Ghana Part 4

At left is a view of the front yard of the digs. The hedge was trimmed with a machete then a young man with a whisk broom spent most of the day stooped over and cleaning up the trimmings. All sweeping inside our out was done this way!

To the right is the "Central Market" in Kumasi. The city has about 2 million people in it and most of them were there

 





 
This sign probably needs no explanation but I can 't help wonder how large an issue this was before someone had to post a sign!





At right is the bed at the Desaabre Lodge. Spartan but adequate












The small sticker at the bottom of this electricity meter says, "Pay and Smile". Guess we're not the only ones who gripe about our utility bills

To the right is a shot taken from the front porch of the digs. They seem to take security rather seriously in Ghana. The entire country looked like a huge compound






This is definately a real Chinese restaurant with a real Chinese owner. But, make no mistake, you can still get "Fu Fu" and other local dishes. This place soon became my friend

To the right is a "roundal" with a herd of taxis zipping around it. All taxis have bright orange quarter panels and almost all of them are "Opels". At least ten percent of the vehicles on the road are taxis and even more at certain times of the day


                                                                                    

The Sahara Desert is a mind boggling wilderness. It seemed as though our flight over this place would never end. It is obvious that at some time in the past it was filled with rivers. Perhaps the "gold of Ophir" mentioned in the Bible was mined here

There are a lot of different things to see and observe in Ghana. One is that there are no paper towels to be found. I don’t think I even saw any in the markets. There certainly weren’t any in any of the restaurants. They did come around with a hot towel with which you could clean your hands. Likewise, I did find a sink in the dining area and it had a hand towel available.

There is a snack there that I’ve never seen any place else. It is a small plastic soda bottle filled with a mix of peanuts and cooked but un-popped popcorn. It was rather uninspiring but worth the effort and minimal expense (about a buck as I recall).

We in the US are not used to valets and such but Kumasi seems to have a lot of them. These guys are “Johnny on the sport” to help direct your parking efforts and to open your door for you. They even help you back up when you leave. They may get a small wage but my guess is that they work for tips. So, it is customary to have a handful of change with you wherever you go.

Because of the poverty there, most individuals drive small cars and many have motorcycles. One such cycle is a cool utility three-wheeler with a pickup bed on it. It appeared to have about a 200cc-250cc engine and was made in China (JinHao brand). I observed one such three-wheeler that was toting three large cow heads. Another was hauling a load of coconuts and another had 5 guys piled on it. These are Handy gadgets, to be sure.  I would love to have one of these little haulers.

Lining virtually every major street were what I called “shanty shops”. They could be made of wood but many were made of metal. The metal ones tended to be either 4’x 4’ or 8’ x 8’ while many wooden ones were smaller yet. The metal ones also had a single large metal door that was closed and locked at night. Venders sold everything from soup to nuts. I suppose that the owners of the small wooden spots simply tote their pots and pans and wares off for the night.

Can you imagine being in a large city (a city with 2 million people seems large to me) with cattle grazing in the median with two lanes of traffic whizzing by on either side? It was a tad difficult for me, too. But, here was a herd of ten cattle lazily noshing away at the scrub grass that was doing its best to survive. I can’t say that I blamed them because there was very little other grass in the area on which to graze. They don’t exactly have “Farmer’s Feed and Supply” stores there. In other places, goats were seen wandering about thither and yon seemingly unattended and un-owned while others were in attended herds.

Hawkers were everywhere. There were hundreds of them. Most were in the medians or alongside the street at every intersection that had a traffic signal or stop sign. There was little that you couldn’t purchase whether a bag of water (yep…a 12 oz bag), popcorn, bread/rolls, coconuts, casaba, newspapers, or a cell phone charger. I didn’t see any bowling balls for sale. They descended in droves upon the stopped vehicles. I felt guilty for not buying something but later was comfortable just simply smiling and shaking my head, “No, thank you”.

The huge number of taxi’s was almost mind boggling until you stopped to think that most people there don’t own a car. Some don’t even own a bicycle so taxi’s are their primary transport. My guess is that more than ten percent of the cars on the road were taxi’s.

The preferred car for a taxi is the Opel.  That was surprising to me but apparently they are roomier (not sure how that can be because there are almost no large vehicles there). There are two versions of the Opel taxi: the “short put” and the “long put” with the “long put” being more like a station wagon. All taxi’s have orange quarter panels. I don’t recall seeing a radio of any kind on any of them. Many are LNG powered.

Because of the lack of consistent refrigeration, many juices come in cartons similar to what I’ve seen used for chicken and beef broth. They are very practical containers but the lids are difficult to open. Being part gorilla with a great deal of upper body strength (prehensile tail not required), I felt that I was up to the challenge of opening my juice box without the assistance of even the most modest of modern tools. I tugged …and… tugged… until the lid ….suddenly…..and violently…gave way. The purple geyser that ensued was a real photo op. Most unfortunately, my entourage of professional photographers missed their plane and weren’t on hand to catch this epic event. Once again I will not make the pages of “National Geographic Magazine”. *SIGH*.

Well, being baptized in grape juice isn’t all that big of a deal, I suppose. However, there are no paper towels with which to clean up the mess. I had to be creative and sacrifice a sock to get the ocean of purple off the floor.

The presence of Muslims is prominent. Approximately 15%-16% of the population in Kumasi is Muslim which is to say, they are everywhere. It seemed to me that most were goat herders. An interesting fact is that almost none of them are from Ghana. They are from just about every place but there. Yes, they are being “imported” as part of the “jihad” to conquer the planet. They are literally “going into all of the world” for Allah. It is working quite well.

Mosques there are sponsored by a particular sect or group of Muslims from other nations. Most are fairly nice and seem to be comparatively prosperous while others are situated in a rundown neighborhood and are rather squalid. In one spot there was a huge beautiful new mosque parked in a really rundown neighborhood.

The best that I can tell, the folks in Ghana have no idea what a box springs and mattress are. They have a mattress, to be sure. But, it is mounted on the floor or close to the floor. I slept in four different beds in three different cities and all were the same. The bed that I am used to is high enough to accommodate several guitar and fiddle cases under it (it’s on risers). Dragging my old airframe up off the floor was inconvenient but was not a punishment.

Did you know you can get “bush meat” in Kumasi? You probably can’t imagine just why anyone would want to eat bush meat in Kumasi but it is available. I may have mentioned it prior, but you can order yourself a heapin’ helpin’ of a large jungle rodent called an akrante. I do like to try new things but never found myself hungry enough to experiment that much with my diet. I’m betting that it probably tastes like chicken or the squirrels I shot alongside a creek bank in Kansas in 1960.

It was a bit unusual to notice that there were no water heaters there. It really does make sense when you stop to think about it. Who would waste good Cedi’s (the national currency) on raising the temperature of water when you are always trying to find ways to cool off? A “cool day” Ghana is around 85 degrees! If anyone needs water for the dishes, they just heat a bucket of water on the stove. The water out of the tap is usually about the same as a swimming pool so you can cool down some. That is, of course, to say that you can do so if water is actually available. It was available once per week while I was there. That quickly explained all of the 5 gallon buckets full of water that were stored in the huge shower area of the digs. Amazing.  

No one drinks coffee in Kumasi and probably elsewhere in Ghana. They all drink tea. Most drink Lipton “Yellow Label” tea. I drank it in Kumasi and I drank it in Accra. I later found out that “Yellow Label” was the original Lipton tea. In the US we drink the orange pekoe blend. However, I did find that the “Yellow Label” tea is available online. I like both and brought a box of “Yellow Label” back with me. I truly did miss my espresso maker, though.

In a Kumasi market (which reminded me of the “Minkler Cash Store” on Hwy 180 east of Fresno, CA what with the wooden floor and such) I did run across some bags of tortilla chips. That was a bit of a surprise but not as much of one as when I was in Accra and getting ready to return to the US. I found tortillas, taco mix, and salsa! Who woulda thunk?

Pepsi Cola is somewhat of a rarity in Kumasi. Either Pepsi isn’t popular in Ghana or the Coke distributor shot and killed the Pepsi distributor (that actually happened in Thailand about ten years ago so….who knows). I did find a few cans at one particular market but Diet Pepsi was definitely not available at any time or anywhere (in fact, I don’t recall seeing any diet drinks there!). Bummer, dude. Coke, on the other hand, was in abundant supply. I am not a Coke drinker but was forced to slake my thirst with Coca Cola or water. Given the fact that water will rust your pipes, I drank a couple of Cokes and was quite surprised to find that they were made with real sugar. In other words, they tasted like they did when I was in high school (not many years prior to the trade embargo with Cuba where the US used to get most of its sugar).

Some foods there are still pounded into submission. The cooked casaba root is smashed into a dough ball with a long pole in a large wooden vessel. It takes about ten minutes per dough ball. I’ve seen them do it in TV documentaries but never in person. The dough ball is broken into servings, cooked in a soup base, then meat is tossed in which then makes it “fu fu”. The meat can be chicken, lamb, mutton, akrante, beef, fish (usually Talapia but smoked catfish is available), or what all.

 

Speaking of food, it was difficult to comprehend not seeing fast food restaurants at all. I did see a McDonald’s in Accra but that was the only one. Again, that’s probably due to the lack of disposable income there. Perhaps they should offer their version of the local fare and call it “McFuFu”.

They have their version of pizza there, too. However, it is a highly modified version of what we eat here. They don’t seem to use tomato sauce on their pizzas. That’s probably because the nearest tomato is several thousand miles away. Anyway, their almost-a-pizzas are not inspiring so I re-named them “edible frizbees”.

Radio newscasts are something else to listen to. They sound like a screaming and yelling match, an out of control political debate, or a preaching contest but brother John assured me that they were just relating the news. How weird.

The crows there are black and are about the same size as in the US but have a large white cape around their neck. How interesting. I saw mourning doves there too but they are somewhat smaller. They appeared to be about 75% as large as the ones in the US and resembled the “Diamond Dove” though not quite as small.

These are few observations. I’ll probably go back to a narrative next time. Stay tuned.

 

 

 

GHANA PART 3

Here's a local furniture store. Notice that you have to cross a deep and wide open ditch/sewer. If there wasn't a chronic water shortage, perhaps they could fill the ditches and float gondolas in them. NAW.

At left are the utensils used for making the starchy dough ball at the bottom of a soup called "fu fu". It's made by pounding the peeled cassava root with the long pole in the large wooden bowl. This picture was taken at the small house across from where I was staying (the digs).

At the right is a pub. Yep, a pub. Some of the night spots
were a bit more modern but not all that much.

At the left is the Kotoka International Airport in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. No other picture (lifted from the Internet) could have made this airport look better.









GHANA - PART 3

 

I must confess that, after seeing the airport in Accra (the capital), I wasn’t sure what to expect when getting ready to depart for Kumasi. The Airline that John selected was “Starbow”. We stood at the end of the line and waited for our turn at the counter. The ticket area reminded me of a checkout line during a closeout sale at a discount store in east LA. That any commerce could be conducted in the mass of chaos and confusion was astounding. Nevertheless, we wended our way to the ticket counter after only a long time.

Imagine my surprise as I neared the desk and saw a sign that said, “TAMALE”! My first thought was that I could purchase this Mexican food treat before boarding the plane. However, there wasn’t even a hint of the smell of cooking food and I was around six thousand miles from the nearest Mexican kitchen so that ended that.

It didn’t take long to determine that “TAMALE” is a city in northern Ghana and is its third largest city. It is heavily populated with Muslims and is also heavily populated with “NGO’s” (non-government organizations like the “Catholic Relief Services”, “Care International”, and “World Vision”).

 

After getting our tickets, we were required to wait in a special area prepared for passengers. It was a large tent with a half dozen swamp coolers with misters. It was comfortable enough given the fact that there was no other A/C available. It was still a bit warm for me but at least the chairs were hard and uncomfortable.

My first guess as to what aircraft that they would be using wasn’t a pleasant thought. I could see a 60 year old four engine Douglass DC-6 prop job with one of the motors temporarily (or not) replaced with a big block Chevy engine. Much to my relief they used a real modern jet liner, the BAE 146. The competing airline used an Italian-built 70 passenger ATR 72 turboprop airliner. Having both feet in the "Twilight Zone" wasn't too bad so far.

Prior to departure to Ghana, my dear wife had done a lot of homework about the environment there. Her primary concern was about mosquito bites. Africa has serious health issues due to mosquitoes and she wanted her husband back in good health!  That concern came about when we discovered the fact that you can’t even enter the country if you have not been immunized against “yellow fever”. In fact, when you de-plane and are standing in line, the very first document they demand is the immunization card and not the passport!  

So, nurse Connie began prepping me for the worst. She must have figured that there would be at least a bazillion mosquitoes (a bazillion would be roughly twice the current world population of mosquitoes) with which to contend. So, she doused all of my clothing in some sort of anti-mosquito preparation and loaded up my suitcase with “DEET” mosquito repellant. I had to promise to hose myself down with the stuff each day to ward off death and destruction. That made sense to me as I noted that a wife's "husband preparation program" is inversely proportional to her love for him.

My first morning in Kumasi found me grabbing my pump bottle of “DEET” and giving it a big squirt. An intelligent person would have first verified which direction the nozzle was pointed. My lack of intelligence was brilliantly and painfully reinforced as I shot a blast of that powerful stuff right up my nostrils. Can you imagine the joy in my soul when I realized that no mosquito would ever again be able to threaten my sinuses? Lest I try to protect my eyes too, I just trusted the treated clothing from then on. Guess I can’t be trusted with a loaded pump bottle.

The city utility services in Kumasi are rather “interesting”. The electricity is only on about half the time in any given part of the country. They suffer “shorts” and “longs” which is the local vernacular for the shorter or longer power outages that are suffered daily. These outages come at the most inconvenient times and keep the population angry much of the time.

I was never able to confirm the precise cause for this and neither can the natives. But, there are only a couple of excuses that make any sense. One is that they rotate service to the various regions because there is a shortage of resources. That didn’t appear to me to be the primary cause and others doubt that that is the case. Another reason is a lack of modern hardware including distribution resources and that may be a factor (though, again, not provable). It may be a combination of these items. To me, the preponderance of the blame seems to point to a completely incompetent and completely apathetic government. The government owns the electricity company which is named (drum roll, please), “The Electricity Company of Ghana”. In fact, when queried, the government smugly says, “Blame God” and sloughs the entire matter off.

The outages truly are inconvenient. Much of the time I took sponge baths in the dark or by the light of my cell phone. Not really a hardship per se but it did leave me with a greater appreciation for our system here in the US. Perhaps we can address the the sponge bath part later as we get to the matter of city water dysfunctions. Included in the dynamic is the fact that roughly 40 percent of Kumasi residents still rely on public toilets (recalling that Kumasi is a city of approximately two million souls).

The electricity there is a 220v system with a three pronged plug. You have to have a voltage converter and outlet converter to use appliances hauled in from the US (I did have the adapters). An interesting note is that they usually don’t have the double wall outlets like we do and most folks don’t have (or don’t need) a power strip. That means you can operate your TV or your air conditioner but not both. At the lodge in Ajumako my room had one outlet. I could use either the TV or the small coolerator. As it turned out, I used neither mainly because they only had one (uninteresting) channel on the TV.

Both at the lodge and at the digs, all of that high potency electricity was funneled into a single 30 watt light bulb. I never had enough light until the last night at the lodge in Accra. Only then was I afforded….two….30 watt bulbs. Is that efficiency or what? Having the extra light meant that I could use my video camera while communicating with Connie via “SKYPE”. That was a real treat. You can’t do that with only one bulb, believe you me.

More about the Ghahanian adventure when I can. Ta ta, for now .

You may have to copy and paste the URL's below to be able to watch the videos (I didn’t shoot the videos). If that doesn't work, then type in a You Tube search for the respective title.

VIDEO: In the Streets of Kumasi (You Tube) - 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEvlsE91Q2E&feature=related

 

VIDEO: Kejetia Market in Kumasi (You Tube) - 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbfXkBZ502U&feature=related

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GHANA PART 2

This is a shot of one of the side streets in the south part of Kumasi. A few streets were worse and a few were better.

 On the left is a picture of "fish and chips". The fish is deep fried Tilapia (in a wok) while the chips are actually a local yam cut to resemble French fries. You actually can't tell that they are yams unless someone tells you! Amazing. In fact, I didn't see a single spud the entire time in Africa.

The picture on the right is of the lane leading from the lodge we stayed at while in Ajumako. Note the clothing draped over the shrubs to dry. This is a very common practice there. The clothes dry very quickly in the hot African sun.

Ghana Part 2

 

The “digs” is located about 3 blocks or so from a slum area. I was soon to learn that that would be no worry. Seems that there are no gangs and thugs in those parts with which to contend. A few days later, I walked about 6 or so blocks into the slum area to purchase some batteries for my portable fan. The artificial wind it generated came in handy when the electricity went off (as it often did…as in about 50% of the time). Certainly, it was only after I had conferred with Brother John as to the wisdom of such a trek. “Not a problem”, he advised, so I headed down the paved street onto the unpaved street and started looking for my much needed “D-Cell” batteries. It wasn’t so much that “God was with me” as it was that “the Devil was not with me”. Works for me.

The national motto of Ghana is “Akwaabe”. It roughly translates as “Y’all are welcomed here”. Without controversy these nice folks take that to heart. The no few venders in their wooden huts and shacks were quick to say “Akwaabe” and “God bless you”. It couldn’t have been more peaceful or accommodating. I found the batteries and headed back to the digs. It would be several days before I again ventured out for such a walk. But, there was peace about the matter and I did need to reload my wireless internet pre-paid card.  

Some may want to ask, “Which side of the road do they drive on in Ghana?”. Well, the short answer is the right side (since 1974 when they switched from England’s bassackward way of doing it). However, in reality, they drive on whichever side of the road has the fewest holes in it and the least traffic at the moment. The first rule of the road there is that there are no rules.  

You can’t even begin to believe how they drive there! I’ve heard stories about Italy and France but, Ghana seems to take the Twinkie! Try to envision starting to make a left turn across 4 lanes of traffic (2 each direction) only to have one car turn inside you and two others turn on the outside! As often as not a motorcycle would be in the middle of all the turning cars too! If there was a 2 foot gap between bumpers someone WOULD edge there way into it! Unreal.  

Occasionally, they have the courtesy to signal you with their lights and/or horns. But, you have to be quick and sharp as to how to interpret the signals. For instance, if you are turning in front of oncoming traffic, you may get a quick flash of headlights signaling you to proceed with the turn. However, if you find the lights are flashing more than once and the oncoming traffic does not slow down and is beeping his horn, you have a different interpretation. What he is telling you is, “I see you and now you seem me. Don’t even move. Just breathe ‘cause I AM coming through!”. See how simple that is?

I wasn’t really fond at all of their practice of passing on hills and on sweeping curves (inside sweeping curves too!! ACK!). Every so often a horribly wrecked car, van, or truck stood as mute testimony of the foolishness of such practices. Yet, no one seemed to take notice or care that their lives were in grave danger.  

John thought it best to allow me to rest most of the first day at the digs. I thought that was a great idea and did just that. After all, I did have access to one of the (apparently) few air conditioners in town and I certainly was tired from all of the travel. He came to fetch me for supper that evening and then for lunch the next day. Guess what we had for lunch? How about Chinese food! Talk about being unprepared for that one! What a pleasant surprise! At first it was no big deal. However, after about three days of eating the local cuisine, I became a big fan of Chinese food and kept my chopsticks at the ready from then on.  

The local cuisine? Well let me tell you about the local cuisine, cousin. Most of it consists of fried/cooked/dried plantain (much like a banana but with a much higher starch content), coconuts,  beans, rice, palm nut soup base, chicken, lamb, goat, mutton, akrantie (a large bush rat), tilapia fish, smoked dried catfish, okra, yams (easily confused with a potato in taste and texture), casaba made into “garry” (a bland cereal concoction) and “fu fu” (a staple soup base into which you may toss a chicken leg or such), and any particular combination thereof. Kumasi is not all that far from the ocean so they do have access to seafood. However, it really doesn’t take long to tire of these elements and long for a nice juicy greasy hamburger and fries combo meal, spicy taco, a pizza, or even a meatball sandwich from a "Subway" sandwich shop. 

If one were inclined, he could eat a meal of “Whatchmacallit Stew” being brewed over an open fire next to the sidewalk or road. Some of these quick witted chefs gave their 4’ x 4’ wooden restaurant with open pit fire a high profile name like “Hollywood Restaurant” and “Jesus Saves Restaurant”. Well…just the same…."Ol’ Disinclined Ran", they call me.  

About the only roadside eating that John and I did was to nosh on some banana bread muffins (not quite as good as Connie’s, of course) and a highly modified Asian spring roll. I didn’t ask and don’t want to know just what the greenish gray mush was in the center of this tough-as-a-boot leathery roll that sold for about 25 cents.  John sent a couple of these hockey pucks home with me to snack on later but I was hoping to feed them to the local crows. I’m still not sure what happened to them but they quietly disappeared into the Kumasi ecosphere. Reckon God was watching over me.  

One roadside treat was the young coconut delicacy. I had never experienced the delightful experience of slurping down young coconut. The gentlemen who served us were armed with a utilitarian device known as a “machete” in most parts of the world (I forgot to ask what they called it in this part of Africa). The vendors hacked off the top of the coconut then you drank the coconut milk. After that, they hacked the coconut in half and you scooped out the soft gelatinous flesh of the inside with your top piece that had been previously hacked off. It was such a wonderful treat! I so seem to recall that everyone was quite polite to these young fellows. I shouldn't wonder.  

While the spicy Ghanian food didn’t upset my stomach, it did present my digestive system with some efficiency challenges. That simply means that getting used to the change in my diet precipitated a noisy change in my immediate environment. Within a couple of days my new African name was “Malfumee Mbooffo”.  

Don’t touch that dial (not that any of us are old enough to remember when they said such things on radio and television sets. In fact, todays TV's don't even have a dial!)! I should be fully recovered from the trip to Africa within about 20 years and should be fully lucid. Anyway, I’ll post another update as soon as the dust and smells of African no longer influences my thought processes nor affects my biorhythm.

Ghana Part 1

At first Ol’ Ran had planned to present a rather thorough story about the trip to Ghana. This may not be the case. It’s difficult for me to totally understand this dynamic at the moment. But, I just can't seem to get my head and heart into it. Part of the reason is the incredible impact this trip has made on my spirit, my soul, and my body. Just the physical demands were grueling. Try spending 18 hours on an aircraft in one day. That’s pretty tough stuff for an old guy especially if he has already spent two weeks in a totally foreign and unfamiliar environment.

This trip accounted for a number of “firsts”. One such first was that this was my first time to fly on a Boeing 747. I’ve never had the pleasure of strapping 750,000 pounds of aluminum, plexiglass, and JP-4 jet fuel to my fanny and watching such a modern behemoth fly off the ground into the heavens. However, the four big Rolls Royce RB211 turbo fan engines had no problems hauling all of us into the sky and we were a full boat. Another first was the fact that I had never spent ten hours aloft all at one time. This was a non-stop flight from LAX to Amsterdam.

This was my first time overseas. I’ve been to Mexico (more than once) and Canada (more than once) but had not crossed the big pond. Of course it was my first time to go to Africa.

Being in Europe was another first. Because the flight was a Dutch KLM 747, the hub and transfer point was Amsterdam. Amsterdam seems to be a nice place with nice enough folks. I would have loved to have spent more time there and just eaten their plethora of cheeses for a few days. I understand that the Dutch are never more than arms length from a chunk of cheese. Right smart if you ask me. Maybe next time I can factor in some play time in Europe.

The flight (in fact, all of the flights going and coming) was smooth as glass. It was not unlike being in a huge Motel 6 with wings because you couldn’t tell that it was moving. It was as though it was parked in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Albuquerque. It was rather eerie, in fact. I welcomed an occasional wiggle of the tail to let me know that I was still aloft and not just bolted to a carnival aircraft simulator or such.  

They did feed us well, I must say. When I got to Amsterdam, I was full of food and coffee. That didn’t stop me from tracking down a nice hot cappuccino and a croissant, though. I was actually surprised at the good food that KLM offered.

After a 3 hour layover, I boarded an Airbus A330-200 to Accra. It’s a nice plane with LCD screens on the back of each seat.They stack you eight across instead of ten across like the 747. Though KLM has a nice selection of movies for entertainment, for some reason I wasn’t much interested in watching them. I did see a couple on the return flight but only watched them out of sheer boredom and to mentally escape the discomfort of having so much of me tucked into so little a seating area (about 20” x 26” – Economy Class, don’tcha know).  It was early evening time when I arrived after a 6 hour flight. Much of my body was aching from being boxed into the cramped quarters.

We landed at the Accra International Airport where I encountered the first of many surprises about Ghana. It was like landing at a 1960’s airport that had no terminals and where all boarding and deplaning was done on the tarmac with rolling stairs out under the stars (though I did see another set of stairs that had a cover on it). The airport building was old….really old. They were in the process of renovation but I would soon learn that such a process could easily be a decades-long endeavor.

 The second surprise was that there was no A/C. That, too, would be the standard in Ghana. Due to the construction, the A/C had been unavailable and we were all left to swelter in the heat of the night. On the return trip I did find a restaurant there at the airport that had its own generator so it had its own A/C. You can bet I parked in there to wait for my boat to leave. For the time being I just had to find Brother John who had called me to advise that he was waiting for me near the front of the place.

 We soon hooked up and were on our way to spend the night at a youth hostel of sorts. Apparently there are no motels as such in Accra. There are Hotels and there are lodges but no motels as we know them. How interesting.

After a good night’s rest, we were ready to depart for Kumasi which is about 140 miles away. I had thought that John was going to drive us there. Later I would understand how the road is not in the best of shape and that there are police check points that are really just shake down stops to fleece the people. So, John's brother, Eric who lives in Accra, hauled us back to the airport to catch a plane.

By car the trip, though only 130 miles or so, would have taken as long as 6 hours. By air carrier, the trip is only about 45 min. When we got to the aircraft, I was pleased to board an old friend, the BAE 146 four engine sweetheart that Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) used to fly back in the 1980’s. It’s one of the best and safest people haulers ever built. I hadn’t been on a 146 since about 1986. I loved it then and still do.

We landed and deplaned at what I thought must have been the wrong airport. To begin with, this is the second largest city in the country. Yet, we had to “back taxi” on the single runway because there were no taxi ways! The small terminal was no larger than the one at our local airport in Porterville! The huge sign over the door convinced me that we were in the right place.  

For reasons that I’m not sure of, the airport was crowded with people out front. There were about 50 people or on the airplane but three times that many waiting out front. Some were “hawkers” selling their wares but it appeared to me that the rest were waiting for relatives or sending someone off. But, the numbers still didn't seem to add up.  

John’s associate pastor, Cemo, picked us up and drove us to the place where I stayed for the entire time while in Kumasi. I affectionately refer to it as “the digs”. I am about to become acquainted with an entirely new planet. Welcome to Kumasi, Ran. Now, hang on.

Roundup Ran and Canning Connie

 Heffalump, the big white covered trailer, is hiding in the back yard and not in the pole barn where it usually resides.

Above is the new "Springville Yacht"

          At right is the recently ovehauled
          small trailer. What a handy gadget to have
          around!

          Below is a shot of the well house,
          barn, above ground garden boxes,
          and part of the back yard. You can see
          Heffalump in the background at center left
          (looking southwest)

 

 

 

I am appalled at how fast the time is elapsing! We’re almost through another year and I’ve hardly gotten used to this one! Connie and I have gotten many things done that we had planned to do for the homestead but are far from finished. We were sure that we would be done by…October at the latest. It didn’t happen.

Some of the things we did accomplish was the finishing the barn project. It was to be a three month or so deal but ended up being a year and a half ordeal! Finally, though, we have all of the loose ended tidied up. That last bit of touch up paint and securing of some insulation upstairs was completed.

Connie has been getting the shop area straightened up and in order. I now know where most of my tools are and many of my big shop tools are in place. There is a nice industrial drill press, 10” Craftsman table saw, Craftsman band saw, and Craftsman radial saw on one wall. On the other is my 33 gal. Craftsman air compressor, sand/bead blaster, 3.5KW generator, 800W generator, two Craftsman tools chests, storage racks, and two storage cabinets. The smaller power tools are on the shelf under the two nice big 4’ x 8’ work tables that are stationed in the middle of the floor. There is much stuff yet to be brought in from outside where it had to be hauled so we could get organized. The rainy season is upon us so we’ll have to crack the whip to get it done. I’ll do the whip crackin’ and let someone else do the work, of course. I make a great supervisor.

Upstairs in the barn is where Connie has stored tons of stuff including the goodies for the huge yard sale being conducted on the third week of this month. This will be the third year where there have been several participants. Last year there were 16 venders with tents, awnings, and tables all over the place (Yes. We do have a huge front yard). We had a great time (tell that to our sore aching bodies and they’ll punch you out)! Guess who spent a hundred bucks shopping for all the goodies at the venders’ tables prior to the opening? Hey, I ain’t no fool. When you don’t have to go yard sale’ing and someone brings them to you, it’s time to shop!

We also have a bunch of kerosene lamps/lanterns, 50 or so fishing rods and reels, gobs of fishing tackle, clothes that don’t fit because they shrank, a kerosene heater for the barn, and just about everything else you can imagine stuffed into every nook and cranny. We had shelving built in between the trusses so we have lots of room…er…had lots of room. We need a bigger barn! ACK!  

At the south end of the upstairs is where my smallish 8’ x 10’ radio shack/com room and utility room is. I have yet to set up my ham radio station but am looking forward to getting back on the airwaves again. I don’t have a lot of ham gear but do have a lot of short wave, scanner, GMRS/FMRS, and CB stuff. So far, other than a few mobile CB antennas, I only have one nice soon-to-be-mounted roof-mounted “Disk Cone” scanner antenna. It can actually be used for 2 meter and 70 cm ham transceivers as well. The hope is to build a few wire ham antennas like I used to do. They work well, are easy to build, and they are cheap too! “El Cheapo”, they call me.

The garden was AWFUL this year. Despite our most earnest attention and our fervent TLI (tender loving irrigation), we only managed to coax a very few veggies from the garden. The only effort we didn't expend on trying to get these plants to produce was begging and pleading. Out of twelve tomato plants we will probably get 12 tomatoes. We figure that each tomato will have cost us no more than 12 dollars each.

The zucchinis were hardly better. From six plants we garnered 4 zukes. Okra? Well, just let me tell you that story, Mildred. Our Okra, which everyone knows will pretty much grown on concrete with or without attention, has been in the ground for 4 months. Wanna guess how tall the plants are? No? How about less than a foot tall! I kid thee negative! And, most of that has been in the previous 2 weeks after I angrily and aggressively tried to drown them to death in one day! "Vile plants that have mocked me daily....I will soak you 'til your roots rot". I guess that thought I meant business!

We recently planted a dozen new apple trees and about that many others like plum, pomegranate, apricot, peach, and nectarine. So far I’ve managed to only kill a few of them so we should have some fruit in a couple of years. Add to that, 15 new grapevines were planted and only three of those didn’t make it so far. Reckon I have the black thumb of doom.

This now brings me to another aspect of the ranch, weed killing. There are many ways with which do dispatch weeds. One method is to use a "Weed Eater" on them. Then, you can always use the old "Hula Hoe". Yet another way is to just pull them up by the roots with your hands. My favorite is to use “Roundup” weed getter. The weeds never knew what hit them! Besides, I get to be “Roundup Ran”. Kinda has a ring to it, don’tcha think?

These things take a lot of babysitting and work and all work and no play makes Rancho Ran a dull steak knife. It may not happen soon but I’d like to do a bit of R&R by going fishing in our new “Springville Yacht”. Well, it isn’t exactly a yacht but you know how easy it is to overly appraise something that's new to you. It’s more like “Rancho Rafto” with a Kitchen Aide mixer on the back for power. It’s hard to believe but it is painted exactly the same color and trim as our recently overhauled 4’ x 8’ open pull trailer! If I’m a lyin’, I’m a dyin’.…you cannot tell but what the same guy with the same paint brush painted the two items from the same bucket of paint! Wild!

Anyway, the little cutie is a 14’ aluminum fishing boat with a 6-7 hp Johnson outboard motor to push her down the creek. Ah, and on the pointy end is an almost new Minn Kota trolling motor wired to a big deep cycle battery. I think “Minn Kota” is an old Sioux word meaning something like, “Chief catch’um fish or squaw lose’um weight”.

Das boot also came with a really nice white trailer too (you don’t really think I was going to park it on top of the van, eh?). I was pleased to note that it also has new tires on it. For some reason there are no oars. Don’t know if they ended up in a different yard sale or what. That reminds me of the time I was in a small boat and lost an oar. I called out to a nearby boat to see if I could borrow one of his. Turns out the guy was Cockney. “These ain’t ‘ores, he yells back. This is me wife and me mother-in-law”. I try to always bring an extra now.

Connie has been canning away with her huge canning pressure cooker. I think she could can most of an elephant at one time in that thing. I try to say far from it because it's always angry and hissing at me. She has put up 85 lbs of spuds, 30 pints of corn, 4 pints of okra (someone gave that to us), 80 lbs of pears, and 10 quarts of zucchini (also a gift. It's a good thing we have fiendly neighbors with gardens that actually produce)! When the local apple crop ripens soon, she is going to buy most of it and can it. We have an apple press so she wants to squeeze some juice to go along with the canned apples and apple sauce. Excellent! The current experiment is the canning of ten pounds of chicken breasts. So far it looks and tastes great so we'll likely get some more before the sale ends. We're running out of room to park all of this good stuff but I think that's a really good "problem". Knowing her, she'll take stuff from the garage and put it upstairs in the barn so she can have her stored goods  near her kitchen. When I grow up I hope to be as sharp as she is.

In less than two weeks I’ll be journeying to Ghana West Africa for missionary work. I was invited to go several years ago but the timing wasn’t right. It is time now to go. The African pastor recently showed up on my Yahoo Messenger after not having been in contact with him after so long. One thing led to another and I now have my shots, passport, passage aboard a KLM 747, and am awaiting the visa approval. I think they still allow white folks to visit Africa.  

The total flight time is 16 hours. The first leg is 10 hours non-stop from LAX to Amsterdam. After a couple of hours lay-over, it is a 6 hour non-stop flight to Accra, Ghana. I should have plenty of time to read, eh? Anyone know how long it takes for a misshapen heiny to reform?



                                                                                    
 

The "Ranch Rino"

                          a 1952 Ford 8N with
                          a drag scraper on the back

 

That’s the latest from Ranch Relaxo. Stay tuned for more snooze worthy articles.

LET THERE BE TREES!

We’re doing well and moving along her at the ranch albeit with minor age-related glitches in the get-a-long.

One of those glitches is being overcome by the implementation of our newly discovered “green stuff”. I think Connie said it was “All Day Long Green”. It has so many ingredients in it that I’ve lost count. But, from what I can tell, it’s all good stuff. The parts and pieces range from wheat grass to what all. There is bee pollen, royal jelly, and the equivalent of a basketful of fruits and veggies.

 In any event, Connie and I can actually feel a difference (read: after trying a number of “We can make the old people feel better” products). There is more stamina during the day and we seem to sleep longer. And, I’m not as hungry as usual! I’ve stopped strip mining “Home Town Buffet” and other such places. We’ve only just started our “green regimen” but I’m still losing weight. I’m down to about 230 lbs. I need to get down to 195 or I’ll need to start flying twin engine airplanes from now on.

 You wouldn’t believe how busy we are! We have been “thinnin’ (as in, “I’ll do the thinnin’ around here, Baba!” – Quick Draw McGraw) on how to make the best use of our property. So, we decided to purchase a bunch of fruit trees and grapevine starts to add to our orange and tangerine trees. I think there are a couple of “quat” trees but I’m not sure which ones they are. They’re not loquat or kumquats so they must be sash-squats. Maybe not. Add that to our four 8’ x 8’ x 30” above ground garden boxes, and our honey bee revival program (I’ll explain), and you can understand how we can now call ourselves “ranchers”!

We now have orange, tangerine, plum, apricot, peach, apple and pomegranate trees. The apple trees are second in number to the oranges. There are about 22 orange trees and there are 9 apple trees (an arbitrary number since we can only stuff so many trees into so many holes around here). The others number 2 to 4 each.

 The grapes are planted on the west side of the lawn in front. They’ll make a nice fence (though we don’t really need a fence as such because we have good neighbors). Varieties are Black Manuko, Thompson, and a hybrid of some kind. The guy we purchased the starts from tinkers with them and comes up with his own home brewed varieties.

 The garden boxes are now productive. Until we got the water regimen dialed in, we were quite successful in the “Connie and Randy Tomato Plant Eradication Program”. We thought that we were over-watering. However, we misread the compost material and were actually under-watering. The damage was minimal losing three tomato, three or four squash, a watermelon, two okra, and cucumbers plants. The remainder of our well-babysat flora seems to be thriving.

 The tomatoes will be replanted as will the others. The best we can tell, we have the price of our tomatoes down to about 22 dollars each if the new plants produce 40 pounds of tomatoes each.

I found myself up at 5:15 AM the other day. After working until 11 AM as “Farmer Ran”, I was well toasted. After 5 hours of “dirt work”, there weren’t too many parts of my aching body that weren’t begging to be transferred to a less hostile place (like, maybe Afghanistan). It took three days to recover.

After we harvested a wonderful 30 lbs of honey, our bees packed up and left the ranch. They even took their honey! The best that we can tell, the rent was too high and we shouldn’t have tipped the bears where to get some free honey. Actually, we think that there was an insufficient supply of flowers on which they could dine. So, they headed for a more productive farm or ranch. I hope they packed a lunch ‘cause the only place that has flowers about now that I can tell is the flower beds around the Porterville Library, and Cayucos over at the coast.  Everything else is brown.

That also means that, one of our latest goals is to re-populate our bee hives then populate the area with perennial flowers so Rancho Relaxo will be more hospitable for the apian crowd. That way we can have an indefinite supply of honey. Honey is our friend.

Connie is trying out her huge 7 quart pressure canner. As of late, she has canned zucchini squash, green beans, and corn. She’s really getting the hang of this and is enjoying it immensely. When the garden starts producing she’ll put up some tomatoes, eggplant, more corn, and crook-neck squash. She also has a large canning pot for “hot bath canning” if she needs it.

If you are still not convinced that we are a real ranch, we are also now worm wranglers! Yep, pardner! We now have a herd of worms! We rustled up some “red wigglers”, made us up some compost bins, added some compost, shredded paper, blended food waste (veggies and such), and shoved a ton of worms in. They’ll digest that mess in a just a few days. After that, we’ll have a harvest of worm castings that make for a great fertilizer. When the worm population doubles in a couple of months, we’ll put some in the garden boxes.

The local jam session is about to start again. They suspended it for the month of July due to monetary concerns. Seems they wouldn’t make as much money if they let us play. It’s a lot of work but it’s also a lot of fun to jam with the local folks. It helps to keep the rust off the ol’ fingers, too. It’s a “BYO” affair and everyone does just that. Some bring a few brewskis while others bring wine. A few just bring a couple of ears. It’s not unusual for a family to bring their dinner and camp on a table and eat while listening to the music.

Recently, while on the way to a client’s house on Globe Road, we happened upon a small doe with twin fawns! They were contentedly dining in a large meadow and certainly unconcerned about the passing creatures in the Freestar van. Reckon they already knew that my freezer is full and I don’t need to refill it. From time to time we have seen a small herd of deer in these same parts. Globe Road is also a neat place to find several coveys of quail. They are quite thick in this area. A covey meanders across our back yard from time to time.

 A couple of years ago, Ol’ Dead Eye Ran bagged a quail with a .22 cal pump pellet rifle at a range of about 60’. It was a head shot, of all things! The instructions that came with him (you ain’t buyin’ that, right?) said to park him in the refrigerator for three days (undressed) then process him. I did that. However, I did forget to apprise Connie that there was “something” in her ice box. Accordingly, she waltzed into the kitchen, opened the fridge door and, when she saw two three-toed feet sticking up at her, she promptly experienced an episode of amazement. I had some ‘splainin’ to do.

Stay tuned for the continuing adventures of “Wranglin’ Ran” and his side cook, “Canning Connie”.

Home, Home, on the Rocks

Though tremendously busy (not a joke), we finally got to go flying last week. I hadn’t stretched a feather since Livermore! I almost forgot where the airport was located! HAR! The steed was the little 100hp low-wing Evektor Sportstar (like the one pictured) which is fine since I was only looking to fly low and slow anyway. She’s a delight to fly and hauls two folks in relative comfort. If I had waited any longer I would have been "ground sick" (sick of being on the ground). I'm a PILOT for crying out loud!

It was later in the afternoon when we lined up on runway 30 and it was a wonderfully warm and clear day. The air was calm and the conditions enjoyable in such a small airplane with a light wing loading. If there is any "chop" or turbulence when flying in an aircraft with a light wing loading, you can bounce your kidneys into your back pockets. You can believe that this airman prefers his kidneys and other body parts to remain where God glued them together.

After about an hour of treading the footless halls of summer sky and covering the land from Springville to Fountain Springs (roughly 30 miles or so one way), we headed back to the flugplatz (What?! You don't speak German?! Flugplatz=airport). The first landing was acceptable but really not up to my standards. It was more of an "arrival" than a landing. That means that I forgot how low the runway had been parked beneath the airplane when I took off. I flared a tad high and made a “beginner’s” landing. So, I just added come coal and went around the pea patch again. This time I found the runway and slipped the little bird back on the ground without rustling her feathers (or Connie's, tee hee).

“Rancho Relaxo” now has some new fruit trees….and some old worn out farmers. Oy vey! You’d think that I would get the hint that becoming a bee wrangler, building and maintaining garden boxes, cutting the grass, weedeating, and keeping my job as the chief mechanic and thunder bucket specialist around this place is enough hard work! Nope! I must be your basic slow learner. *SIGH* 

We had to hire a couple of young bucks to help us dig some holes, though. Ol’ Ran doesn’t do much shovel work. I can shovel a bit of BS with the boys now and again but that’s about all I can handle. These kids are good workers and appreciate the higher-than-minimum wage we pay. They are "Johnny on the spot" and usually are available which is great. Trying to accommodate our schedule is a challenge so we appreciate their help.

Six of the new apple trees now reside in a row along the west side of our driveway in a north and south alignment. Some of the new plum trees are out back just beyond the reserve 3,000 gal. water tank (required for fire suppression) and are aligned east to west. The apricot and pomegranate plants and the single fig tree have yet to be stuffed into the ground. Likewise, the 14 or so grape starts have yet to be dug in.

We’re still dealing with getting the stakes into the concrete that we call our front yard. They will be aligned north to south on the far west side of the front yard. Somewhere in the mix will be the new 6 new peach and plum trees we bought today. They were 75% off at Lowe's! What can you say when you are a "clearance sale" professional?! What was I supposed to do.....let some city boy get them?! Not today!

You can’t even imagine how hard the ground is here! Sprinkler spikes that hold a sprinkler in place won’t penetrate it. A pick ax won't work! We tried that! When the barn was built, the contractor had to bring in the big guns....a Ditch Witch trencher! Even then it almost wore out the poor trencher! Sprinklers with a base of some kind are all that can be used!

We have to irrigate for two days to be able to move any soil at all! Then, there are large rocks to contend with! That means that our grape stake holes may have to be reconfigured or larger holes dug to be able to remove the big rocks! More work! UGH. I would like to speak directly to the clown who backfilled the property with sand and rocks prior to the house being built! GRRRR!! Most likely, I would hurl vile epithets and large coconuts at him hoping that one or the other would hurt his body or his soul or maybe both. This farmer, though long suffering, has little patience with stupid and thoughtless people.  

The area on which the property sits was formerly an orange grove. There are still 25 or so orange and tangerine trees at the back of the acreage, in fact. One would naturally think that at least the rear parts of the property were tillable without dynamite. Not so. The other day, I had the two young aforementioned helpers arm themselves with a couple of shovels. They needed to move some dirt out of the way so we could assemble the last (4^th) of the above-ground garden boxes. They couldn’t do it! The ground was too hard! Get this…I hauled out a big electric jack hammer. It couldn’t handle the job in a timely manner! I had to soak the ground all night to get it to comply! Maybe we should change the name of this place to something like “Hard Pan Alley”, “Pumice Palace”, or such. 

You may want to stay tuned to see what happens when all of this fruit ripens in the future. I certainly can’t wait…..uh-huh. Connie is preparing her canning equipment for the big event. She has a huge pressure canning/cooking unit, a big stainless steel vacuum sealer, and 5 or so dehydrators! Come harvest time I’ll know exactly where she’ll be! She'll be up to ears in corn (heheh, the boy can't help it) and up to the top lace on her apron in okra, squash, zucchinni, tomatoes, and fruit galore! We can then smear some of the home-grown honey and real butter on some fresh hot bread or biscuits thereby securing our reputation as a real ranch. MMMMMMMMmmmmmm!

I’ve been breaking in the dehydrators by making beef jerky. Oh, man! Not only is it good stuff, it’s relatively inexpensive. I’ve slowed way down though because the price of lean beef has really gone up. Really lean beef is now selling for more than 4 dollars per pound. It’s still far less expensive than buying the store-bought stuff, of course. If Ol' Ran had any initiative, he would buy a 12-14 lb chunk of top surloin steak at "Smart and Final" for 3.69 per pound and rustle up a large batch of jerky. Maybe on my next day off, eh?

Hang around for the next hard-working but hopefully not so harrowing adventures of Rancho Ran and his faithful and sweet sidecook, Connie the Canner.

One a-Landing, Two a-Landing, Three a-Landing, Four!

Actually, the total count was more like 15 landings in all. It’s difficult to express just how jazzed I am ….and how exhausted I am. I just did more flying in the previous three days than the previous three months. Flying is fun but it can be a work out when you’ve not flow a particular aircraft before. But, let’s start at the beginning.

Ol’ Ran had been working at adding on to his private pilot’s certificate. The first attempt was the “Multi-Engine” rating. That’s about half accomplished as you recall and that story is in the February edition. I’m also studying for my “Instrument Rating” and can prove it by offering for exhibit the stack of study materials falling off of my bookshelf just above my computer. After that will be more brow bending and teeth gnashing for yet other ratings that will allow me to further my part in the field of general and commercial aviation.

OK…now it’s time for a confession. I love WACO biplanes. I helped rebuild a 1941 UPF-7 WACO when I was a teenager with the hopes of getting to fly it. That didn’t happen. I’ve been waiting for 47 years to fly a WACO. Enter “Attitude Aviation” located in Livermore, CA. Guess what the just happen to have in their hanger? YEP…a WACO biplane! It’s a gorgeous, and I mean GORGEOUS, 1991 YMF-5C that has a big 275 hp Jacobs R-755 radial engine glued to its nose. Though classic in design, she’s a modern version but from the original plans. The new company is located in Battlecreek, MI.

I scheduled to fly the WACO (originally the “Weaver Aircraft Company”) but had to postpone three times before the weather finally decided to break and allow me to forge ahead with my plans. Excitement was in the air…on the floor...in the garage….in the barn…on the walls…everywhere. It can’t be stated with all assurance but, when the weather did clear, there possibly, sort of, kind of, may have been a spontaneous flutter in my heart’s left ventricle. The voiding of my bowels in my freshly-washed blue jeans was much more conclusive.

We loaded “El Hoopie”, the Freestar van, and headed north to Livermore the day prior to “fun instruction” (ok…if you have to be precise, “flight instruction”). After unloading the van we settled in for the duration.

Our motel was a modest place (read “cheap”) with all the amenities of a moderately enlightened Amish farmer’s home. The cheap part was on purpose since money wasted on a motel room couldn’t be spent on buying flying time. Anyway, it sported a TV and a bed and a chair with a table holding up one wall. A dangling light lit the table at the far end of the room. The motel was located only about 3.5 miles from the airport so there wasn’t much to complain about. Besides, we didn’t need the room for much other than to keep the cool air and condensation off of us at night. That and a hot shower in the morning would do fine. We weren’t going to host a political fund raising bash for any particular brain dead, moronic, slime bag, snake of a lawyer who is hoping to lead us into the maw of desperation with his unflagging bravado and stupidity.

Anyhoo….”Captain Ran” woke early the next morning and tracked down some hot black eyelid-and-heart-lubricant that, thankfully, was located in the motel’s office. I’ll take strong hot black coffee to get my heart started over a precordial thump any day. After primping a bit so as not to scare my instructor, we headed to the Livermore airport.

My instructor was Rhett Boeger who, though one of California’s premier flight instructors, was terribly un-primped. I’m starting think that, though reared in California, I missed the part about being supremely casual when appearing in public. After all, folks used to dress up to attend the walk-in movie theatres when I was a boy! Nevertheless, what a delightful but heavy chap he was! I tip the scales at somewhere around 230 pounds (albeit, that’s without my primping outfit with change in pocket, three sets of keys, and a fat wallet onboard). Rhett is my size and a half bale of hay. After being introduced, I commented that, “Rhett, I’ve done some preliminary weight and balance calculations for the WACO. If the auxiliary tanks have any fuel in them at all, one of us will have to stay behind!”. I was pleased that he laughed and didn’t pull his UZI on me.

Rhett is a supremely excellent pilot and an even better instructor. I really appreciated that they assigned him as my instructor. The guy is cool as can be and has flown airplanes that I dearly love and some of which I have yet to fly. His faded denim jeans have more flying time than I do.

It didn’t take long to get out to the WACO. There she sat….more beautiful than the jaw dropping pictures of her. We did a long preflight and walk around with most of the time being used to wait for my Huggies to dry. Rhett advised that the usual procedure is to stick the dummy pilot (he didn’t and wouldn’t say that but I did) in the front cockpit for an orientation flight. I would find out rather quickly that “orientation” meant, “work your fanny off, granny”.

There really are not words when it comes to trying to describe what happens to the human psyche and anatomy when you start a big muscular radial engine that is mounted directly in front of him. I can tell you that the rumbling sound has hooked many a good man and made a “believer” out of him. I’ve been “Radial Ran” since I was a boy so you can bet that my heart was in sync with this big round maker of horsepower when the first cylinder fired.

It was hard to believe that I was actually going to have a WACO haul my pink fundament into the air in only a few minutes.

Stay tuned to further episodes of “Captain WACO” and his damp underpants.