September 12, 1980

On this date an Florida Commuter Airline DC-3 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean while on approach into Grand Bahama Island.  There were 34 souls on board.  A lot of hearts were broken that day...

My cousin Jennifer Kruger was on that flight. 

As the story was told to me by my dad... months after it happened... dad knew I would have a hard time with this so he didn't tell me right away.  She was a flight attendant and a trainer of new flight attendants.  She was beautiful and very sweet.  She had just gotten engaged and was heading back to Texas to be married.  My dad had sent her a credit card to help her get back to Texas.  She had taken her last flight and as she was telling everyone goodbye when she was asked to fly a training flight over to the Bahamas and back... She had a bad feeling about it but she said ok...

I was a new hire at Braniff International at the time and was trying desperately, without success, to get her hired at Braniff but there was no hiring going on.  Braniff was downsizing and I was furloughed 18 days after the accident.

http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR8105.pdf


Her wallet was found floating in the ocean and my dads credit card was eventually sent back to him.  I have that credit card (Gulf Oil)...  For some reason I would look up at the stars and think of Jennifer after that... for years... and still do...

Lots of Projects didn't get blogged

Abby's bunk bed.

Abby has started the leaping for joy tradition.  At this point the bed is installed but the cushions were not done yet.  She has remote control, multi-colored LED lighting system.

Cushions installed... Abby says it is very cozy.  Waiting on the bedspreads that zip-up... I call them bed-bags...

To center the bed in the room I had to make the stairs turn 45 degrees.  The stairs are strong enough for me to climb... 

Katie's bunk bed. 

Love the leaping for joy!... or is it jumping for joy!  The bottom bed is on wheel so it can be made easily.  Purple and blue were her favorite colors.  The desktop needed to be durable so I used Formica.  All of the color you see is Formica.  The hardest part of the project was getting all of the angles right... especially in the triangle shaped trashcan.

One of the problems with this project is there is so much storage Katie had trouble finding stuff to put in the drawers.  No fancy LED lights like Abby's bed but if you look closely you can see the Alien desk lamp with big feet...

And.... it all can be disassembled...

Carter's Treehouse

Back in October we were celebrating Carter's birthday and it was mentioned that Carter needed a treehouse for the huge Pecan tree in the backyard... well... that sounded like fun...

So, I built a 7x10' deck 6' above the ground and wrapped stairs around the tree that was ready for a second level 3 feet off the ground... Carter thought the upper deck was his treehouse and went right to work enjoying it.  The only trouble was the stairs didn't reach the ground... he had to use a short ladder to get to the stairs.  I had run out of time, I needed to go home. But he loved it...

Ready for Christmas 2016

Months later I returned to build the lower deck and babysit while Carter's mommy and daddy played.  The decks got connected...

Fast forward a few more months and the treehouse is almost done.  The escape hatch is not installed and the interior walls are not enclosed... but it is ready for play.

The treehouse was assembled in Martha's garage and then disassembled and put in a trailer and hauled to Carter's house.

This is the current state of the project today...

Upper and lower deck connected and house on upper level

Shingles around door (48 of them) are made from pine that I hand shaped with a grinder and scraped all the soft wood away and exposed the grain... to age... I then sprayed them with five colors of spray paint (mostly metallic) and the clear coated multiple times.

Roof edge decoration is really to hold the cantilevered roof and shingles in place... the whole thing is designed to be disassembled and moved. Dragons and Dragon Flies are part of a story and were cut out of brass and treated with Nitric acid to age.

Fold down table made with scrap exotic woods and hardware scavenged from a friends RV.

Left to right Spalted Pecan (considered for our dining table), African Padauk (used in our kitchen booth), Yellowheart (used in my desk), Prupleheart (considered for kitchen booth but nixed), more Padauk and then Walnut used in our wood floors.  No stains used just clear coated.

Back window and all windows are made of Poly-Carbonate... supposed to be unbreakable like my glasses.

Port hole can only be opened from the outside... part of a story.

Snack bar swivel stools made from more exotic wood scraps. 

The Blog has been inactive a long time...

I am getting old and forgetful... yes I admit it... "I am old!"  Zooming right up to 71 very soon.

I changed my password for some reason and then I promptly forgot it.  That was fine for a while and then we took a power surge from a nearby lightning strike.  It fried the back up power supply and surge protector and I replaced them... great... all is well... Everything was backed up on an external hard drive.

Then I noticed gremlins.  The hard drive apparently took a hit also.  The computer would go to sleep when it wanted to and it wouldn't wake up... I ran the disk utility and the hard drive had been damaged.  No problem you can just eliminate the damaged area and tell the computer not to use that area.  That being done I restored from the external hard drive.  That almost did it but there was three windows drivers that need to be replaced or repaired.  I got two repaired but then I had to manually reinstall the main problem driver... for the USB... 

After many hours and days of restoring the hard drive I could not restore the USB driver so I gave up.

So I sit at a new computer now and of course it didn't have that new password stored in its memory...  so I have been locked out of my account until I remembered my password today...  back in business.

Life as a Furloughed Air Line Pilot

Out on the street with no income...

I was wholly unprepared.  To add complications to the matter Martha was about 5 months pregnant with Melissa.  We had weathered the first year pay scale and had just started to save again.  Now we were headed back to living off savings again.  I had no plan, but I did briefly think of going back to the Air Force Reserves again, but that would require and unpaid move.  Some guys went back to the Air Force full time and would retire some 15 to 20 years later.

I needed something to do... So... in the end I asked a neighbor who owned a printing company for a job.  On September 1, 1980 I put my blue jeans on and went to work.  I worked in the back end of the plant counting out sheets of paper and delivering them to the presses... minimum wage... amazingly minimum wage was more than my first year pay at Braniff! 

One good thing was we now had health insurance and Martha's pregnancy was still covered by Braniff's policy... double covered...

I quickly forgot about Braniff since they were still laying off more pilots.  None of my friends were getting jobs.  No airlines were hiring and interest rates were surging to 20% and few companies could afford to hire.  It is hard for an airline pilot to get a regular job because everyone knows you will head back to flying as soon as you can. 

I started learning about printing.  I wondered why the pressmen got so much paper so I learned the formulas and began asking more.  I helped the pressmen, I hauled the trash I began to really know everyone in the plant... I considered everyone of them friends.  Within 6 months I found myself in production and planning.  Salesmen would bring me the artwork for a print job and I would plan the layout for printing and set it in motion.  My pay doubled.  Without thinking about it I was becoming a workaholic.

During those first few months there was an accident.  Martha's car was hit by a college kid on the way to school.  Martha was taking a suitcase of clothes to a friends house for Sharla to spend the nite... we were heading to the hospital the next day for a C-section to bring Melissa into this world.  

Martha took an ambulance to the hospital and I actually got to the accident site and followed the ambulance to the hospital.  Everyone seemed fine but they did an emergency C-section just to be sure Melissa was ok... she was.  The medical costs were now triple covered because it was an accident... boy did we need that.

About a year after entering the door of the printing plant I found myself in the office of the owner and he had called the plant manger in to gloat.  I had just asked to go into sales... there were no windows... I needed windows... I was used to sitting all day and looking out windows... a salesman had windows in his car.  The owner and the plant manager had a bet on how long it would take for me to ask to go into sales... the owner won.  Their only concern about me was... I told the truth... I was too honest... I had always thought that was a good thing...

My concern was meeting and talking to people I didn't know.  I have always preferred being the quiet one in the corner. 

I will never forget the first time I pitched for the Annual Report of a local oil company.  I was in the huge well appointed office of the CEO and my mouth was dry and my voice was cracking... some how I found my voice and I got the job. 

One day in 1982 I was asked into the owners office with the plant manager.  Braniff had filed for bankruptcy and they were celebrating because Braniff was gone and I probably wouldn't leave any time soon.  I hadn't thought about leaving... at that point... but it made me a little angry... Braniff was my dream and those were my friends who were in turmoil.  But, I forgot about it and went back to work with a vengeance.  My sales were doubling every year as was my pay.

Sometime around 1985 I found myself in an office next to the owners office... it was my office.  I was running the company and still selling.  We had about 140 employees and we had grown to about $15 million per year in sales.  The goal was to run the plant 24 hours a day and we did.  I had an open door policy that was killing me slowly.  I would come in early and leave late.  I was always on the phone with someone and had someone in my office waiting on me. 

The pressure was getting to me... I started getting tunnel vision... graying out.  The muscles in my neck were tight and constantly tensed up.  I figured that was the source of my problem.  A trip to the cardiologist told me I was ok... of course I didn't share the whole truth with anyone back then... pilots can't have these kind of problems, so we keep them secret.  I was still thinking like a pilot...

Crude oil dropped to $13 per barrel.  The Texas economy was heading for disaster.  The owner had started another company that printed billboards and it specialized in the big backlit photographic billboards.  Business was lagging some but I was flying to Houston, Dallas and Corpus and bringing in new business. 

Braniff had been re-incarnated and was commonly refered to as Braniff Two or B2... the second Braniff.  They started back up with the same pilots and were slowly growing and recalling pilots.  I was way down the list.  Braniff was not on my radar... I was too busy.

Then a small thing brought about a big change... My favorite briefcase was wearing out and I decided to try to get it fixed, rather than buying another.  I dropped it off at a luggage repair shop and promptly forgot about it.  Months later I was on the way home late one night and I was going by the repair shop and the light was on.  The repair shop owner was there and as I was paying the bill he handed me a pen to sign the slip... It was a Braniff pen.  I mentioned it to the the guy and he revealed he was a Braniff agent.  I told him I was a furloughed pilot and he asked my why I didn't come back... everyone had been recalled... I said; "no... not everyone".  He said he would ask around and call me with the answer.

He did call me back.  Everyone had been recalled... they missed me.  A few days later I went to the airport and met an arriving Braniff flight.  I visited with the pilots and they confirmed they were hiring off the street... the recall was done.  I asked about the pay... it was low... it would be an 80% pay cut for me to go back to flying.

SO... I thought about it and thought about it.  The stress I was under at work was getting worse with the bad economy.  One day I noticed a job running on the press and the wrong paper was being used... a cheaper substitute.  That happened a few more times and we continued to get away with it... but I was "too honest"... I confronted the plant manager and he told me the owner substituted it.

In the end his dishonesty was enough for me to make the decision to return to flying.  It would have been a very tough decision leave before this started happening.

I called Braniff and they said I didn't answer my recall. They were wrong.  They didn't recall me.  After many phone calls I got on an airplane and flew to Dallas and refused to leave the VP of Flight Ops Offices until they put me back on the seniority list.  They finally relented and 3 weeks later I got the call.

I returned to Braniff with my original seniority number and had enough seniority to start right up as a Co-Pilot.  I had not flown an airplane in about 10 years at that time so I decided to play it safe and bid Flight Engineer.  Six weeks later I was back in the cockpit and commuting to Kansas City.  It was good to be back... I was home.

After six months of watching the other pilots fly the airplane I was ready fly the jet... I bid for open co-pilot positions in Kansas City.  Six weeks later I was having a co-pilot checkride in the simulator.  I had received 6 hours of simulator flight training and I had just been told I had passed my checkride when I felt an uncomfortable feeling.  I didn't feel ready to go fly.  I asked for more training.  They turned me down and said I was ready... I wasn't.

I was back in the right seat and flying again.  The airplane was a handful at first but I was ok on a nice clear day.  Flying at night and in the weather was another story... I was unprepared.  My instrument flying was rusty.  I was uncomfortable... no... scared... shaking scared... freezing... white as a sheet scared... Just hoping to keep the airplane right side up on dark stormy nights.  Gradually my skills returned and my confidence did too.  There were several "iffy" months that I was thinking; "what have I done?"

Soon life was good again.  I had learned how to fly again and I had learned how to work the commuting world.  Braniff 2 was growing slowly and was being well managed by the Pritzker family.  They were the 5th richest family in the USA.  They also owned the Hyatt Hotels... flight crews had the nice benefit of staying in very nice hotels of the Hyatt chain.

Economic Storm Clouds

Shortly after my one year anniversary with Braniff International the rumblings began.  The old Captains were grumbling about the rapid expansion of the airline.  New guys like me thought the old guys were just grouchy... life was good.  We bought the house we currently live in August 1979 in anticipation of a glorious airline career.

My seniority number was 1721 and we now had over 2200 pilots... so that meant about 500 pilots below me on the seniority list.  Rumors of layoffs started to surface in the spring of 1980 and they began for real in about May.  They started with small numbers 25-30 pilots at a time.  I still felt pretty comfortable when I still had 400 below me.  I began seeking guidance and comfort from the old guys. 

The rule of thumb was:  "If you had one third of the pilots below you (seniority wise) you were safe from furlough." That formula worked before the airlines were deregulated... we hoped it still worked.

I had about 22% below me... but still they had to furlough 400 to get to me...

I was enjoying life and getting comfortable in my job and a huge pay raise was coming up in November of 1980.  Along with the pay raise came added the security of furlough pay.  They would have to pay me to lay me off.  I was looking forward to November of 1980.

Then came the rumor they were going to furlough 500 all at once...  I didn't believe it until I got my registered letter in the mail.  I was given 30 days notice.  August 31, 1980 would be my last day as an airline pilot. 

There was no big pay raise in November.  There was no furlough pay... the reason they furloughed 500 of us at once was probably to avoid paying us furlough pay... contracts work two ways...

Floating Shelves and French Doors

The cookie lady need someplace to store cookies away for safe keeping while they dry during the icing process... so bunk bed building took a hiatus.

French Doors

This is when you wish your truck was longer.










 

 The standard door package was too wide for the existing opening so I had to re-make the frame 3/8" thinner and re-cut the hinge mortises and then re-hang the doors... this was easier than tearing down a load bearing wall...



 
Then I had to drill the holes and cut mortises for the handle set.








 



I then finished out the frame and the opening above.  The Cookie Lady and I are going to design and build a stain glass window for the opening... someday...








Floating Shelves

2X4's cut down and grooves put on two sides... a groove is called a "dado".  A box full of scrap plywood 3X3".








 

A long strip of cut down 2X4 also has a dado and is screwed to the studs.






Assembly is the fun part of this project.  Scrap 1/2" plywood is tapped into the tight dadoes and glued.  Surprisingly strong.


A front piece is added with a dado and a rabbet. A rabbet is a ledge that the 1/4" plywood skin will lay into on the front.  In the end it will look like one piece of solid wood.




Awaiting staining and clear coating by the cookie lady...