Bird Watching

Gramp used to have a friend by the name of Gus, though he always told me to call him Moe. Moe was a bachelor, preferring the call of adventure over the call to the altar. He could always bring out the best in Gramp, course it was those times when he'd laugh the hardest and let me take extra pulls off the ale jug. Moe liked to do what he called, 'bird watching' and admire the ladies sunning on the shore. One summer though, when I was about 17, Moe spent a heck of a lot of time with a woman named Mary Cudahy. She was the prettiest tomboy I ever saw. She used to sit fishing on the dock or off the pontoon of Moe's seaplane. She could spit a watermelon seed from 15 yards and make it ding off the door of the plane. Mary sure was something. She left just as the leaves began to turn to take a teaching job near Utica. After that summer Moe was never quite the same.

5H1T Happens

Back in the fifties, Federal Aviation made Duncan Sr. change the tail number on the lunkin 'livery to go with the new system. Dad gave Harvey Plude at the boat yard the new ID, 0-51HT, to paint on and told him there's a jug o' the ale in the jump seat for his effort. "That's zero dash five h one tee, and I've got to have it first thing tomorrow." Well, Dad might'n o' better kept the jug 'til the job was done. Harvey'd had it half gone by the time he got started. Dad went down next mornin' to load up for a run up Ampersand and saw Harvey's ale-aided handiwork. Big and bold was the new tail number: O-SHIT."