two interesting stories/connected

[chuteless 1]

I've built several full scale WW I aircraft. I sold one to a very wealthy man in Houston Texas after it had crashed, and I had partly rebuilt it. He had a hard time refinishing the aircraft the way he wanted it to be so He phoned me, and asked me to come to Houston, and help him do some extensive work on the plane, and after agreeing on a price, I drove down to ( I think its Wolf Field,) near Pearland Texas.
I worked on the plane for 13 hours a day for over a month, ( except on Sundays,) and did all that was required according to our verbal agreement.
He then refused to pay me. My daughter had flown down, and would drive home with me.
This guy left me with nothing but one uncashed cheque for $200.00, and I had to drive back to Toronto.
Great people that the rest of the Texans are, two people handed me $20.00 and another $50.00, and I left for home.
The guy recently sold the plane to two men on Long Island, N.Y.
I met some great people at Wolf Field, such as Logan Goar and Melvin (forgot his last name).

This is the second part of the story.

Logan and Melvin were in the army during W W II (South Pacific) and they were doing construction on buildings that had been damaged in fighting the Japanese.

As they were putting new shingles on the roof of the last building, some P 51 Mustang pilots noticed them, and flew a few feet above the Pacific ocean, and as they got to the buildings being re-roofed, they pulled up their aircraft skimming the roof by about 5 or 6 feet.

Needless to say, the construction crew were almost blown off the roof.

This happened several times, and finally Logan Goar and the others were ready for the next flight.

They saw the Mustangs coming, and hid on the far side of the roof, and just as the P 51s pulled up over their heads the workers all threw a handfull of nails into the air.


clink, clink..clank..clink as the propeller swatted the nails out of the sky.

The pilots reported this to their commander, who called and told the construction crew they didnt want the P-51s blown out of the sky by carpenters after having defeating the Japanese.

The aircraft never bothered the roofers again, and the job finally got finished.


As for the guy who fleeced me, I hired a lawyer in Pearland, but the other guy bought him off and the lawsuit was dropped without even consulting me.

Win some....lose some.