One of the things that were always interesting to me was to go to the airport early in the morning and in dawn's light watch the newly enabled but few cross country passengers disembark from their overnight sleeper trains from the east -- the tracks of the main line of the railroad ran right next to the airport. They would then walk across the road to the airport to board the waiting DC-3s. The DC-3s would then fly them out to someplace in the far midwest where, at dusk, they would get back on a sleeper train to someplace in the southwest. And in the morning of the third day to have the final air ride into Los Angeles. But such was the style of the early cross country travels - airplane by day and railroad sleeper by night with the trip taking two and a half days.

So for the three years of ages 9 to 12 I spent a lot of my time at the airport observing everyone, asking questions of the tower operators, mechanics and the flight crew, watching the planes land and take off, and enjoying my developing fascination for the airplane. I actual felt I was a part of the tower team -- they would send me on errands out to the various hangers. But their prize errand was when they sent me to get a "sky wrench" -- a non-existent tool. After failure to produce I learned that it was a joke, and they had a big laugh. Although I laughed with them, their laughs hurt.

Biking to the airport was sweaty business in the summer and we (some of my buddies and me) had a great way of cooling off. Just past the airport and about a quarter of a mile off the road was a bend in Big Walnut Creek. The creek was about 30 feet across with trees growing out from its banks. These were perfect jumping point for a cooling refreshing splash. I guess swimming was involved but I remember the splashing much more clearly. True to our youth, we called this spot the "bare ass hole" which also described the required dress.

In 1936 at the age of 12 I began my six year career as a paperboy so my visits to the airport had to be almost eliminated. By the time I finished the paper route along with the bicycle high jinks following the deliveries with my co-paperboy buddies, there was very little pedal power left to go to the airport. Sometimes there was very little bike left either.

The first of our three major bike destruction fun and games involved carrying our bikes to the top of a local practice high speed ski run and proceeding to do that for which we climbed -- which generally ended with someone crashing into something. The second of our games was to go off of a 20 foot ski jump - but only in the fall as the leaves that are accumulated from the surrounding area are all piled at the end of the jump. It made a perfect landing site and an early jumper lying in his leafy landing spot could see his buddies that followed, flying overhead swimming in mid air, and frequently totally separated from their bikes. Our third and most destructive game was bike hockey. We used a tennis ball as the puck, and we each were armed with a hockey stick. The most flagrant foul was to place ones hockey stick in the spokes of an opponent's wheel. It was recognized as not being particularly sporting, but a hockey stick properly inserted can produce sudden stops followed by airborne free forms that are magnificent. The nature of the game was a little different from typical hockey as it generally ended in maneuvering to keep from being spoked. Fortunately this sport was not engaged in very often.

As a result we became expert bicycle repairmen, particularly in the art of rapid spoke replacement. These high jinks didn't reduce my enthusiasm for flight and in 1938 Lockheed came out with their P-38 called "Lightning". I was in love.



In February 1939 the P-38 made its formal debut by flying from California to New York in just seven hours. Wow! Who could not love it, except the Germans, of course? The P-38 went into large scale operations in 1942 during the North African campaign where the German air force called it "Der Gabelschwan Teufel" - "The Forked Devil".