacks routine that I witnessed from the banks a few times, and while some drivers, like Butch Leavendusky, were adept at recovering from that situation, I, apparently, was not. After coming down hard on the left side, “Why Me” went one way, and I went the other. The impact on the boat caused such a concussion or flexing that it blew wood from the opposite side of the hull, while I felt like my ribs were being pummeled by a gorilla.

Back on the bank, I gave Dad and Vernon the silent treatment when they told of a gust of wind they saw rippling across the back straight. I felt like I had a chest full of broken ribs; even taking shallow breaths hurt, so I went off to get X-Rayed, although Vernon and Dad suggested, and rightly so, there was nothing doctors could do about cracked or bruised ribs. You just had to man-up and deal with it. As it turned out, I didn’t even have cracked ribs, only bruised. What a wimp. But I got back on the horse and raced “Why Me” a couple days later after we put a quick, wooden patch on the side, which accounts for the waffled look on the hull in the photograph. I did not put my butt against the transom, and I did not finish in the money.

(I don’t believe this photograph is at the Hot Springs race, but later that summer in Louisiana; that’s “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” behind “Why Me” with a Service engine.)

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About getting back on the horse, a few decades later in 2004, after being without one for several years, I bought a motorcycle, a new Honda VTX-1300-C, not a Harley but a nice, fast bike. I once had her up to 110 mph coming down from the hills on the Steese Highway near Fairbanks, and she had more to give. Well, I had about 3,000 miles on it and was out riding some 25 miles north of Fairbanks on the Elliott Highway, a paved but potholed road, when a dished out, unpaved patch snuck up on me while doing about fifty. It’s a beautiful ride: the road rises to follow ridgelines with views of spruce and white birch filled valleys down below, and, on good days, Denali way in the distance as clear as a postcard. Riding in Alaska is a bit different. The roads are much narrower, the woods aren’t cut way back from the shoulders—where they are cut back, willows quickly grow to fill the void—and pot holes and frost heaves are common, as are moose and other critters. So, if you’re smart, you ride with eyes scanning like radar. Still, with shadows falling across the road, riding in and out of sunlight, it’s difficult to spot road damage.

Unfortunately, the exit end of the gravel patch had a substantial asphalt lip. The front wheel cocked against that pavement, and the Honda and I went arse over tea kettle. Fortunately, I was wearing a padded jacket, knuckle gloves, a full cover helmet, and, as it was chilly, insulated jeans with long johns underneath. Still seeing stars swirling and gasping for breath, I got up and started patting myself down, feeling for bones, and was happy to find myself intact, but beginning to hurt. I went to retrieve one boot that had dispatched down the road. Dumb as it sounds, my greatest concern at that point was bear. Holy crap, I’m out in the middle of nowhere, I’m hurt, there’s no way I can pick up this bike, and there are bear out here who want to slap me around and eat me. (Although I lived in Alaska for 21 years, I’m not much of an outdoorsman.)

But before a bear came, a pick-up truck stopped—I got lucky: you could go for miles and miles without seeing another vehicle. He helped me get the Honda on its wheels and off the road. When I asked for a ride to town, he said, “Oh, I wouldn’t leave the bike out here. It’ll be gone when you get back. Can’t you ride it?” The shifter and foot brake levers were bent, so we straightened them with a huge pair of channel-lock pliers he had. Then I tried starting it, and, being a Honda, it started. So with mirrors broken off, tail lights dangling by their wires, and a big dent on one side of the gas tank along with other minor damage, I rode the 25 miles back to Fairbanks. I was hurting but okay until I got near Fairbanks and into traffic, where, without mirrors, I had to crank my neck and back around to look for cars.

When I pulled into the garage, my wife, Vicki, came out and was horrified at my condition, jacket and helmet all scratched and scuffed up, jeans torn, and me quite pale. My right leg was beginning to swell from the contusion when I suggested she might want to drive me to the hospital, where they discovered I had a six cracked ribs, a partially collapsed lung, fluid on the lungs, a chipped bone in my foot, and various contusions later rendering my right hip black with bruises. I spent three days in the hospital and walked on crutches to physical therapy for a couple weeks. In fact, as I write this, my hip is starting to hurt: must be getting ready to rain.

On the drive to the hospital, Vicki gave me a mean look and demanded, “You’re not going to get back on that thing, are you?” After riding it for 25 miles immediately after the accident, I could honestly reply, “Hell, yes, I am.” I still have the bike, and it has over 12,000 miles on it at the moment. However, having experienced hitting the pavement at 50 mph, I didn’t care to know what it felt like at 110, so I never attempted to best my speed record, and was most cautious for several hundred miles after the accident. I must mention my doctor at the emergency room. She was a real sourpuss with a bad attitude and didn’t seem to care if I lived or died. She was, “Tsk-Tsk. Another old man on a motorcycle.” Had I been in a knife fight, she probably would have shown more compassion. But the accident brought back memories of “Why Me.” The old man and Vernon must have thought I was quite a wuss for complaining about a few bruised ribs. (Me and the VTX)

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[Master Oil Racing Team]

Some great stories and photos Steve. Seems to me like your Dad did buy the last Ring of Fire. I will see what I can find out. The Johnson's bought Marshall's C Service motors I think, but I don't know if they bought any boats. Marshall told Joe Rome and I about who bought what at the end, so I need to ask him what he remembers.

[Ketzer]

Styx Tryx: We must have picked up the picklefork, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”, for our C-Konig, in the spring or early summer of ’77, because, after painting on our color and number, we didn’t have time for testing at Twin Creeks before we headed off to our first race, and I’m thinking at Alex. So we did our initial runs and rigging on the race course. I made the first laps close to the bank so Dad, Uncle Ed and Vernon could take a look. The boat felt so-so in the turns, dug and jerked much more than the Marchetti, and, of course, that was without ten or twelve boats churning up the water. The straightaways were a different story. The picklefork rode high in front, and I couldn’t feel the sponsons ever tapping the water. Edging up in the boat didn’t make a difference; it just rode high, floated. It felt stable, but too stable, eerily so, and I was ready to lean forward or back off the throttle if I felt it begin to rotate. Wayne Baldwin described that feeling well with his analogy of flying airplanes and reaching V2, where, with the trim-tab set correctly, all it takes is slight pressure back on the yoke…and you’re airborne. I’ve had the pleasure of riding jump seats in large aircraft, including DC-10, 747 and 767, and believe it or not, you get that same feeling of the aircraft being smooth, light, and ready to rotate—lift, gravity, thrust and drag having done battle and settled on the equilibrium of flight. Of course, with any aircraft it’s by the numbers, and in the larger ones you have the First Officer calling out the airspeed and V-speeds from “Airspeed is alive” to “V1…V2, and rotate…gear up.”

Anyway, I got back on the bank, and in response to, “It looked good; how did it feel?” I said something like, “Well, boy, I don’t know. This is different. Jerks through the turns, but not real bad. On the straights it just kind of rides high…kind of floats.” Then someone, probably Vernon Ashley, said, “Hell, Stevie, they don’t call it an Aerowing for nothin’!” So I went out for another run and while making a pass by the pits, I saw them waving me back in. Apparently, another boat racer came jogging down the bank to tell Dad, “You better get that boy down in the water, or you’ll be calling him ‘Jumpin’ Jack Splash’ pretty soon!” We kicked it down a notch, and on the next run, it felt much better, like a hydro again. I don’t recall finishing in the money at that race, but I didn’t flip, either, so that was a plus.

(I don’t have a picture of Dad with “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” or I’d use it; but here’s one of me looking like I can’t figure out which end of the spark plug to put in the hole. Race location: Unknown.)

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After I got out of college, to jump ahead, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” was reincarnated. The first paint job was just a quickie to race, but we had wanted to fiberglass the top, so I tore into it, stripped and sanded it down, cleaned it up, laid on the fiberglass mesh, and slopped on the resin. At first, it looked like hell, and I was thinking, man, I’ve ruined our boat. But after much sanding, then more resin, more sanding, more resin, it started looking pretty good. Still, I wondered if the cloudiness would go away and the wood grain come back, as Dad predicted. When I had it as smooth as the proverbial baby’s butt, Dad shot it with the first clear-coat of polyurethane, and, man, that beautiful wood grain just popped. It was gorgeous!

I had a high school buddy named Chuck who was an artist in a variety of mediums, including the drums. He had recently taken up air-brush and put some great art on vans and motorcycles, which was popular back in the 70s. Chuck was dying to put something on one of our hydros, so we got together and drew up designs. To begin with, yellow flames would run down the sponsons, but still leave plenty of beautiful wood. I drew what I wanted, and Dad laid out the flames freehand with quarter inch tape. I masked; he shot, and it was looking good. (You might be thinking, “Buddy, if you’d spent more time thinking about going fast, and less about being pretty, you might have won more races.” True. True.)

But anyway, I decided to rename the boat “Styx Tryx”, as my nickname in high school and for many years thereafter was “Stick.” Dad didn’t care for it. What kind of name was that for a boat, “Stikes Trikes?” and what in the world did it mean? Despite me explaining how cool it was, and correcting his pronunciation with, “Nooooo, Daaaaad! It’s ‘Styx,’ like the river, and ‘Tryx,’ like t-r-i-c-k-s. Get it?” he said, “Yeah, yeah, I get it: Stikes Trikes,” and he forever called the boat, “Stikes Trikes.”

So with the flames, the name, and the literary allusion, Chuck stepped in to do his part, first spraying orange fringe on the flames, before going to work on the cowling. I had no idea what he intended to do; furthermore, neither did he until he started. He came up with the following. A scantily clad and most shapely babe rises up from a swampy netherworld, and holds in her hands a trophy—the trophy done in gold leaf. She is not alone. Around her wraps a most suggestive anaconda. And up on a hill behind her, observing with pride and approval, none other than Satan. Here are a few pictures of “Styx Tryx,” or as Dad would say, “Stikes Trikes.” Again, I would prefer to use photos of Dad with the boat, but this is all I have, i.e., me going for a joy ride on Lake Hamilton.

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[Ketzer]

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(Steve Ketzer, Butch, and "Slim Chance")

Slim Chance: The 1977-78 school year, my senior year, was a hectic one. My wife and I went through a final separation and divorce, and I moved into an efficiency basement apartment in the Capitol Hill section of Denver from where I walked across town, back and forth to the university and to the Wazee Lounge and Supper Club where I worked as a cook, a job I would recommend to college students of little means—if you work as a cook, you’ll never go hungry. I had many friends by then, and we got together at another friend’s house to watch the Broncos (no T.V. at my place), as the Orange Crush was all the rage, despite getting whupped by the Cowboys in the Super Bowl, but not as badly as they got whupped in 2014 by the Seahawks.

One of my friends was a professor at the university who taught Cultural Anthropology—indeed, he saw everything through anthropological eyes. The first time he visited my apartment and saw my boat racing trophies, he threw up his arms and shouted, “Icons!” He spent considerable time holding and looking at the trophies as if examining ancient relics that held the keys to understanding some long gone civilization. He was a goofball, but a fun guy. Watching a Bronco game, he observed that, by their uniforms, mascot and cheerleaders, the Broncos represented the good in the world, and the Oakland Raiders all that was evil; this while the rest of us screamed for Lyle Alzado to tear the head off Ken Stabler.

Until my senior year, I had never taken out a student loan, but applied for one through the Veteran’s Administration, got approved, and immediately sent the money to Dad to purchase a brand new, but finish-it-yourself, C/D DeSilva runabout. At the same time, he had a new hydro built to run C-Service (also a finish-it-yourself boat), and Dad named his hydro “Slim Chance.” I’m terrible about remembering who built what, so I can’t say who made his hydro. We still had “Styx Tryx” for the C-Konig, but that was it, or all we intended to race. The plan was to downsize, race fewer boats, fewer classes, and thereby have more time to just watch and enjoy the races. In the spring of ’78, I opted out of the graduation ceremonies, but with ink still wet on my diploma, packed up the 1965 Chevy Van and headed across the seemingly infinite plains of eastern Colorado and Kansas at 55 mph (uh-huh, roaring into the malaise), hung a right at Salina, and headed south to finish the new boats.

("Slim Chance" and finishing the new DeSilva outside Dad's shop.)

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[Ketzer]

Slim Chance (fer sure): While working the oil fields out of Gillette, Wyoming, Brother Charlie said, “There’s no oil shortage. Everywhere we drill, we hit oil, then just cap it off and move to the next hole.” Along with being a rough neck and an occasional boat racer, Charlie played guitar and wrote songs. He wrote one called, “Goober Gas,” about Jimmy Carter turning peanuts into gas (in more ways than one) that mocked turning corn into ethanol. Well, there may not have been an oil shortage, but there was a gas shortage, whether or not planned by politicians and the oil companies, and gas had gotten expensive. Then in 1979, the Iranians took our embassy in Tehran, exacerbating the situation, all of which negatively affected boat racing as working class folks struggled to stay above water, so to speak.

In his “Crisis of Confidence” speech in 1979, Carter said, “I'm asking you for your good and for your nation's security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel.... I have seen the strength of America in the inexhaustible resources of our people. In the days to come, let us renew that strength in the struggle for an energy-secure nation…” Would driving 200 miles to a boat race be considered an unnecessary trip, perhaps un-American?

Carter came into office under the banner, “The Grin will Win!” And win he did, but when he came face-to-face with the world, the grin was replaced with a concerned and frowning countenance reflecting, well, malaise. Small wonder the entire nation—driving 55, waiting in gas lines, suffering economic stagnation, counting the 444 days American hostages were held in Iran, watching the botched rescue attempt—suffered the same malaise. Owing to my university indoctrination, I voted for Carter, and while I ain’t no bunny-hugger, when he whacked the rabbit with a boat paddle, that was it for me.

So, there we were, the Ketzer Racing Team, at last with new boats, the latest engines, a new trailer with downsized camper to match, all dressed up with nowhere to go, or few places to go. Stan Leavendusky wasted precious fuel, though, when he drove down to Hot Springs to visit Dad, and he brought with him a bushel of the apples he grew in Kansas.

(Steve Jr. and Stan Leavendusky at Steve’s shop in Hot Springs; Steve, Steve Jr. and Butch the Bulldog, who, if you were on a creeper and had your hands full, could be counted on to come up and lick your face; the new Ketzer Racing Team rig.)

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The big race for us that summer of 1978 was at Alex. With the economy around Hot Springs in the tank, and not wanting to go back to work for Futrell, the best I could do with my degree in English Literature was land a job at the rubber band factory on Lake Catherine, a position that didn’t even require a high school diploma. When they hired me, they agreed to give me a week off later in the summer to go to a boat race. By the time Alex rolled around, I had risen to shift supervisor at the factory (it didn’t take much), and the supervisor of shifts was beginning to fear for his job. He said no boat race, and if I did go, I wouldn’t have a job when I got back. So be it. Dad and I were off to the races.

We raced the C-Service on runabout and hydro, and I can’t recall how we came out. I raced “Styx Tryx” with the C-Konig (maybe in an elimination heat), hit the clock well, hit the first turn near the front of the pack, and, as with “Soooie-Pig,” flipped it. Darn. That was to be my last race, and I flipped. First race 1968; last race 1978. I took “Styx Tryx” for a joy ride in 1984 on Lake Hamilton, right before I sold it to Jeff Goslee for chump change. By that time, Dad had already sold the rest of the boats, motors, and trailer. We were officially out of boat racing. Dad may have made a race or two in 1979, but I was out in San Diego escaping the malaise, seeking work on a tuna boat.

[Ketzer]

Thanks, Dad: With a Honda 90 street bike stuffed in the back of the ’65 Chevy van, along with two huge box speakers hooked up to a cassette tape deck, I swung by Denver, picked up a college buddy—also an English Lit major—and we headed out to San Diego to become fisherman, a profession we knew nothing of, other than, perhaps, catching sunfish from a boat dock with a cheap Zebco and being most familiar with “Moby Dick” and “The Old Man and the Sea.” To be sure, we could write a critical twelve page essay on either one without notes. Walking the docks and being quick at study, we learned that if you weren’t Portuguese, married into a family, or a friend of a family, there was no prospect of landing a job on a tuna boat. And as for Option B, after checking, we couldn’t afford the initial union dues to become longshoremen. It was looking bleak, so I rode the Honda 90 from our digs in Ocean Beach over to Shelter Island and got a job at the first boat yard I entered, blowing paint and performing light maintenance on yachts. Lacking such skills, and turning up his nose at a position with “Yum-Yum Doughnuts,” my buddy returned to Denver, and I gave up the apartment to live in my van, rent-free, on Shelter Island and parked the Honda 90 in the boat yard.

Being homeless was not an unusual circumstance on Shelter Island. Another guy in the boat yard lived in his van, but most lived on boats anchored in the bay, typically old, beat up boats incapable of going anywhere. We took free showers where the fishermen came in or snuck into the San Diego Yacht Club, and could be counted on to show up at every bar’s happy hour to buy one beer (get one free) and fill up on hors d’oeuvres. It was a good life there for several months, but the work dried up to the extent we worked, at best, two days a week. After paying meagre child support, and even with the happy hour food, I was kind of going hungry, so I rode the Honda 90 out to Montgomery Field and walked into the first hangar I saw, which was Coast Aircraft, an aircraft repair station and Mooney dealership.

Standing out in the hangar with the Director of Maintenance, Don, I explained that while I didn’t have an A&P, I had experience working on aircraft and began listing what I could do, but what interested him most was the work I had just done, i.e., fiberglass work and painting at the boat yard, as they had a couple jobs coming in that required those skills—I just couldn’t get away from the painting. Anyway, Don asked me into his office to fill out a job application and said he’d think about it. When I handed him the forms, he did a double-take when he saw my name: “Steve Ketzer? Do you know an aircraft mechanic in Arkansas, also Steve Ketzer?” I told him, “Yeah, that would be my old man.” Don reached over for a set of aircraft logbooks, opened one, and pointed to the signature: Steve Ketzer.

Apparently, Twin-Bonanzas were popular around that area, as were the old Queen Airs, and Dan Futrell, back in Arkansas, had the market on those birds and sold several than ended up in San Diego; consequently, Dad’s name was all over those logbooks. I was hired on the spot and went to work the following day. (Thanks, Dad!)

Reading aircraft logbooks is every bit as interesting as reading “Tropic of Cancer.” A good set of aircraft records has logbooks going back to day one, even if day one occurred in 1947. You can get to know a plane’s history of owners, its mechanics, mechanical failures, overhauls, major alterations, accidents, and travels, from birth in Wichita, out to New Jersey, down to Florida (Inspect for corrosion!), west to Arkansas, farther west to California, and up to Alaska. A couple decades after San Diego and up in Fairbanks as an inspector, I had a few conversations that went like this:

“Steve Ketzer? Wow! According to my logbooks, you did a major repair on the left wing of my Cessna 180 back in 1962!”
“Well, I would have been twelve years old in 1962. That would have been my dad. Did he do a good job?”
“Oh, he did a great job.”

(Thanks, Dad.)

[smittythewelder]

Steve, go up to the BRF Open Water forum and check out a thread I just started about boat names. I was just going to PM you, then thought others might have fun with it.

[Ketzer]

Roger-Wilco, Smitty.