[Rhodes22-list] Political - Was Brad the Pilot?

[Herb Parsons]

Don't know if I ever told YOU this, but like most teens, I used to think 
"Wow- private pilot. What a cool job. You get PAID money to fly planes, 
something I'd do for fun if they'd let me...."

Then, in college, I worked one summer on the flight line at little Wiley 
Post Airport outside OKC. I got to know a few of the pilots, and they 
laughed at me when I told them how "cool" I thought it was being a 
private pilot.

Little by little I began to understand why they thought my impressions 
were funny. They basically got paid to be on 24x7 call (just about) for 
corporate big-wigs who looked at them as over-paid taxi cab drivers. 
Most of their time was spent sitting around drinking coffee and smoking 
cigarettes, waiting for the pager to go off (no cell phones back then).

I'm sure it's a great job when you've done it long enough to get some 
seniority, but I bet the road to the top is pain.

Brad Haslett wrote:
> Herb,
>
> Nope, wasn't me on that one.  I've probably told this story before - when
> young Bill was the Guv, we had a trip from Little Rock to DC for him to make
> a speech to the whatever the young Dem's leadership whatever was called, and
> then back to AR for another appearance in the Near Jet (Cessna Citation).
> We had already explained to the Governor's office that we'd be flying into
> Dulles because National would be closed at our time of arrival (noise).  The
> Guv shows up an hour late (and that was early for him) and as we were
> walking to the jet one of his punks, er, I mean aides, asks what time we're
> arriving at National.  I explain that we're flying into Dulles and he tries
> to start an ass-chewing.  We were about the same size and age and I toyed
> with the idea of kicking his ass right there on the tarmac because he needed
> it and deserved it, but then decided it wouldn't look good on a resume. We
> get to Dulles and I give the punk-who-deserves-an-ass-whooping our business
> card with the hotel number of where we'd be and our expected itinerary.
> "No, you wait here, the Governor Clinton wants to fly home as soon as he can
> get free".  So we wait, and wait, and wait, and finally I order some
> catering.  We decide to save the catering for the trip home and when Boy
> Governor shows up he puts his arm around be on the way to jet and says, "we
> got anything to eat on the way home?"  I told him we had crackers, granola
> bars, peanuts, and all the whiskey and Coke you could hope for. We usually
> put meals on board for our pax but then they usually gave us a courtesy call
> on their way to the airport. Long story short, we started into our food as
> soon as we got to altitude.  There was enough to feed five. My cohort asked
> me if I wanted the rest of his meal and I said I couldn't finish what I
> had.  I opened the curtain to check on our pax and there was the Boy Gov and
> the Fresh Punks with their peanuts and drinks.  "F-it!  Keep eating, we're
> not sharing jack with those a-holes!"
>
> My invitation to the inauguration got lost in the mail.  Hmmmmm. I flew a
> lot of politicians and most of them were nice guys.
>
> Brad
>
> On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 11:30 PM, Herb Parsons <hparsons at parsonsys.com>
> wrote:
>
>   
>> Hillary Clinton, Barack, and John McCain were flying to a debate.
>>
>> Barack looked at Hillary, chuckled and said, "You know I could throw a
>> $1,000 bill out of the window right now and make somebody very happy."
>>
>> Hillary shrugged her shoulders and replied, "I could throw ten $100
>> bills out of the window and make ten people very happy."
>>
>> John added, "That being the case, I could throw 100 $10 bills out of the
>> window and make a hundred people very happy."
>>
>> Hearing their exchange, the pilot rolled his eyes and said to his
>> copilot,  "Such big-shots back there. I could throw all three of them
>> out of the window and make 156 million people very happy."
>>
>> I'm voting for the Pilot
>>
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