CHAPTER ONE

           The glowing numbers on the clock radio on the bedside table read 11:57PM as I hung up the phone but being half awake, half asleep and totally confused, I wasn't sure whether I had just talked with a friend in Wisconsin or if it was just a dream telling me that I needed to wake up and go to the bathroom. I thought about calling him back but decided that if he hadn't called, he would think that I must be drunk or crazy, or both, to wake him up in the middle of the night. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough and I would be in better condition to understand what he had said about needing a restored Piper J-3 Cub delivered.

           At an age where most men are just hitting their peak, I suddenly found myself among the gainfully unemployed, otherwise known as retired, after having been given the golden handshake by a company which had extracted the best twenty years of my life. However, one of the good things about no longer being tied to a nine to five schedule, I was now able to pursue the fun things of life which I had been forced to place on hold for many years. One of the activities that I enjoyed, but one which would hardly produce the income necessary to support a family, was flying. I now had the opportunity to spend as much time in the air as I wished by flying towplanes at the local gliderport and ferrying airplanes around the world.

 I made my first solo flight on my sixteenth birthday in 1944 in a Piper Cub, and having begun flying at that particular period of time, I was able to build up a considerable amount of experience in airplanes which today's pilots know only from photos or in museums.