eman1200
Touchdown! Greaser!
I’ve been living in “the south” for about 17 years now. Many places around the outskirts of “the city” are like falling through a worm hole and traveling back in time 50, no, 75 years, maybe more. It's strange, frustrating, and kind of wonderful all at once. I’ll stick with the 'wonderful' for the sake of this story.
Scattered about the state of North Carolina (and probably everywhere else) are these fantastic hidden gems we call "airports". Not the RDU's and CLT's of the world, but the backwoods "hey I've been living here my whole life and never knew this place existed" type of airports (which I actually hear quite often). Surrounded by trees, hangars falling apart, yet with the grass freshly mowed. And by grass I mean the stuff growing out of the cracks of the runway. Like the one I trained out of, and like many I enjoy visiting on a regular basis for no real reason.
Well, for a very specific reason, actually.
For lack of a better term, we'll call them "the old-timers". You know the ones.... they're everywhere. But in this particular case, it's the old-timers of the aviation community. A special breed, with wonderful stories to tell. Pulling into some of these archaic fields, I can only hope I see some of these folks sitting at the rackety old picnic tables or gathered in some dusty old hangar shooting the **** with other old-timers or looking for their dang 10mm socket. You know you're in for a treat if they're there.
I've been going to this one local place now and then over the last dozen years or so for cheapish fuel, air conditioning in their little pilot lounge, one half bar of cell signal if you're lucky and on occasion, free snacks. Not the fresh stuff, the ones in a package that you were sure they stopped making in the '80s. You know the ones, the square shaped neon orange crackers filled with peanut butter....yeah, those.
And in this case, Roy.
The first time I met Roy was at this airport and I was wearing, shockingly, my NY Yankees hat. Well in typical southern fashion he immediately starting digging into me with all the classic "damn yankee" jokes you hear from southerners, except he was actually joking. Most old time southerners can be nasty when anything NY is brought up. Roy was having a blast busting my cajones, and he was fully expecting the return gibes, which I happily obliged with, and he took in stride. Roy would eventually make his way into the contacts in my phone, listed as "Roy the Yankee Hater". It was, of course, a joke and he did not, in fact, hate yankees. Even me.
Over the course of many years I'd get the full tour of his hanger with the many experimental planes he was building. He did his own wood work, his own fabric covering, lots of amazing work. On planes that never flew, and deep down I knew never would fly. But it was his passion, it kept him busy, and he was good at it. And man did he enjoy giving the tours and backstories of everything he was working on. He was so proud of this panel he was putting together where if you hit this one switch, a whole bunch of blinking lights would come on, the likes of which he'd never seen before. He was so proud of those blinky lights, and it made me laugh.
So about a year or so ago, Roy dumped his motorcycle. Got pretty banged up but eventually got off with just a limp. He got over it.
I almost forgot. One other reason I'd fly into this place was their 2 walkable food options. Both of them stuck in time, a snapshot from 1950. And they both smelled like it too. Literally every time I went there I was the youngest person by about 50 years, and I'm like 110 years old. I don't think either of these places have heard about the Restaurant Grading System for cleanliness and hygiene. The tiles were warped and discolored, the menus (and thankfully prices) haven't changed since they opened and maybe the only upgrade either place has is they no longer have segregated seating. Yes, these places are that old.
Every time I flew in there for food, Roy would make fun of me for going to the Pik N Pig because of how expensive their food was. "$9 for a plate of bbq? Insane! I'll take you to a local place where you can get a pound of q for half the price!". He always offered to drive me to some of the truly local "hidden gems". I can only imagine what some of those places looked like if he thought the places I was going to were "modern".
Today I had a small window of time to hop in the plane....between being on-call for work and the daily T-storms rolling thru in the early afternoon. So I flew into Roy's home field and was greeted by Roger upon landing. I had only met Roger a couple of times, but I recall one time, maybe the first time I met him, where he said "here, take my truck to the restaurant". I mean, seriously, a guy giving his truck to someone he never met before to go get food? I don't know that this kind of stuff happens in non-aviation circles. Or "in the big city".
Well today Roger gave me a ride to the restaurant and on the way he told me about how the other restaurant is closed because they had a fire and it would take several months before they had it cleaned up and reopened. He then told me about how Roy had suddenly passed away at the end of April after having a stroke. 2 weeks in the hospital, didn't make it. Talk about a gut punch. In a weird way it was almost worse than when my Grandma died because we were expecting her to die for a while, we were just waiting for it. This was completely unexpected, and when you were looking forward to seeing someone and having some laughs and then find out you will in fact never see that person again, well, that just effing sucks. Life can bite the big one sometimes.
The last time I hung out with Roy at the airport we talked about how there really weren't very many, if any, "social gatherings" at the airport, and I suggested we try to organize a little bbq "event"....nothing crazy, we just grill out some burgers. We both agreed that when it got a little cooler we'd do it, even if no one showed up, who cares. So, for Roy, I'll try to do that maybe in the fall.
Sorry for the crazy long post, but for now, maybe keep Roy and his family in your thoughts.
And most importantly, give those old-timers some love. If/when you see someone sitting at the picnic table or if there's a car parked in front of an open hangar, go say Hi. You never know what kind of friendship you'll build out of it.
RIP Roy
Scattered about the state of North Carolina (and probably everywhere else) are these fantastic hidden gems we call "airports". Not the RDU's and CLT's of the world, but the backwoods "hey I've been living here my whole life and never knew this place existed" type of airports (which I actually hear quite often). Surrounded by trees, hangars falling apart, yet with the grass freshly mowed. And by grass I mean the stuff growing out of the cracks of the runway. Like the one I trained out of, and like many I enjoy visiting on a regular basis for no real reason.
Well, for a very specific reason, actually.
For lack of a better term, we'll call them "the old-timers". You know the ones.... they're everywhere. But in this particular case, it's the old-timers of the aviation community. A special breed, with wonderful stories to tell. Pulling into some of these archaic fields, I can only hope I see some of these folks sitting at the rackety old picnic tables or gathered in some dusty old hangar shooting the **** with other old-timers or looking for their dang 10mm socket. You know you're in for a treat if they're there.
I've been going to this one local place now and then over the last dozen years or so for cheapish fuel, air conditioning in their little pilot lounge, one half bar of cell signal if you're lucky and on occasion, free snacks. Not the fresh stuff, the ones in a package that you were sure they stopped making in the '80s. You know the ones, the square shaped neon orange crackers filled with peanut butter....yeah, those.
And in this case, Roy.
The first time I met Roy was at this airport and I was wearing, shockingly, my NY Yankees hat. Well in typical southern fashion he immediately starting digging into me with all the classic "damn yankee" jokes you hear from southerners, except he was actually joking. Most old time southerners can be nasty when anything NY is brought up. Roy was having a blast busting my cajones, and he was fully expecting the return gibes, which I happily obliged with, and he took in stride. Roy would eventually make his way into the contacts in my phone, listed as "Roy the Yankee Hater". It was, of course, a joke and he did not, in fact, hate yankees. Even me.
Over the course of many years I'd get the full tour of his hanger with the many experimental planes he was building. He did his own wood work, his own fabric covering, lots of amazing work. On planes that never flew, and deep down I knew never would fly. But it was his passion, it kept him busy, and he was good at it. And man did he enjoy giving the tours and backstories of everything he was working on. He was so proud of this panel he was putting together where if you hit this one switch, a whole bunch of blinking lights would come on, the likes of which he'd never seen before. He was so proud of those blinky lights, and it made me laugh.
So about a year or so ago, Roy dumped his motorcycle. Got pretty banged up but eventually got off with just a limp. He got over it.
I almost forgot. One other reason I'd fly into this place was their 2 walkable food options. Both of them stuck in time, a snapshot from 1950. And they both smelled like it too. Literally every time I went there I was the youngest person by about 50 years, and I'm like 110 years old. I don't think either of these places have heard about the Restaurant Grading System for cleanliness and hygiene. The tiles were warped and discolored, the menus (and thankfully prices) haven't changed since they opened and maybe the only upgrade either place has is they no longer have segregated seating. Yes, these places are that old.
Every time I flew in there for food, Roy would make fun of me for going to the Pik N Pig because of how expensive their food was. "$9 for a plate of bbq? Insane! I'll take you to a local place where you can get a pound of q for half the price!". He always offered to drive me to some of the truly local "hidden gems". I can only imagine what some of those places looked like if he thought the places I was going to were "modern".
Today I had a small window of time to hop in the plane....between being on-call for work and the daily T-storms rolling thru in the early afternoon. So I flew into Roy's home field and was greeted by Roger upon landing. I had only met Roger a couple of times, but I recall one time, maybe the first time I met him, where he said "here, take my truck to the restaurant". I mean, seriously, a guy giving his truck to someone he never met before to go get food? I don't know that this kind of stuff happens in non-aviation circles. Or "in the big city".
Well today Roger gave me a ride to the restaurant and on the way he told me about how the other restaurant is closed because they had a fire and it would take several months before they had it cleaned up and reopened. He then told me about how Roy had suddenly passed away at the end of April after having a stroke. 2 weeks in the hospital, didn't make it. Talk about a gut punch. In a weird way it was almost worse than when my Grandma died because we were expecting her to die for a while, we were just waiting for it. This was completely unexpected, and when you were looking forward to seeing someone and having some laughs and then find out you will in fact never see that person again, well, that just effing sucks. Life can bite the big one sometimes.
The last time I hung out with Roy at the airport we talked about how there really weren't very many, if any, "social gatherings" at the airport, and I suggested we try to organize a little bbq "event"....nothing crazy, we just grill out some burgers. We both agreed that when it got a little cooler we'd do it, even if no one showed up, who cares. So, for Roy, I'll try to do that maybe in the fall.
Sorry for the crazy long post, but for now, maybe keep Roy and his family in your thoughts.
And most importantly, give those old-timers some love. If/when you see someone sitting at the picnic table or if there's a car parked in front of an open hangar, go say Hi. You never know what kind of friendship you'll build out of it.
RIP Roy
My wife is a good sport and she got a good laugh out of it too.
