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Thread: My Dad had one of these in the 50s

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    Supporting Member IIJG27Rich's Avatar
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    My Dad had one of these in the 50s

    He had it up in 100 Mile House in the mid to late 1950s and loved it. Probably the only man on earth to have a headon with a VW Bug on a runway




    100 Mile 1958 home movie....Just so you can see what it was like back then. Unreal.

    Last edited by IIJG27Rich; Dec-29-2020 at 18:34.

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    Supporting Member farley's Avatar
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    Re: My Dad had one of these in the 50s

    Hey Rich, did you live there as well?

    My gf is presently working in McBride, which is not too far northeast of there (I live in Ontario now so she figures that's far enough away from me...)
    So many nice places in BC.

    I'd imagine your dad enjoyed his time flying there.
    "If you want to fly, give up everything that weighs you down"......

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    Supporting Member IIJG27Rich's Avatar
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    Re: My Dad had one of these in the 50s

    Quote Originally Posted by farley View Post
    Hey Rich, did you live there as well?

    My gf is presently working in McBride, which is not too far northeast of there (I live in Ontario now so she figures that's far enough away from me...)
    So many nice places in BC.

    I'd imagine your dad enjoyed his time flying there.
    No farley I was born there but we moved to Kamloops when I was six months old. Then Mcclure then Okanagan Centre all in the space of three years. Now I'm in Kelowna but it's really Winfield. I'm thirty feet away from the Winfield border and about ten miles from the town of Kelowna. Back in 100 Mile though in those days everybody seemed to have a pilot's license. The Doctor Dr. Nixon my Dad who was a pharmacist and lab tec. One of Dad's friend's had a pilot's license also. I'm pretty sure the nearest hospital would be in Kamloops back then and that would be over one hundred miles away. My big brother tells a funny story of Dad stitching up this guy's face in the back of the drug store after he had an accident with his plane.. Both of them getting pretty happy on this bottle of what ever it was as he was working on his face but he fixed him up fine. The good old days

    All the family loved it up there accept mother so we had to leave lol.
    Last edited by IIJG27Rich; Dec-30-2020 at 04:11.

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    Public Relations ATAG_Marlow's Avatar
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    Re: My Dad had one of these in the 50s

    Fascinating footage, Rich! Thanks for sharing! Salute!

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    TF Leadership RAF74_Buzzsaw's Avatar
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    Re: My Dad had one of these in the 50s

    In the early '70's when I was 18 I left Vancouver to work in a Sawmill in Williams Lake, (to pay for University tuition) and on the weekends would hitch hike up to 100 Mile to get drunk in the hotel bars with some buddies who worked there.

    Hitching back to Williams Lake in a car with a semi-drunk driver was often a scary experience... at that time and age, drinking and driving was common... very stupid to accept the rides but survived.

    Also took part in the Williams Lake Rodeo as an amateur in the contests to grab the cloth tied to the Steer's tail... a friend of mine got his arm broken when the Steer turned and butted so hard he did a somersault in the air. (horns were sawed off to prevent more serious injuries) Prize was of course, an expensive authentic Cowboy Hat... which another guy won... he sneaked in and grabbed the cloth while I was helping my buddy escape over the guard rail.

    Remember sitting in the living room of a boarding house watching the news reports on Nixon's impeachment... my landlady who was a very nice lady, and devout Christian insisted Nixon had been framed and would be proved innocent. She got mad and kicked me out when I won my bet that he'd resign.

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    ATAG Member ATAG_Flare's Avatar
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    Re: My Dad had one of these in the 50s

    Funny thing, the first time I can remember going up in a private plane was in 100 Mile House. Familiy was up there for some odd reason (we're from southeastern BC) when I was quite young and there was some fair going on where you could buy a sightseeing ride in a plane as a fundraiser, so my brother and I got to go. I'm sure it was just a C172 or something like that but to 4 or 5 year old me it was super exciting.

    Small world this flight-sim community is!

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    Supporting Member IIJG27Rich's Avatar
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    Re: My Dad had one of these in the 50s

    Quote Originally Posted by RAF74_Buzzsaw View Post
    In the early '70's when I was 18 I left Vancouver to work in a Sawmill in Williams Lake, (to pay for University tuition) and on the weekends would hitch hike up to 100 Mile to get drunk in the hotel bars with some buddies who worked there.

    Hitching back to Williams Lake in a car with a semi-drunk driver was often a scary experience... at that time and age, drinking and driving was common... very stupid to accept the rides but survived.

    Also took part in the Williams Lake Rodeo as an amateur in the contests to grab the cloth tied to the Steer's tail... a friend of mine got his arm broken when the Steer turned and butted so hard he did a somersault in the air. (horns were sawed off to prevent more serious injuries) Prize was of course, an expensive authentic Cowboy Hat... which another guy won... he sneaked in and grabbed the cloth while I was helping my buddy escape over the guard rail.

    Remember sitting in the living room of a boarding house watching the news reports on Nixon's impeachment... my landlady who was a very nice lady, and devout Christian insisted Nixon had been framed and would be proved innocent. She got mad and kicked me out when I won my bet that he'd resign.
    This all sounds very familiar from what Dad my two brothers and sister would talk about what went on up there.

    Just thought I'd add some more....Car races, 100 Mile airport BC Centennial parade and you see the Stinson in the end. Something I notice and like so much is how the young kids can just run around free with no fear of anything or anyone.

    Last edited by IIJG27Rich; Jan-02-2021 at 21:07.

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    TF Leadership RAF74_Buzzsaw's Avatar
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    Re: My Dad had one of these in the 50s

    Quote Originally Posted by IIJG27Rich View Post
    This all sounds very familiar from what Dad my two brothers and sister would talk about what went on up there.

    Just thought I'd add some more....Car races, 100 Mile airport BC Centennial parade and you see the Stinson in the end. Something I notice and like so much is how the young kids can just run around free with no fear of anything or anyone.

    Not sure I would agree with the idea young kids could run around without fear at that time... in the '60's and '70's there were more mass murderers running around than anytime... people hitch-hiking went missing without a trace all the time. Clifford Olson and guys like him took advantage of people not supervising their kids closely.

    And there was a lot of violence... maybe not with guns, but there were a ton of fights outside beer parlours... locals would pick fights with anyone who wasn't from the area. I had to defend myself more than once. I saw full scale brawls inside those huge barns they called beer parlours, (no neighbourhood pubs then) with guys getting smashed over the head with chairs and pool sticks and other guys throwing the heavy metal shuffleboard weights around. And a lot of guys carried knives on their hips up in the Interior of BC, you could carry a six inch blade legally back then. The difference now is there are so many handguns smuggled across the border from the US that the fights happen with guns instead of knives and fists. Police data says 60% of the guns used in murders in urban areas of Canada now are smuggled weapons bought legally in the US.

    And the rate of motor vehicle fatalities were really high... people driving drunk and speeding... the cops did not crack down on these types of behaviors very strongly, you got off with a slap on the wrist. And the cars were very poor designs as far as safety was concerned... and half the drivers and passengers didn't wear seatbelts. So you'd get guys being ejected through the windscreen or out the side windows... almost a guaranteed fatality. All of the mill workers owned 'Screaming Chickens', Firebird Trans Ams, and drove them at full speed all the time.

    The only positive about that era was there weren't drugs like Fentanyl or Oxycontine... it was all Grass/Hash/Acid with Methamphetamine and Heroin being the hardcore stuff. So you got overdoses, but not on the scale which you see now. But I remember working another summer job in a very small pulp mill at Port Alice on the West Coast of Vancouver Island in the same time period... town only had a population of 1000, but there was so much heroin brought in through the port that shipped out the pulp that half the workers in the mill were junkies. I almost got gassed with sulfuric acid fumes as a result of a junkie worker falling asleep at his control panel and leaving a valve open.
    Last edited by RAF74_Buzzsaw; Jan-02-2021 at 22:11.

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