Signs for politicians, including one who once sold an airplane that later crashed with me at the stick

I am back in Wasilla for what I expect to be a fairly brief time. I was unable to post my last couple of days in Barrow or yesterday in Fairbanks and I do need to catch up a bit and to say something of that time and I will. But I am too tired right now. I just want to go to bed and get some sleep. Yet, I need to put something up, so that readers know I am still blogging. So here you have the something - the only picture that I have taken since I arrived back in Wasilla late this afternoon. I took it when I had to stop for about 1 second for a red light at the corner of the Parks and Palmer-Wasilla highways, where people were campaigning for their candidates in the upcoming primary. See the blue sign? The one that says, "Gatto"? That is Carl Gatto and he is the man from whom I bought my now crashed airplane, the Running Dog, back in 1986, for $15,900. At the time, Gatto told me that he didn't really want to sell it, but his wife had had enough of him being an aircraft owner and flying around risking his life and so he was selling it. I did not yet have my pilot's license, so we agreed that I would come over to his house, where he had his own private airstrip and he would fly the plane with me in it to Palmer to the mechanic who was going to annual it for me. When I arrived, the ceiling was maybe 1500 feet, not bad at all, but Carl looked at it and said it was too low and he was not going to be able to fly me over this day. He just didn't want to part with the airplane. So I drove to Palmer where my mechanic waited for me. I told him that Carl had refused to fly because of the "low ceiling." My mechanic looked at the clouds, said that was ridiculous and so we headed back to Carl's airstrip and we stole my own airplane - right off Carl's strip. After the annual, Carl called me up. He wanted to rent the airplane from me, but I wouldn't let him. I will always be grateful to him for selling me that airplane, but that doesn't mean I would ever vote for him. I've told this story before, but what the hell. I just told it again. I'll probably repeat it again sometime in the future. As there is only one image in this post, I did not make a slide show, but if you want to see the picture bigger, just click on it. It looks better bigger.

Comments

[twain12]

well i never heard the story before :), have a good (short) time home

[Dianne Woodruff]

Glad you are back, for however short a time. I'm also glad you shared the story. I hadn't heard it before, either.

[debby]

I'm old. I forget stuff, so even your repeated stories sound new to me.