John Schumann, Jr; Park Airplane

 July 8, 2023

Today, when Daddy and I had a phone visit, I shared with him that a poster in the "Growing Up In Vero Beach," group had shared an experience he had while visiting the "park airplane" at its home in the Pensacola Air Museum. 

I found the post, which had been written by David Barker, and read it to Daddy.

"I am in Pensacola today to see the Banshee we all played on — While I am taking photos of the magnificently restored aircraft, an elderly gentleman standing next to me begins to tell me about it, such as the way the cockpit opened. His voice was strained but I leaned in to listen. I said I had played on this very plane and had sprained my ankle jumping from this very tail fin — he smiled and said that he had been an electrician who worked on this very plane as a corpsman at Cherry Point NC in the early ‘50s! Mel Parker — I did not get his rank before he needed to rejoin his grandchildren and great grandchildren — said that “we were able to get it up to 51,000 feet — near Raleigh, I think.” He said the plane is all electric; the only hydraulics are in the brakes. He laughed when I said that apparently it was one of the small ports for the surveillance cameras that little kids in Vero Beach had crawled through to get into the aircraft. He smiled at the paint job on the plane while it was in the park — I showed him photos of the plane in the park — and he said it was navy blue when he worked on it in the Korean War years. What a great experience!"

Daddy said that it was fun to know that, and I told him that it had been fun for me to read, knowing that he had been a part of that restoration effort.

He said that he didn't know if he had ever told me, but that he had seen an ad in a magazine that the plans were available from the Naval Airstation in Jacksonville, if you could come and pick them up. Charlie Parks was in charge of Parks and Recreation and knew someone involved in transportation that had a barge, and those people agreed to transport the plane if the Press Journal would give them some coverage for it. Daddy said he was always proud of having played a part in that, and I know some of you had fun playing on it.

He mentioned again that it was to fun to hear about the experience the two men had at the museum, and I said, "Because you saw an ad in a magazine and followed up on it, the plane ended up in the museum for the two men to enjoy."

He said, "Sometimes you do not know that something you do will prompt other events later on."


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

John Schumann, Jr; Thank You Notes to Reporters

Image
  August 27, 2023 When Daddy and I talked about this article, the first thing he said was how pleased he was that she had noted that pay was much higher than for many newspapers of the same size. We just talked back and forth --- I told him how much I had enjoyed reading about the thank you notes he wrote the reporters, and that he had personally typed the notes that accompanied their pay raises. He seemed heart-warmed by her positive memories, and noted that she was no longer working at the Press-Journal when she wrote this, and so did not have to be positive. He talked a little bit about the IBM typewriters, and my notes are kind of sketchy, but he said that the IBM typewriters had a red symbol underneath the letter, and that symbol was read by the offset machine. He said the retraining for the linotype operators wasn't easy because the keyboards they used for linotype were set up differently
Read more

Granddad gets lost at the World's Fair

Image
  September 4, 2023 Daddy said that although the attached article does not say that he went to the World's Fair, he knows that he did, because he remembers it. They went into the city via tunnel, and while Daddy wasn't sure which one, he believes it was relatively new. What it was for sure was an experience that impressed him. He was seven at the time, and my guess is that it would have been his first time going through a tunnel in a car. This was also where Grandad bought them hamburgers and was incensed (Daddy's word) at the cost. Granddad said the hamburger wasn't as big as the coin it cost. (Maybe a silver dollar, maybe a fifty-cent piece. You get the idea.) General Motors had a big display of cars at the fair, with a mezzanie where people could gather and view the cars. Granddad took Daddy there, and they became separated. Daddy said that maybe Granddad moved a head to get a better view, and he got left behind. He said that he must have been taught what to do in su
Read more

John Schumann, Jr; American Legion Citizenship Award; Rotary Award

Image
June 27, 2023 When Daddy and I talked about this article, I asked him what a Rotary Vocational Booklet was. He said that he didn't know, but that from its beginnings, Rotary reached out into the community for all vocations to be represented, so that instead of being a trade group, they would have a broader scope of input. We talked a little about the various monetary prizes, and then he said, "I remember the American Legion award. I was very pleaed to get that."  
Read more