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!