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I flew charter for a few years when I was younger.
We had a couple small airplanes and would fly anything. We'd take people to business meetings, I've flown around Indiana and Illinois making 5 or 6 stops in a day, if the part was really valuable we'd fly it where it was needed.
A large "steam shovel" (they're the kind that can fill one of the large Terex trucks with one bucket full and they're actually electric) would cost several millions of dollars back in the 1970's and the coal companies would keep them running 24 hours a day 365 days a year. A small part would go out, the shovel would go down costing tens of thousands an hour and the coal operator would pay anything to get the part fast.
I once had to take a small part to Virginia and when I landed the tower told me to stop on the runway and shut my engines down. As soon as I stopped a helicopter came up beside me, touched down, two guys jumped out, opened my door, grabbed the part and were back in the air heading to the coal field all in less than a minute.
The ability to have a runway shut down at a tower controlled airport is very unusual.
Speaking of coal I've also flown a number of bodies.
It was Saturday morning when the phone rang, the local undertaker had to have a body flow to Grundy, Virginia for a funderal at 3:00 that afternoon.
Problem was Grundy didn't have an airport but one of the local coal operators had a small private strip and the family got permission for us to use it so we could dump grandpa off.
An easy Saturday, I 'd be of the ground by 10:00, have the body dumped off by 12:30 and be back home by 4:00.
The hearst shows up carrying the casket which was put in the back. Then they proceeded to pack in all the flowers... lots of smelly flowers to the entire back fo the plane was filled up. I was flying a Beechcraft B-55 Baron for you guys that know airplanes.
After they were done loading I shut the doors and took off looking forward to a nice quiet ride (not much conversation coming from the back) and a peaceful Saturday ride.
Weather was good. Nice.
So I get to where I am going and this airport is on a hill and had a pretty steep grade. All I could figure is the coal company must have had helicopters because this airport was a mess.
The runway ran east and west and on this day a 10 knot wind was blowing directly out of the east. Unusual really. This runway is about 2,800 feet long and doing a flyover to check condition I noticed two things. First thing I noticed was a hearst and a half dozen people waiting to meet grandpa. The second thing I noticed was a washed out rain gully about two thirds of the way from the high end of the runway. If I landed into the wind the runway was running downhill taking me longer to stop. If I landed with the wind my ground speed would have been much 10 knots faster taking me longer to stop and either direction I was faced with a much shorter runway than what the maps showed.
I tried landing several times but chickened out each time. I could easily have demolished a Baron that was worth $120,000 and in 1975 $120,000 was a lot of money. I could picture myself not being able to stop hitting that gully at 20 mph in which case I might as well have been going 100.
I chickened out.
The nearest town with an airport was Bluefield, Virginia about 24 to 30 miles away. I had to go there, call the funeral home and have grandpa picked up there.
So I get to Bluefield and the stench of flowers was nearly overpowering. Leaving the door open I went into the general aviation terminal to make a phone call.
When I come out the local sherrif was there wanting to talk to me. Something about stealing a body. So about now the funeral home calls madder than hell that I didn't land telling me it would take the hearst two hours to make the trip. Two hours to go 25 miles. How the heck?
Looking at the map I saw a small uncontrolled airport, probably had no service or phone which is why I didn't go there in the first place, halfway between Grundy and Bluefield. Ok, we would meet there.
So I go out to get into the plane and while I was gone about a dozen bees had taken up residence with the flowers.
I could tell the people waiting for grandpa were hot... he was already late for his own funeral and time was wasting.
So I swatting the bees away best I could, got rid of about half of them, climed in for this 10 minute flight at a small airport but at least its runway wasn't damaged. All I could think of is one of these bees flying down my neck collar.
The hearst got there a few minutes later and grandpa was unloaded two hours late for his own funeral by some very unhappy people.
What's really spookey is when you're taking a body on a stretcher with just a sheet for cover late at night.
I was once desperate and accepted a job as a phone psychic. I think I took maybe one call and lasted a whole minute before I broke down and told the person that it was a scam and then I quit. I just couldn't do it.
I never had a weird job either, but the worst job I ever had is pretty obvious, Call Center Rep (especially for the outsourced call centers). Bad bosses, bad customers, and a 21st century sweatshop, would never work for another call center again.
Pizza deliver driver. My store had no delivery limit so sometimes i was gone for 2 hours to make a delivery not worth it for a $2 tip. Plus then I would get yelled at by the boss for taking so long to make a delivery.
Not worst, but weird. As a teen, I did a lot of telemarketing, and for 2 nights before I quit (and not knowing what the company did prior) I worked for a cemetery company whose pitch was "You get a free plot, only if you will alow one of our salespeople to go through his full presentation at your home."
Love the guy who interrupted me by yelling to spouse "Honey, I told you someday we'd win something big. It's happened (LOL)".
1 of my 2 colleagues was hot, but she had less personality than many buried at the cemetery.
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