Family Vacations Were the Bomb!

Photo Courtesy of the Baskett Family

It is vacation season once again. But, this year, things are a bit different. Many people will likely elect to stay home and relax in the back yard with their families. I’m thinking that this year we will not be traveling extensively either.

Since I’ve had a lot of spare time, I’ve spent much of it thinking about past vacations and how they sometimes were not really all the relaxing.

Sometimes they were downright stressful. For many families, the vacation was the only extended time everybody got to be together. Together in the car, together in the motels, together in the restaurants and essentially everywhere the family journeyed during those two-week expeditions across our great land.

All that togetherness can be stressful for some family members. But we’ll get to that.

My first vacations took place in the fifties. In many ways the entire concept of the modern family vacation was invented or perfected during that era.

Vacations were one of the more sacrosanct rituals in the familial liturgy of the family friendly fifties. My earliest memories include many recollections of long trips to Florida, Mississippi’s Gulf Coast and numerous other locations.

We had a copper and cream colored ’57 Chevy wagon. I want to weep thinking about what that car would be worth today. It took us on weekend trips to St. Louis and to my parent’s hometown of Hannibal, MO as well as the occasional trip into the Missouri Ozarks.

Loading the family up for one of these trips was a process. The car literally had to be “rigged” for vacation use.

Mom and Dad each worked on transforming the car from a simple station wagon into a sort of rolling family residence. My brother Bill and I were allowed to select a couple of items for the trip in the hope that we would quietly entertain ourselves and refrain from fighting in the back seat.

For longer trips, there was a mattress like affair that kid sized people like me could stretch out on and sleep away the hours as we cruised along. No one thought about seat belts then because seat belts were only found on airplanes.

My mom always packed a basket with sandwiches and fruit. There were also a couple of thermos jugs with soup or beverages.

Finally, there was that most necessary of all items, the coffee can. Rest areas had not yet been invented. The coffee-can allowed one to do their business in the privacy of the car. Pull over, do your job, empty the can on the shoulder of the road and be on your way.

Usually families would take these excursions on their own. But occasionally several families would join together and trek across the American landscape to enjoy a shared adventure.

It was during one summer in the late fifties that three families, the Burcham’s, the Baskett’s and the Washington’s set out on a joint summer vacation to the Northwoods of western Wisconsin. Our destination was Lake Minerva. A medium sized body of water located about 75 miles southwest of Duluth, Minnesota.

I was excited about this trip because my buddy, Dick Baskett would be there which meant I would have someone my own age to hang with. Dick and I had not spent a lot of time together prior to Minerva, but in later years, during college and following, we enjoyed some spectacular times engaging in numerous adventures.

Unfortunately, I can’t go into a lot of detail about those times due to Dick having kids and then there’s that whole statute of limitations thing.

I can say that the time we spent together at Lake Minerva certainly foreshadowed a future filled with fun, irreverence and dissipation.

Lake Minerva

The Lake Minerva trip was primarily a fishing trip. The cold-water lakes of the north are home to any number of game fish with the Pike and Muskie occupying the top of the pyramid of desirable catches.

I was young enough to not have an overabundance of interest in fishing. I didn’t dislike fishing, but it would not entertain me for more than an hour. After that, I would be up for doing something else. Luckily, there was plenty to do around our camp.

Each family had their own cabin. These were arranged together along the shoreline of the lake. The fishing members of our party would happily spend the entire day on the lake. Upon returning to camp, they would clean their catch in an area equipped with running water and cutting tables.

I liked watching the fish cleaning process. Afterall, what kid doesn’t love blood and guts! But, mostly, I enjoyed hearing the older guys talk about their adventures of that day.

I marveled at how the returning fishermen would always be in such a good mood. I also noticed that an enormous number of empty beer cans would come home with the catch.

In the evenings, we would usually gather together in one cabin where the parents would drink, tell stories and play cards. I recall learning to play the game of Old Maid during this trip during one rainy day when our fishermen decided to stay in and stay dry.

Unfortunately, the game of choice in the evenings was not Old Maid. So, we watched the games from the side lines. As you can imagine, watching old folks drink and play cards was not exactly exciting.

Dick and I were both getting pretty bored with watching the adults and we were way too young to drink so one evening we decided to do something else. TV was not available, so we had to depend upon our imaginations.

We wandered around the camp for a while and at some point, we ended up in our cabin. As it happened there was a large pot-bellied stove in the kitchen. Summer nights in northern Wisconsin can be quite chilly, so it only made sense that we might start a small fire in the stove to warm things up a bit.

Recently, a movie had played in Columbia called “The Great Locomotive Chase”. The movie related an event that took place during the Civil War involving a couple of wood fired steam engines chasing each other round Tennessee. It was a great movie. I remember marveling at the fire shooting out of the smokestack of the engines as they went chugging about the Confederacy.

Dick and I were talking about that movie as we fed a few pieces of wood into the stove. It wasn’t long before our imaginations took over and we were no longer standing in the kitchen of my parent’s cabin.

We were magically transported into the cab of the Virginia Central locomotive hurtling through the wilderness. We were running low on fuel, so we needed to find more in order to squeeze a few more miles per hour out of our straining puffer-belly.

We both began to run through the cabin looking for stuff that would burn so we could keep the steam up!

Periodically one of us would run outside and look at the chimney/smokestack on the roof of the cabin. We wanted to see fire shoot out of that stack just like the engines in the movie.

“More steam! We need more Steam!” we would yell as we happily tossed assorted flammable items into stove.

All of the kindling was quickly consumed. This was followed by paper towels, napkins, the contents of the waste cans and every single square of toilet paper in the cabin. All were fed into the firebox of our mighty engine.

I think maybe some magazines, a paperback book, dirty laundry and perhaps a towel or two might have been sacrificed in our quest to outrun the rebels that evening as well.

It all came to a quick end when I heard my parents coming in through the front door of the cabin. My mom loudly exclaimed, “Edward! Why is it so damn hot in here?!?”

Then came the dreaded full name request to show myself, “Louis Edward! Where are you!”

Uh Oh! It was never a good sign if the full name was used.

They were not pleased. Not pleased at all. There was a lot of yelling about how dangerous fire is and how the cabin could have burned down. Then there was the problem of no toilet paper, no paper towels, no napkins.

It seemed like the anger would never end. As more time went by, more items were discovered missing and tempers would flare up and the yelling would start again.

Dick had the good sense to bail out and return to his parent’s cabin. But we both knew we were in trouble.

We were each put in lock down. I thought this was particularly unfair. We were supposed to be on vacation. I should not have worried; it didn’t last too long. Our parents loved us. And who could blame them, after all, we were precious.

After a couple of days, they even let us wander about again without direct supervision. This was our opportunity to redeem ourselves and show that we could behave normally. A chance to demonstrate that we were not a threat to ourselves or others.

Let’s Go Exploring!

The woods around Lake Minerva provided a great place for Dick and me to get away from the prying eyes of the adults. We didn’t have anything specific in mind, but we also didn’t need someone peering over our shoulders as we went exploring and seeking adventure.

I think it was perhaps our last day in camp because I don’t recall anyone fishing that day. I think everyone was packing and getting ready to head back home. So obviously hanging out in camp meant lots of meddlesome adults.

With that in mind, Dick and I headed into the wilderness. We just drifted away. It wasn’t like we were trying to escape.

Just a few steps into the trees and we were gone.

We had not gone too far into the woods when we came upon something truly odd. Laying on the ground, partly covered with pine needles and leaves were two bombs.

I’m not talking about the anarchist black ball with a fuse type bombs, I’m talking about those things they drop out of airplanes.

Our eyes popped wide open and I’m sure we both had the same thought, “Wow is this cool or what!”

We stood there just looking at them. We slowly circled around the two weapons, got down on our hands and knees and inspected them up close. We brushed off the leaves and needles to reveal the fins. After a considerable amount of close inspection, we determined that they were hollow. To be sure they were harmless, we kicked each one several times.

“Let’s take ‘em back to camp!” Dick said.

“Yeah” I agreed, “Maybe we can take them home with us!”

So, with no further conversation we each grabbed the tail section of one of the bombs and started dragging them toward camp.

As we came out of the trees and entered camp, we started to wave and point to our treasure.

I guess we had been gone long enough that we were missed, and a search had started.

Someone yelled, “There they are!”

But then they stopped dead in their tracks. Mouths were dropping open and foreheads were wrinkling.

Then, someone, I’m thinking one of our Mom’s, screamed.

Suddenly, they were all screaming and pointing and waving their arms.

Get away! Don’t move! Stop! And lots of other conflicting instructions were being loudly directed toward us. It was all very confusing.

Dick and I looked at each other and shrugged, what were we supposed to do? Why was everybody so excited?

I noticed a couple of folks running away and getting behind one of the cabins. They would peek around the corner and then quickly duck back in.

Finally, someone, I think it was Dr. Baskett, carefully walked up to us and closely examined our finds. He was visibly relieved as he turned and announced to the other grown ups that they were inert.

They were duds, practice bombs.

People began to relax a bit, but several folks were still quite pale and seemed a little shaky.

Everyone was speculating on how this ordnance had found its way onto the shores of Lake Minerva.

Strangely we were not in trouble again. In fact, Dick and I were almost feted for our heroic exploits. We had found the bombs and saved the lake from total destruction!

I thought this would be a good time to inquire about bringing them back to Columbia with us.

“NO!” The answer was quick, loud and decisive. It was also unanimous; the bombs would stay in camp.

However, the event was immortalized for generations to come in the photograph at the top of this piece. Our entire group posed for this final picture before returning home. I’m standing on the left side next to “my bomb” and Dick is proudly standing next to “his bomb” on the right side of the group.

As vacations go, this one was more eventful than most. A treasure trove of great memories was created. I don’t know if my stress level was diminished or not, but I did have fun.

I’m not so sure about my parents. I think it is likely that my parents did not return home “fully rested and relaxed” at least not to the extent they were hoping for.

Why I’m Not a Doctor

I was born in 1951. I was the final addition to our family joining my brother who had come along about five years before me.

We lived in a small college town, Columbia, Missouri. That town does not really exist anymore. It has grown up and spread out taking on many of the benefits and liabilities one associates with larger cities.

Our family arrived in Columbia after my father graduated from medical school and completing his internship and residency training. He was a pediatrician. Some would say he was a baby doctor but that is really not accurate, pediatrics covers diseases of childhood and adolescence. Dad had patients ranging in age from pre-natal to the legal drinking age.

He was my doctor in many ways throughout his entire life and that was pretty cool. Lucky for me, my older brother also joined the medical profession. This meant I’ve had free medical advice for most of my life. Certainly, well before Web MD came online and started turning anyone with a pulse into confident practitioners of the medical arts.

Early on I figured out that being a doctor’s kid meant two things. First, I had no worries about my shots being up to date and second, it was nearly impossible for me to convincingly fake being sick to get out of school.

I could moan and groan, writhe around, cough, or even surreptitiously heat up the thermometer with the light bulb in my bedside lamp and it would all be for naught. Dad would look at me and pronounce me fit for school. I literally had to be spitting up blood or sweating like Richard Nixon on TV before he would suggest that a day in bed was in order.

I was always grateful that my brother had gone into medicine because it took any pressure off my shoulders to follow in dad’s footsteps. Not that there ever was any pressure, but all the same, I’m still glad Bill got me off that hook.

I knew pretty early on that I wanted nothing to do with medicine. Not that there was ever any chance that I might be wielding a scalpel or stethoscope; my science grades ranged from mediocre to bad, from 8^th grade on.

While I’m sure malpractice attorneys everywhere saw my lack of interest in medicine as a huge loss of potential income. I can assure everyone, that their current level of wellness would almost certainly not have been positively impacted by my embracing a career in medicine.

To help you understand why my career motivation was essentially “anything but medicine” I thought I might relate a few stories about what growing up in a doc’s house is all about.

So, let’s get started!

Dr.s Scheuber (left) and Washington (right)

It’s Just Too Much Work!

I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone in my life who worked as hard as my dad. When he was young, he and his partner, Dr. Charles Scheuber, were about the only pediatricians practicing in Columbia. There were a couple of older guys and a few associated with the med school, but as far as private practice, they were the young firm in town which meant they would be around throughout a newborn’s entire pre-adult life. That’s important if you are a mama looking for baby doc.

Columbia was a fast-growing town in the fifties and sixties, so demand was never a problem. When I was older, I remember walking around town with my dad and inevitably someone would come up and introduce themselves as a former patient. This went on until the day he actually left town to retire in Arkansas for a life of playing golf.

When I was in early primary school, it was not unusual for my fellow students to walk up to me and announce, “Your dad borned me!”

Even in the first grade I knew that was not technically true. I would try to explain that obstetricians “borned” people not pediatricians.  I would try to explain that dad may well have been in the room, but the other guy actually freed them from the confines of their mama’s belly.

I finally tired of explaining this to folks who weren’t really interested anyhow. I would just nod and say something like Great! or Wow!

My dad was usually up and headed to the hospital by 4:00am. He would make his morning rounds and return home in time for breakfast which was typically served between 6:30 and 7:00am. Following that, he headed to his office where he saw patients all day long. Returning home around 6:00pm he would join us for family dinner.

Following dinner, Dad would either go on house calls or talk to mamas on the phone. Around 8:00pm he would return to the hospital for evening rounds and he would finally get home anywhere from 9:30 to midnight.

He and Dr. Scheuber alternated on-call coverage every weekend and at some point, they each took alternating Wednesday’s off. They also rotated coverage on major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

While I know he loved doing what he did I also know it troubled him greatly that he had little time for us kids. I can remember him taking me for a ride around the block before he left for the office each morning. He also would occasionally take me along on house calls. This was done just so he could have some time with me.

House calls frequently exposed me to people who were less fortunate than we were. I think that was a lesson he wanted me to learn well. He wouldn’t hesitate to go anywhere in town.  I can remember seeing firsthand what real poverty looked like. Dirt floor houses, no indoor plumbing and heat provided by firewood stoves or coal.

Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas involved frequent delays when he was on call. He would head to the hospital for rounds in the morning in an effort to get home early so we could celebrate. An amazing number of kids get sick on holidays. People would bring kids into the ER with all manner of complaints.

As a kid it was torturous for me to wait and wait over Christmas day until he was able to finally get away. Mom would fume about dinner being late. But what can you do? If someone is sick you’ve got to take care of them.

But, from my “greedy little kid” point of view, it all just looked like too much work and no fun.

I got to Practice Medicine Anyhow

At some age I was deemed old enough to actually answer the phone myself. This can be an interesting experience in a pediatrician’s home. In those days there were no pagers, let alone cell phones. Distraught mamas would call the house any time but especially during times when my Dad was out of the house or sitting in the can with a copy of the Columbia Daily Tribune. Here’s how the conversation was supposed to go:

Mama:   I gotta talk to Dr. Washington! Junior has a fever and he’s throwing up!

13-Year-Old Me:   Ma’am, I’m sorry Doctor Washington is not here right now, if you’ll give me your name and number, he’ll call you back as soon as he’s home.

Mama:   Okay, this is Mrs. Jones and I’m at 2-5673.

Nothing hard about that. Right? That’s exactly how you would think these calls would go.

Well, that’s because in this case mama is sane. It’s probably her second or third kid. She’s not going to freak out just because Junior has a paring knife sticking out of his ear. She knows kids are indestructible.

We did actually get the occasional trauma call, but thankfully they were rare.

In some cases, Mama just wanted some answers. Those were the more challenging calls for me to field.

Mama:    I gotta talk to Dr. Washington! Junior has a fever and he’s throwing up!

13-Year-Old Me:    Ma’am, I’m sorry Doctor Washington is not here right now, if you’ll give me your name and number, he’ll call you back as soon as he’s home.

Mama:   Well, that’s okay, you can probably help me, what does he usually recommend for this?

13-Year-Old Me:    What?

Mama:    Do I feed a fever or starve it? Or is that a cold? I never can remember! Should I give him aspirin?

13-Year-Old Me:    Ma’am, I’m 13 years old.

Mama:    Well, come on, you’ve listened him talk about this stuff, what does he usually recommend?

Seriously this happened a lot.

This is why it does not surprise me in the least that people spend money on quackery and charlatans.

One mom asked me if dad would talk to her about an issue, she was having herself. I told her I wasn’t sure but that he was a children’s doc and that he would probably tell her to talk to her own physician.

She then asks me how long do these guys have to work on kids before they let them work on adults?

The Dinner Table

As I grew older, I became more sensitive to certain things. I think this is kind of normal, teenagers get picky about eating certain foods and wearing certain clothes. It’s all part of growing up.

Dad had a phone close by the dinner table. When someone would call, he could talk to the mama right from the table. We would get to listen in.

Most of time this was okay but not always. Interviews with mama can involve some pretty graphic imagery and for me, much of this imagery was just not conducive to a rewarding dining experience.

Dad would engage with the mother asking questions and probing for helpful details.

Dad:  Mrs. Jones can you describe Johnny’s bowel movement? . . . .  I see, would you say it was watery or more like, oh, gravy?

This would inevitably be asked as we were trying to enjoy a nice beef pot roast with gravy.

If we were dining on one of my mom’s many casserole or stew recipes, you could almost plan on a mama calling about their kids upset stomach.

Dad:   So, Suzy vomited up her dinner? You say she threw up carrots and peas? How long after she ate, did she become sick to her stomach?

Dropped flatware would clatter to the tabletop or the floor, eyes would close, and hands would cover ears. Of course, dad was oblivious to all of this.  He would plough ahead and get to the diagnosis. Like most docs he was immune to the gross out effects of biology. It was all part of the fun!

Oddly, I’ve had a weight problem almost all of my life, one would think I would be emaciated.

The Switch

Dad and Dr. Scheuber would alternate weekends and Wednesdays covering for each other so they could enjoy a little time off. They both provided their patient mamas with home phone numbers and they encouraged calls after hours and on weekends for any issues a sick child might have. That was the way medicine was practiced in those days.

To protect off time and still provide care access to patients, the local phone company provided our house and the Scheuber’s with a device to intercept incoming calls and redirect them to the on-call doctor’s residence.

We called this miracle of technology, The Switch.

When Dad was off, and Dr. Scheuber was covering for him, we would throw the switch to the up position. The Scheuber’s would throw their switch to the down position. At that point, if you dialed our phone number, our phone would not ring, instead, the Scheuber’s phone would ring.

When Dad was covering for Dr. Scheuber, our switch would go to the down position and the Scheuber’s would go the up position. At that point all incoming Scheuber phone traffic would come to our house.

The rest of the time, when both docs were on call, both switches would be flipped to the middle or neutral position. The phones would work normally at that point. It was a good system, but it was not without problems.

There was the ever-present risk of our two houses getting out of synch. If one house forgot to throw the switch, the whole system collapsed, and someone would have to jump in the car and head over the other house and remind them to throw their switch.

While this technology was great for the docs, it was a lousy system if you happened to be a teenager.

Ironically, the Scheuber’s and the Washington’s both had teenagers. The telephone was a central part of teenage culture during that age.  As a teen, you agonized knowing that while you could place outgoing calls, incoming calls would be going elsewhere.

As a teenager I know that my social life suffered because of this great injustice. I’m still convinced that any number of my teenage fantasy dates never came to pass because the young ladies involved were never able to catch me on the phone.

Okay, I know, girls rarely asked boys out in those days, but I figured I was just such a great catch that surely, they would not be able to stop themselves from picking up and calling!

Dad (Center) my brother Bill (right) and me

Despite all of this adversity, please understand that I wouldn’t have traded my dad for anyone.

My dad was a great dad even if he was busy a lot of the time. He was patient, perhaps the most patient man I’ve ever known. He was smart and curious and compassionate.

I remember once seeing a Twilight Zone episode about beings from another planet coming to earth for the purpose of using humanity as a food source. This story just scared the living hell out me. I was positive aliens would touch down in our driveway, kidnap me and have me up to their planet for dinner. It became such a fixation for me that I was unable to sleep.

At some point, Dad took me off and sat me down and somehow managed to explain the distances involved in interstellar travel, the limits and problems of lightspeed travel and the rest of the required physics that made such events all but impossible.

He put my mind at ease after a couple of months of my being really disturbed by this. I was able to sleep again and stopped dreading bedtime.

For this and for countless other nightmares, injuries, illnesses and personal problems he was always my hero.

So, I sure miss that guy. His calm easy manner, his love for nature and his love of sharing what he knew with those around him.

I don’t miss the phone calls from the mamas, the delayed holiday celebrations or the switch. But they were all a very small price to pay for having Dad like him.

Finding ERP and Lean in my Basement

I’m wrapping up my second year of retirement. I’m almost 24 months removed from the daily commute to a desk in an office and daily face to face interaction with workmates.

Like many retirees, I still have a professional life. I freelance as a content developer which means I do a lot of writing and emailing from my home office.

I have to say I love the arrangement. I like to write, and I like the idea that I can largely plan my own day but still have a sort of regular gig.

Further, I can’t believe how important to me it is to keep up, to be a part of something larger and to know what’s going on in my neck of the professional woods. I think the word I’m looking for is relevance.

Retirement should not mean one loses their relevance.

Before I retired, I made a conscious effort to develop some hobbies and explore some new activities to keep my brain from turning into a bowl of oatmeal. I rather imagined that this would be very important in defining my new self.

I had this vision in my mind that I would somehow quit caring about all the things that mattered within the scope of my fulltime job and suddenly become passionate about horseshoes or bridge or perhaps even golf.

All things considered I stay pretty busy. Actually, just busy enough. And that’s very cool.

Some of these activities include playing the guitar and piano, writing a few songs now and then, singing in my church choir, engaging in some sporting activities and of late, woodworking.

While I never took a shop class in high school, I always had this desire to be proficient in those arts. So, it’s my new hobby and I love it.

So, what wood be the problem?

I started out with the idea of building wooden ship models. I ordered a kit, supposedly designed for beginners. It had a beautiful picture of this schooner on the cover of the box.

When my kit arrived in the mail, I was so excited. I headed downstairs and tore open the box. Inside I found a little bag of shiny metal stuff, three lengths of quarter and eighth inch doweling and a block of wood. There was also an instruction booklet.

After about twenty minutes of messing around with the wooden boat kit, I thought why not build something useful?

I gave the matter some thought and in no time at all, I had a short list of possible projects.

Being a guitar player, I knocked together a guitar stand. I have to say, it’s pretty cool. It features a hanging system instead of a floor-based cradle. The guitar hangs by the headstock.

Next, I looked beyond my music hobby to another hobby I enjoy, that being collecting period firearms from the “golden west” era. Cowboy guns. I fashioned a pistol display stand to show off my matched set of 1876 Colt Single Action Army pistols.

Long story short, when I got done messing around in the basement, I had a couple of extra copies of the guitar stand and a couple of extra pistol stands. What to do with these? I pondered the question and quickly had a solution.

I put them up on E-bay for sale. They both sold within a few days.

Wow, I thought, I’ll make some more and see if I can sell those too. I did and they did.

That was several months ago. Since that time, I’ve upgraded my workshop equipment and opened a  storefront on Etsy as well as continuing with E-bay.

I am now manufacturing a variety of woodcraft products in my basement.

When is a hobby not a hobby?

At first, I simply kept a basic design in my head to guide me in building my two main products. I noticed two things as this process evolved. No two products matched and second, the quality was quite variable.

Common sense told me that consistency and quality were two worthy goals.

So, I started thinking about how I was making each of these products. What did I do first, second, third and so forth? I figured out where the inconsistencies between products were, and I realized that consistency would require quality materials, good design and a repeatable process.

Some of the steps in the fabrication process were more complicated than others, some were quick, and others took more time. Working with batches allowed me to fast track the easy stuff and eliminate wasted motion and time on the more intricate steps.

And then there was the fluctuating demand. Some products would go for a couple of weeks without a sale and others would sell at a more consistent rate. Then, suddenly some guy would want to buy several copies at once.

How in the world was I supposed to know how many to make in order to fill my orders and at the sametime not be up to my ears in guitar stands?

This caused me to ask even more questions.

How much lumber should I keep in my shop? How many units should I have finished and ready to ship? Can I use some parts in multiple products?

What about pricing? Am I leaving money on the table? Am I losing sales to lower priced competitors?

The other day a fellow asked me to bid on modifying my pistol display stand for something altogether different. Did I want to stop everything and try to fill an order for a one off?

All of these issues seemed eerily familiar to me. Equally strange was the fact that I had some notion of how to deal with them. How was this possible?

WIP – Unfinished Pistol Stands

Then the truth hit me between the eyes. After years of talking about and writing about ERP, MRP, lean manufacturing and other related business issues, I found myself sitting in the middle of a manufacturing business.

In a period of 12 weeks I moved from enjoying a nice hobby to thinking about inventory management, demand planning, mitigating constraint points, and dealing with waste. I’m now consumed with process improvement and quality assurance.

My neatly organized office is now part warehouse and distribution center. There is a nice supply of priority mail shipping boxes, packaging tape and a large roll of bubble wrap that I have to walk around to get to my coffee pot.

My marketing experience has also become useful. I’ve done product shoots and written copy for my online stores.

All I can say is I am grateful for everything I learned during my professional career. Because of that, I have some inkling of what to do.

I’m documenting production processes, spec’ing parts and creating product drawings. I’m tracking costs, comparing production statistics between batches to reveal throughput and quality improvement metrics and even doing R&D into product improvements and new products.

Now the question is, do I look at this as a hobby or a new job?

The answer is simple for me. It’s going to remain a hobby. As long as I enjoy it, it will be a hobby.

Building Things is Hard

If manufacturing products was an easy process, there would be more successful companies turning out useful products.

Spending some time in the basement, designing, planning, building and selling my own products has provided me with an excellent view of theory turned into action and concepts turned into reality.

My first guitar stand had a bill of materials consisting of twenty-four parts. Most of those parts are contained within four assemblies which I purchased from a supplier. Two pieces of lumber are worked to fashion the two main components of the product.

Finished Guitar Stand

The second model has far fewer parts and does not employ third party parts aside from the actual hanger assembly which still comes from the outside. A more sophisticated design allows me to eliminate nearly half the parts and the resulting stand is stronger and more attractive than the first model.

My supply chain consists of Home Depot and Amazon. I constantly monitor the on-line prices for the supply items I regularly order. I also keep an eye out on prices for competing guitar stands.

At the scale or volume, I operate in it is relatively easy to fix and tweak and squeeze out a profit.

But, when I think about designing, building and producing a truly complex product, using many different supply sources, modifying and building out variable configurations and meeting deadlines and profit goals, my mind boggles.

I have developed a whole new level of respect for my manufacturing friends and I have a much greater appreciation for what they do every day of the week. Large complex manufacturing operations require software driven systems to choreograph the complicated dance that brings vast numbers of parts, processes and operations together to turn out the highly complex products that our era demands. But software can only do so much.

Manufacturing is more than ever dependent on people. Creative, ingenious people.

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High quality web content is a critical element in almost any effective marketing program.

Web content comes in many forms including product descriptions, user stories, whitepapers, company profiles, thought leadership articles and blog pieces.

As a B2B freelance content writer I work with businesses to create content that communicates useful information about companies and products to the people and businesses that are interested in those products.  In that role, I’m frequently approached to create content about new products or for new companies. In many cases those requests for content are made way too early in the marketing process.

A short conversation often reveals the most basic elements of a marketing plan have not yet been considered.

The purpose of web content is to establish the perception of your company as a credible, trustworthy, knowledgeable source and solution provider within a specific market. This is accomplished by delivering interesting, relevant, and useful information about your company, your product, the challenges you address and problems you solve.

Before a single page of useful content can be produced, you must be able to clearly identify and articulate several things. These include:

• Who are you selling to? – Consumers, multi-national companies or small businesses. If you sell to businesses, what business are they engaged in?

 

• Who is your audience? – Describe your typical customer. Are they C suite executives? Are they college educated? Are they students, military personnel or working people? Are they technically or financially or operationally oriented? Are they young, old, wealthy or not wealthy? Are there any considerations related to gender, ethnicity or nationality that have relevance within the product discussion?

 

• What value does your company and product deliver? – For company-oriented content this is typically distilled into a vision or mission statement. For products, this is simply a matter of identifying what problems the product solves, what pains does it mitigate or what benefit is realized through the use of your product or solution.

 

• What differentiates your product from competitive solutions? – What are the unique features of your product and unique benefits realized from your product when compared to your competition?

The answers to these four questions should be the basis for everything on your web site and essentially everything you do from a marketing perspective. These four pillars will guide the content creator in the creative processes to deliver content that serves both buyer and seller.

Approaching a content creator without this information is likely to result in content that is without focus and devoid of any information useful to a potential buyer. You can throw all manner of adjectives, adverbs and marketspeak onto a page describing a product, but chances are, your reader will find nothing of value without some reference to evaluate the claims made.

The response to each claim is nearly the same . . .

The widget is fast! – Compared to what? Is speed even a desirable solution attribute?

The widget is high quality! – Compared to what alternatives? What defines quality?

The widget is inexpensive! – Compared to what competitors? Compared to doing nothing?

The widget is the best solution available! – Compared to what? Being the best is a strong claim, how do you back that up?

When I get into discussions with prospects shopping for content creation services before they have thought out these basic elements, there is usually some frustration on their part. They are surprised when they learn that the need is really for a marketing consultant, not a content writer.

Content creation is one single part of an overall marketing plan. Successful content creation is an extension of a well-conceived and properly executed marketing program.

Do your homework and freelance content creators can serve you well. You will get quick turnaround and high-quality content without tying up your expensive internal resources.

A Ghost From Christmas Past

 Mom and Dad

Christmas is coming up quickly. Our house is decorated, presents are under the tree and we are looking forward to seeing friends and family in the next couple of weeks.

Last night I poured a couple of fingers of B&B neat and spent a few quiet minutes just looking at our tree. As I sat there, memories of many past Christmases began to trickle through my mind.

As I contemplated those many Christmases, I asked myself, how much has it changed? What’s different about Christmas today, 2018, from say, Christmas in 1958 or 1968? Perhaps of even more importance, what is it about Christmas that makes it such a touchstone for recalling memories from our early life.

My earliest Christmas memories seem to be in black and white. Perhaps this is because snow at Christmas time seems like it was more common during those years. I remember many folks still using coal to heat their homes in the fifties. Our city used coal cinders from our power plant as a traction aid when streets became snow or ice covered as well.

The pristine beauty of a white Christmas did not last long in Columbia. The black soot of cinders and precipitate from coal smoke dropped a greyness upon the white landscape. The streets turned to an ugly black slush as cars plowed through the snow mixing it with the cinders. Everything soon had a kind of grimy appearance.

None of that did anything to reduce the spirit of Christmas which seemed to invade our home precisely as the clean-up following Thanksgiving dinner was finished.

Today we call the Friday after Thanksgiving Black Friday. On that day, my folks would load up our car and take my brother and me down to St Louis for Christmas shopping. This annual excursion was, for our family, the kick off of the Holiday season. We would stay at the long-forgotten King Brothers Motel at Lindbergh and Clayton Road.

After checking into the motel, the family would head out to one of the major department stores in St Louis, Famous and Barr. Our favorite store was located in Clayton. The first priority at this point was lunch. For that, Famous and Barr offered the Wedgewood Room.  This instore restaurant offered great food and quick service. I always recall seeing tables with several little old ladies, cloaked in mink, wearing white gloves and engaging in quiet conversation over Manhattan cocktails.

After shopping at Famous and Barr we would drive a short distance to another store, the Stix, Baer and Fuller at Crossroads off of Clayton Road. Mom and Dad would cleverly drop me off in the toy department and my older brother Bill would be left in the book department. They would then set out to buy our Christmas gifts.

They never realized that Bill and I were wise to the whole scam. We would take turns following and spying on them after they dropped us off.  Then, we would provide each other with a full report on departments visited and items purchased. It wasn’t unusual for us both to know what we were getting for Christmas within minutes of the purchase transaction being completed.

The St Louis Christmas trip also always meant dinner at a nice restaurant and a movie that likely had not yet opened in Columbia. I have so many wonderful memories of evenings enjoying splendid meals and watching great movies.

Following the shopping trip, another annual event would take place; the trip to the Christmas tree lot. We always had real Christmas trees in those days and my mom always obsessed over keeping them watered. She would dramatically describe how quickly a dry tree could catch fire and how awful the conflagration would be for our Christmas.

Nevertheless, we loved real trees. They bring a presence into the home that no artificial tree can really duplicate. Part of it is probably the scent, but there is more to it than pine odor. Real trees almost have a personality. Each one is unique unlike the uniformly perfect artificial trees we plant in our living rooms today.

As time would move along and the big day approached, Dad would look for things to keep us occupied and help the time pass more quickly. One of these was the late evening ride around town looking at Christmas lights. Our goal was to locate the most garish display in the city. I can still hear mom exclaiming, “My God, Edward, their house looks like a filling station!”

Of course, I loved the gaudy bright strings of light, the life size Santa Claus and reindeer figures on the roof and the present laden sleds parked on the front lawn.

When Christmas Eve would finally arrive, it was always the longest day of the year for me. My mom would help things by making candy or cookies and she might get started on some portions of the Christmas feast.

I also remember NBC running Amahl and the Night Visitors on Christmas eve each year. This small Gian Carlo Menotti opera is truly beautiful. Today I still love it and I still cry when Amahl offers his crutch to the three kings to take to the new king on the chance he might require it.

I was lucky enough, later in life to participate in a production of Amahl at Stephens College.

As afternoon turned into evening, Dad would pull us all together and read a story which he thought to be appropriate. I can recall him reading to us, The Gift of the Magi by O’Henry. I remember this like it was yesterday. I still take a minute or two to read the story each year. O’Henry’s trademark twist ending delivers a message in this story that is at once so simple and yet, so endlessly complex.

After my fourth-grade year we moved into a new home in a new neighborhood. At that point we were included in yet another tradition that I just love to recall. We lived on the corner of Thilly and Stewart in Columbia and even though our house actually faced Stewart Road, the residents on Thilly included us in this tradition.

Shortly after dark, a family would approach their neighbor’s house, knock on the door and sing a carol. At the conclusion of the singing, the two families would together move on to a third home. Again, they would knock on that door and sing another carol. This process repeated until the entire street was marching down the block to the final home, the home of the host for the evening. The assembled group would knock on the door and sing the final carol. Following this, the host family would invite everyone in for drinks and Christmas cheer.

It was such a great tradition. You would always see old friends, catch up on news and if you weren’t in the spirit before, you would surely be when you went home that night.  My understanding is that this is still done on Thilly to this day.

So, as I sat there last night contemplating all of these precious memories, I realized that I had my answer. Christmas doesn’t change. But the traditions do change and that is something that we should remember.

We need traditions. If I were going to presume to give new parents any advice, I would tell them to provide their children with plenty of traditions.

Christmas will for most of us ultimately become a Holiday of memories. My father once told me that for him, Christmas always brought with it a little bit of melancholy. I understand that comment today much more so than I did before when my parents were still alive. The older we get, the less permanent things become.

We lose so many things and so many people along life’s way. Ultimately, we figure out that permanence is really an illusion. At that point, we find that we can rely on just a few things. One of those things is tradition.

I look forward to building new traditions and also enjoying my ghosts of Christmas past for many years to come.  I hope all of you have many ghosts to enjoy as well.

Merry Christmas to all!

Our Political Discourse – Voting is the Only Thing That Really Matters

When I was growing up, our dinner table featured two things in plentiful quantities; great food and political discourse. Like most families, we were pretty much on the same wavelength politically, but that didn’t stop us from engaging in a vigorous, and sometimes loud, discussion of current issues.

My parents were both children of the great depression. Like many members of that generation, their beliefs, values and personal worldviews were largely shaped by that economic disaster.

My mom grew up on a farm and her father also had some trucks which served as a source of income when the farm was less profitable. The family was large, my mom was one of nine children if memory serves. She attended a one room school, Ocean Wave School, located south and west of Hannibal, Missouri.

My dad came from a different background. His father was a sales manager for the Westinghouse Corporation. His dad managed a sales group out of St Louis, Missouri that sold steam turbine generators. He kept a flat in St Louis, while his wife remained in the Hannibal area with my father and his only sibling, a sister. Their home still stands today, in the Village of Oakwood, near Hannibal. Periodically, my grandfather would come home by train, so they could enjoy a couple of days together as a family.

When our dinner table discussions took place, the behaviors both of my parents displayed were predictably formed and affected by these two diverse backgrounds. My mom was louder and more conversationally assertive, while my father was more deliberate, considered and quiet in the expression of his opinions and comments.

I learned more about issues from my father and more about arguing from my mother. I find great value in both lessons.

Our meals would start with a traditional blessing and following that the food would be passed around. As we filled our plates, a conversational subject would be suggested, and things would sort of take-off from there.

My mom was usually the one who selected the subject. It may have been stimulated by the evening news broadcast, an event at her workplace or later on, an event that my brother or I had related from that school day. Regardless of the source, my mother would initialize the conversation with an observation that almost invariable begged for retort.

It was her technique to ensure that the air would be filled with conversation throughout the meal.

As I grew older, moving through adolescence into young adulthood, I found that I could reduce the volume or level of animation occurring during these debates by simply agreeing with my mom and telling her she was absolutely right. On the other hand, if I felt particularly ornery or passionate about something, I could stimulate her to a level approaching rage by voicing an opinion that fell opposite her own observation.

In truth, I figured out my mom just loved to argue. She enjoyed a spirited discussion, she loved making controversial remarks and she was thrilled when the conversation become animated. She could walk into a silent room and drop a remark like a referee drops a hockey puck at center court to start a match. There were no elephants in rooms my mom occupied. She was indeed, fearless.

My mother delighted in telling the story of her first trip to the polls after turning 21. Her father approached her on election day and informed her that he would be proud to take her with him to the polling place for her first exercise in democracy.

After voting they were returning to the farm and he ask her how she felt about the whole experience. She indicated that she found it exciting and wonderful. She further exclaimed how happy she was to have had the opportunity to vote for an unprecedented third term for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

As she would relate the story, her father stomped on the brakes, stopped the truck and turned to face her. She relates that his face became purple in color and the veins stood out on his forehead and neck. They pulsed in time with his hammering heart.

When he was finally able to speak, he said, “Well, god-damn-it Mary, if I’d have known you were going to vote for him, I would have left you at home!”

She would then laugh and remark that she of course knew this, and this was why she had said nothing about her preference until after they voted.

Voting is far more important than winning arguments. It is far more important and effective than posting Facebook messages filled with anger, with half-baked opinions or with controversial assertions. My mom understood this, and I will forever be grateful to her for making sure I knew this as well.

Voting is what counts. Voting is only thing that counts.

Just How Much is a Trillion?

A business news item caught my eye the other day. The technology firm, Apple, had recently been valued at one trillion dollars. That number looks like this: 1,000,000,000,000. Or you might say, a one, followed by twelve zeros.

First of all, congratulations to Apple! I mean that. I am an Apple user. I have a couple Macs and an iPhone. I even had the iWatch until I stopped wearing watches following my retirement. I like their products and I’ve been pleased with my Apple purchases.

Back to that trillion number. That’s a lot of money! If you are like me, I can’t even wrap my head around how much a trillion is. I don’t think many people really understand just how big this number is.

And that is the point of this article. I decided I wanted to be able to visualize how much a trillion is.

That said, I want to stress that I’m not making any political or social judgements about the implications of trillion-dollar companies, trillion-dollar deficits or even trillion-dollar salaries. But, the fact is, we are now in an era where the trillion number is used frequently. We should at least be able to visualize what a trillion of anything looks like.

I decided to apply the trillion value to something more familiar, that being distance. My basic unit of distance measure is feet, as in, I’m almost 6 feet tall. For you metric folks, that a bit shy of two meters. We all know relative distances between cities and towns that we visit, so feet will give us a good unit of measure from the perspective of relative distances.

1,000 Feet, one Thousand Dollars

One thousand feet is just about .189 miles. That’s about one fifth of a mile. The track surrounding a football field is a bit longer than a fifth of a mile.  Thinking in dollars, 1,000 bucks is roughly the weekly take home pay for someone earning around sixty thousand dollars per year.

100,000 Feet, One Hundred Thousand Dollars

 One hundred thousand feet is just shy of 19 miles. My daily commute, when I worked, was about 19 miles. That was the distance between the downtown area of Cincinnati and the northern suburban area, Tricounty, which is located just inside the Cincinnati beltway. In terms of salary or dollars, 100K per year translates to about nineteen miles.

1,000,000 Feet, One Million Dollars

Okay, now we’re getting into some numbers! A million feet comes to about 189 miles. That is less than the distance between St Louis and Kansas City, Missouri.  People with a net worth of a million dollars per year were once considered wealthy, they still are by most measurements. But a million is not what it used to be. No one would back a television show called The Millionaire in this day and age.

1,000,000,000 feet, One Billion Dollars

A billion feet extends out to about 189 thousand miles. That’s less that the distance between our Planet Earth and the Moon (240,000 miles).  A billion dollars will buy most folks everything they need with plenty left over for a new truck. Seriously, a billion is a lot. A billion-dollar company is considered a large enterprise. Billionaires are still, relatively speaking, quite rare.

1,000,000,000,000 feet, One Trillion Dollars

Things get big quickly. A Trillion feet equals roughly 189 million miles. That distance will take you to our Sun and back to Planet Earth with several million miles to spare. A trillion dollars is vastly more than a billion.

What does that mean to you?

As I mentioned earlier, my intent here is to provide a useful way to visualize what these various numbers mean. We hear politicians, newscasters, pundits and financial experts toss terms like Billion or Trillion around like they are relating football scores.

When you hear these numbers consider your own point of view. Your world is likely defined by 1,000 or 100,000-foot limits. If you are particularly lucky or industrious, you perhaps can see your world in the million-foot perspective.

When you start talking about billion or trillion-foot distances, you really are talking about astronomical numbers. And if you are talking dollars, the same is true.

How to Feel Better about Drinking Straight Gin

I grew up in a household that embraced the tradition of cocktail hour prior to the evening meal. My parents both worked and at the end of the day, they really enjoyed  “having a couple” before dinner.

Their drink of choice was the Martini. The martini consists of two basic ingredients, gin and dry vermouth. An olive is added as a garnish. Some will build a “See-Thru” using vodka, but purists will tell you that only gin is used in a genuine martini.

Martini drinkers are passionate about their recipes for concocting  the perfect martini. There are legitimate variations to the basic drink, but mostly these involve adjusting the ratio of vermouth to gin.

As an observer I quickly noticed one interesting fact related to how my father made martinis. It seemed like the bottles of gin would need to be replaced with much greater frequency than the bottles of vermouth.

I asked my father about this phenomenon one day and he grandly turned to me and proudly exclaimed, “Louis, I think it is time for you to learn the art. The time has come for you to start mixing martinis.”

I remembered very well the long and sometimes exciting process of learning to drive from my father.  I briefly worried that learning mixology from my dad might well be a long and challenging course of study.

It turns out, there really wasn’t much to it. Making a decent martini is not all that complex.

We had a nice little liquor cabinet in the living room and shortly after 6:00PM, dad would remove the bottle of gin and the bottle of vermouth from the cabinet and head out to the kitchen.

On my “first day” dad suggested I just watch and learn. There would be ample time for practical exercises in the days to come.

So following him into the kitchen on that day I was all ears and all eyes.

Initially, dad went to the freezer and removed two glasses which immediately frosted up from the ambient temperature differential. Each glass was filled with ice. Dad informed me that the entire world was made up of two kinds of people. Those who drank martinis up and those who drank them on the rocks.

“We are rocks people!” He proudly intoned.

Next he carefully filled each glass with gin. Following that, he removed a jar of olives from the fridge and spearing two olives on a toothpick, he placed one olive in each drink.

The bottle of vermouth remained unopened on the counter. I noticed dad was very careful not to let the drinks get too close to the vermouth.

Finally he picked up a cocktail napkin, wrapped it around the glass, handed it to me and said, “Take this to your mother.”

He followed me into the living room and the evening celebration began.

Later that night, I asked Dad about the vermouth again. I wanted to know how the vermouth was used in the process.

Dad explained that the bottle of vermouth was placed next to the bottle of gin in the liquor cabinet. I asked him, “Why do you even take it out of the cabinet? Why don’t you just save your money and and forget about the vermouth.”

He just laughed and laughed.

Louis, he said, “Only common drunks drink straight gin!”

 

5 Things to Pack for the 21st Century Road Trip

Shortly after cars were invented folks started driving all over the country to see all the sites and enjoy our great national parks.

Netta Washington & John Pearl Murray just married and moving to California  in 1910

When I was a child, I remember well the agonizing process my parents went through to make sure they packed everything we would need for the trip. Chief among these items was the essential coffee can. Rest areas had not yet been invented so families had to improvise when it came to taking care of biological necessities.

Other items would include things like maps, tissues, story books and snacks. Everything was designed to make the kids forget they were trapped in a non air-conditioned car for several hours.

Today, that list has changed completely. Now, the essentials include all manner of things which didn’t even exist fifty years ago.

Here are five MUST HAVE items for your road trip today.

1. GPS – Forget about maps, now you need GPS. But it is critical factor that your GPS data must be updated to reflect the constantly changing highways and streets in America. You can use a cloud based GPS but do so with caution. You just might drive beyond the communication range of your device. All of those beautiful graphical landscape images will turn into a simple featureless grid and finally just go blank. Okay, take the map after all.
2. Play lists – If you haven’t noticed music is no longer available on the radio. Bring your own tunes. It’s fun to hear the GPS voice try to talk over Jerry Lee Lewis screaming Great Balls of Fire!
3. Money –  Not cash, not travelers cheques, bring plastic. Make it a credit card, not a debit card. There are scanners everywhere and they all want to grab your debit card data and transfer all of your money to some country you’ve never heard of.  Bring three credit cards because at least one will figure it’s not you using your card and decline any charges you try to make.
4. Camera – Wow! Is this cool? You don’t have to have a camera anymore because your phone is a camera. Unless it isn’t a camera, then bring your camera, preferable a digital camera unless you like searching for film.
5. Coffee Can – More and more rest areas are closing, being remodeled or are over crowded. When you have to go, you have to go. Bring the damn can.

Enjoy your trip!

Boeing 707 – Happy 60th Birthday

By Lou Washington

This past week the Boeing 707 reached its 60^th birthday. The 707 was not the first pure jet passenger transport in the air. But, it was such a huge commercial success that it attained a kind of iconic status among the flying public.

For many of us, the 707 would be the first jet aircraft we would fly. It was a ground breaking airplane. Boeing had not spent much time building or designing passenger transport aircraft after the war. The military kept them busy developing the B-47 and B-52 long range strategic bombers. Both of these aircraft featured technology and design elements incorporated in the non-military 707.

During my young life, I had occasion to fly now and then. Prior to the 707, I had flown in DC-3s, DC-7s and perhaps a Convair of some sort, but the model number was not of any significance to me at the time.

Air travel in these larger prop powered aircraft was pleasant enough. Yes, they were loud and there was a lot more vibration then you typically feel in a modern jet. But the big deal about the 707 was the speed. The 707 cruised at a rate in the neighborhood of 600 mph. That my friend, was very fast to most of the flying public.

By comparison, a Connie or a DC-7 cruised around 350 mph. A little better than half the speed of the four engine 707.

The effect of this was to shrink the world by about half. What used to be a ten hour cross country flight meant you could now fly five hours west in the morning, conduct your business in the afternoon and take the red-eye back east in time for work the next day. Flying the same route in a prop job, would require a day out, a day onsite and a day back.For business and sales folks, this was huge.

I remember vividly my first flight in a jet and it was, of course a Boeing 707. I was about 13 years old and I was lucky enough to be included on a class trip to Washington DC and New York City. I was just thrilled.

Standing on the tarmac at St Louis Lambert Field, The huge TWA 707 seemed to stretch out across my entire field of view. Flying was markedly different in those days. Upon entering the airplane the flight attendant took us to our seats. Once I was buckled in, I inspected the content of the seat pocket in front of me. In addition to the magazine and emergency procedure card, each passenger was provided with a 5 pack of Winston cigarettes! Of course, I was too young to partake.

My memories of the flight are vague, but I do remember that there was a pronounced feeling of acceleration that lasted somewhat longer than the acceleration phase in a prop. The other big difference was altitude. The 707 flew miles above the Earth, while the prop transports had a considerably lower operational ceiling.

This made most of the ground features all but invisible in the jet. But the ride was was sublime! Flying in the 707 after riding in a big prop transport was like riding in a Lincoln Towncar after spending days riding in a poorly maintained buckboard pulled by an ornery mule.

I have included a couple of snapshots from my first jet voyage. I always enjoyed flying the 707 during my road warrior days in the ’80s. It was not my favorite, but part of the reason for that was it became increasingly rare as the ’80s moved on toward the nineties.

Boeing built the last 707 in 1979. A 21 year production run for a commercial airplane was phenomenal in those days. After starting production in 1958, Boeing turned out about 1,000 of the four engine 707s. According to Wikipedia, there were ten 707s still in commercial service as of 2013.

The plane figured prominently in the book and original “Airport” movie. If you have a chance to watch the original “Airport” (Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, George Kennedy) you will get an idea of just how fond people were of the 707.

The 707 also stared in an episode of The Twilight Zone. The speed of the aircraft inspired the author to write about a 707 that inadvertently traveled in time. Upon arrival at Idelwild (now known as New York JFK) on Long Island, they find a jungle full of dinosaurs rather than a nice modern airport.

The big Boeing was featured in popular music of the time as well. Gordon Lightfoot’s song, Early Morning Rain, uses the 707 as an image of escape from the cruel realities of life, “stuck here on the ground”  His lyrics tell us of the “big 707 set to go”.    He completes this image with, “Hear the mighty engines roar, see the silver bird on high, she’s away and westward bound, far above the clouds she’ll fly.”

The 707 was quite a show off in real life too. During a meeting of airline executives in Seattle, Boeing arranged to have their demo 707 do a fly by for the executive’s benefit. The test pilot at the controls, put the plane in a full roll during the fly by.

The You Tube link is well worth the time not only to watch the big plane perform this, but to hear the pilot’s son describe the event is very cool.

Boeing 707 Barrel Roll

So, here’s to Boeing! Here’s to the 707! What a great airplane!