Page 17 - Amarillo Senior Link Magazine Spring 2021 - Online Magazine

One of the guys my dad worked
with had been in a motorcycle
wreck a few years before and
had slid down the road on his
back. There were bits of gravel
imbedded under his skin. There
was no air conditioning, and the
welders would work up a sweat.
Once in a while, he would say,
“Jess, you gotta get this piece of
gravel out, it’s driving me nuts.”
Dad would get his pocketknife and
dig where the guy pointed until he
got it out. He even pulled a tooth
with a pair of pliers for one of the
workers; they were some tough
dudes.

Walter Beech started Beech
Aircraft in 1932, and when the war was always something new and excited. That may be why I joined
started, he got several government exciting – B17s, B24s, and that the Marines.
contracts. Beech had been building humongous B29 Super Fortress We moved back to the Texas
the Stagger Wing biplane and the that ended the war with Japan. Panhandle when I was 5, but I
Twin Beech models 17 and 18. The Because McConnell Army Air Base will never forget the wonderful
Army and Navy used the Model was there, I saw several different memories of those formative years
18 for transports and bomber/ fighter planes also, including P-51 in Wichita. They say a person’s
gunnery trainers. Our military Mustangs, P-40 Warhawks, P-38 childhood lays the foundation
demanded that orders be filled Lightnings, F4U Corsairs plus the for life, but I have found that
quickly, so Beech expanded, and trainers. I knew them all by name remembering my childhood adds
employment numbers jumped at four years old. It was a very value and perspective to who I
from 235 to more than 2000; by exciting time for me, but I do not am today. That little boy growing
the end of the war, they employed think my older sister remembers up in Wichita still lives inside me,
about 14,000. much of it, as she was busy in helping me appreciate the simple
school and being a girl.
Walter Beech was a cigar-smoking, things and keeping me young at
whisky-drinking, hard-charging The Saturday parades were heart.
character. At one time, while awesome. Marching bands always
drinking with a buddy, he made played patriotic music; I loved the
a bet of $100 that he could fly a John Phillips
Beech Stagger Wing backwards Sousa stuff.
across the whole city of Wichita. We got to see
He waited until a strong cold front a captured
was coming through, got up to the Jap Zero and
proper altitude where the north a German
wind was strongest and cinched Messerschmitt.
the bet even though it took a lot of The military
time. Mr. Beech died of a massive guys marching
heart attack at the age of 50. in their
splendid dress
I never knew what I was going to uniforms
see in the sky over Wichita. There always got me

Amarillo Senior Link 17