NATIONAL BUCCANEERS
NEWSLETTER
NOVEMBER 2014
Miami Group News
The Central Florida
Buccaneers
Gone West
Sad News Department: This month we say good-bye to Captain Leonard Stanley
who passed away on October 28th at the age of 94. Leonard came to National in 1951. I had the good fortune to serve as his co-pilot in the mid sixties on several Electra flights and found him to be a most pleasant leader. Also on October 28th F/A Suzanne
(Newhouser) Dunn passed away at the age of 78. Suzanne joined National in
1956. More recently, November 16th, we lost F/E Wayne Drake at the age of 90. Wayne was always a welcome member of the crew who not only performed his duties very well but kept things light and fun. We will miss these good people, we will
NOT forget them! May their last flight
West be fair of wind and free from turbu-
lence!
From our Miami group: CLOSED! No,no,
not the group, their meeting venue, closed
without notice. Imagine their surprise
when they reported for the November
luncheon only to find the Piccadilly Cafe-
teria gone, kaput, "out of business!" Not to
be deterred, Vince Falletta, Al Furlong,
and Jerry Gemma formulated a plan B
and retreated to Romeo's Cuban Restau-
rant in Broward County to dine and dis-
cuss the disconcerting turn of events. I'm
not sure what Frank Thomey, Wally Paw-
ley, and Vince Wynne (and maybe others
as well) did when they read the same sign,
but they didn't have lunch there either. So,
we await the unveiling of a new site and
will pass the information on when it is re-
ceived.
CFBs November 12th Luncheon: If the
sign in sheet speaks the truth we had 40
participants at this meeting. They were
BILL GRISCOM, LARRY HELMS, DAVID
BLESSING, JIM and JO KELL, JACK and
SANDI GORDON, LeROY and WANDA
BROWN, JAY HOPPE, BOB THRASHER,
KEITH MACKEY, RUSTY and SHARON
HEARD, JOE FRICKS, Continued on page 2
Continued from page 1 STEVE and LINDA MILLS, JOAN DICKENS, OWEN RICH-MOND, DON and DORIS MORGAN, JACK and GAIL THEISEN, ERNIE ELLI-SON, BOB and HELEN MARTIN, BILL and PEG WEST, RON CHATLOS, JOHN BOWLING, ED and PAT BRITT, JIM and HILDA O'REILLY, JACK and EVELYN FINNEGAN, RANDY PORTER, KAY STRAUSS, and LINDA and JOHN WEN-TWORTH. The winners of the 50/50, taking home $31 each were, Jack Finnegan and Kay Strauss. If I may: It is my understanding that Jo Kell is recently married to our long time
friend Jim Kell. We welcome her! And, I haven't seen Ed Britt since the last time I broke an airplane in New Orleans and he had to fix it. Thank you for joining us for lunch! Our December 10th luncheon will be our Yankee Trader event where the par-ticipants bring in a wrapped present of no more than $10 in value and the gifts are passed out in a manner of modified may-hem overseen by our in resident YK ex-pert, Kay Strauss. This is always fun so I hope you will join us for this Christmas event. Thank you all for coming! Until Decem-
ber, Be Well!
OK let's see, this shouldn't be too hard, I'll just mark all the columns with Christmas and New Years off and then analyze the trips to see which one I like most, and then match it with the column that works the best. Hmm. Ooo, here's one, two stops to San Fran-cisco and two back with almost no night time in it, perfect. Yea, right, all I need to get that is a seniority number that is roughly equal to my age. Well I'll go ahead and mark it anyway, who knows? This one could work except that it leaves New York for Miami the day before Christmas and I could easily get rerouted because of bad weather, or just plain bad luck. And, they'd get a second shot at me approaching New Years. What else is there? Well, this column would work although the trip doesn't pay much time, and it's easy. OMG, but it's Captain Bly's favorite
trip. What if he bid the same column. A whole month with "Him?" Egad! Whew, that was close! OK, I suppose I could do this one for a month, one stop to San Francisco and then the all nighter back, the one that lands at every airport with a concrete runway. Yuck, is it REALLY worth it? Oh man! OK, compromise time. What if I left on Christmas day late in the afternoon? It wouldn't be perfect but I would have the fun of watching the kids open their pre-sents and then I could duck out before the clean-up chores began. OK, let's look at that a little closer, this definitely has possi-bilities. Remember those days? Do you miss
them? Naw, me either. I much prefer
knowing that, barring an unforeseen
medical emergency, I will be home with
Linda and the gang. I wouldn't trade it.
MERRY CHRISTMAS BUCS
This entire set of photos from Franklin was taken by Howard Morgan who graciously
is sharing them with us. We hope you enjoy them!
Group shot—Willy’s BBQ. Group shot—Willy’s BBQ.
Gordon and Yvonne Moyer. Dick and Pam Hammerlund.
Chui and Dick Blackburn. Jack Gordon and Gigi Cockes.
Carolyn and Dick Veazey. Judy and Doug Burnett.
John Schneider. Bob Thrasher.
Jenny Saul and Howard Morgan. Wanda and LeRoy Brown with
Joe Cushing.
Dick Keenan. Norm Reagan, J.P. Moorhouse
and Buzz Corley.
Linda Wentworth, Burt Johnson
and John Wentworth
Bill Maulden.
Faye Murrell and Dicki Bowes. Mary and Buzz Corley.
Dick Walker. Don Smith with daughters, Sandy and
Sara.
Dottie and Bob Casube. Jane Walker.
Dick Blackburn and Jon Cockes. David James with Jim and Dottie Spillis.
OK, the picture only approach didn't seem to work very well. So, we're going to try a
picture and diagram presentation to see if that is more conducive to participation. Off
the wall guesses are fine and actually appreciated, as laughs are always welcome here
in the editorial enclave.
Last Month's Mystery Airplane and Air-port: As it turns out this was probably not a good choice for a mystery airplane as there were a couple of different conver-sions on this type of airplane that looked VERY much alike. However, Keith Mackey, Joe Fricks, Jerome Kline, Curt Briggs, Bob Wilson, Gary Snodgrass and Larry Helms all got the On Mark conver-sion of this A-26 correctly ID'd. Bob Thrasher and Dan Pierce both thought it was an LB Smith conversion and I can cer-tainly see why, as it is almost identical to the On Mark. Jay Hoppe recognized that the base airplane was an A-26. So, I will
try to be less ambiguous in the future. This particular airplane saw service with the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Com-pany before being replaced by a G-1. The picture only format for the airport
met with mixed reviews so this month's
offering will have both a picture and a
diagram. Let me know what you think.
Jim Gettys, Bob Massey, Joe Fricks, Curt
Briggs, Gary Snodgrass and Doug O'Con-
nell all saw Tampa in the picture which, of
course, is exactly correct. My thanks to
each of you who participated. YOU make
it fun!
Monthly Mysteries Solved
Presorted-Std
U.S. Postage
Paid
Mid-Florida, FL
Permit # 57120
NATIONAL BUCCANEERS
P.O. BOX 120835
CLERMONT, FL 34712
ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED
OK group, this one will be easy for some of you, not so for others. If you have fun with it then it will be a success.
Find us on the web!
www.nalbucs.com
Merry Christmas
Buccaneer
Family!