Crop dusting was thought, by most people, to be a very dangerous occupation because of the appearance of danger from an airplane flying so close to the ground. In reality, fewer duster pilots are killed than any other category of aviator. Most of those duster pilots killed, while dusting crops, are killed as the result of over confidence or poor judgment. Therefore, I was very cautious in regard to the fields I worked in and kept a very close eye on my equipment.

We were not able to dust crops if the wind was blowing above about five miles an hour because the dust would drift with the wind and not get on the cotton stalks. It was also helpful for the cotton to have dew on the leaves so that the poison would stick to the leaves. Consequently we hoped for mornings with no wind and a heavy dew fall. The air would be heavier under these conditions and there would be little or no turbulence. I was given the duty of checking for wind and weather about three o'clock in the morning and if the conditions were right I called the other duster pilots and we would meet at the airport and get started dusting by daylight.

We used pastures, turn rows or rural roads for landing strips to load the poison or fertilizer. Many of the roads were narrow and crown topped, which made it difficult to keep the airplane going straight down the road. The second day of the season I landed on one of these narrow roads, and just before coming to a stop, the airplane slid into the ditch on the right side of the road. As luck would have it, the fence was down at that point and there was no damage done. I was much more cautious after that about staying in the very middle of the road and never had it happen again.

While we were in Corsicana, I had an opportunity to take the examination for my Airplane Mechanic License. Although I had been through two aircraft mechanic schools I had not gotten an FAA license. The written portion was a multiple-choice exam and not hard at all, I made ninety-three on it. The practical was another story. I had to demonstrate my ability to weld aircraft steel tubing, repair wooden wing spars, sew fabric covering with rib stitching on control surfaces and wings, properly torque nuts and bolts and use safety wire and cotter keys properly. Wayne Tuttle of the Dallas office of the FAA gave the test to me and I soon received my Airplane Mechanic License, # 1301484, dated June 21, 1954.

In the fall of 1954 I received an offer from Mather Griffin in Borger, Texas, to move there and become assistant manager of the Hutchinson County Airport. The salary was better and there was an opportunity to do more charter flying and a better chance of getting into executive flying. There would be no crop dusting. I flew our Taylorcraft, which we had named "Loraine", up to Borger to look the situation over and decided to make the move.

Borger is located northeast of Amarillo on the high plains of the Texas Panhandle. The climate is dry and the four seasons of the year are easily discernible. Because Loraine had suffered from asthma in the lower and more humid climate around Teague and Corsicana, and the doctor had said that the move might be of benefit to her, I decided to take the position Grif had offered me.

We moved to Borger in November of 1954 and rented half of a duplex on Madison Street. My mother went with us to help with the move and take care of Loraine who was eighteen months old. I had noticed an all night clinic near downtown when I went to the store for some groceries but did not get a phone number for it. I would wish the next morning that I had.

The owner of the apartment had done some repairs and painting before we moved in and had left a small space heater in the living room. I noted a receptacle in the ceiling for a vent pipe from the space heater without a vent pipe, but thought nothing of it. We were tired and went to bed early without lighting the heater although we had thought about it. When we awoke the next morning it was rather chilly and I lit the space heater and went to the bathroom to shave and take a bath to prepare to go to work. Lois was busy in the kitchen and Mother took Loraine to the living room to keep her warm by the heater. When I came out of the bathroom, Lois and Mother were talking about the way Loraine was acting and Mother told me to go see if I could find a doctor for Loraine because she was arching her back and did not look well.

I drove to the all night clinic and found it closed. I did not know where the hospital was nor where to find a doctor so I returned to the house to see an ambulance out front in the driveway. Mother had gone next door and asked for help when Lois passed out on the couch. They loaded Loraine and Lois both into the ambulance and I followed them to the hospital. There was only one doctor on duty and he informed me that he did not think he could save them both, but he would try. He also asked if there was anyone else at the house, and when I told him that my mother was there, he sent the ambulance after her. The driver found her unconscious in the floor. I did not know the dangers of an un-vented space heater until then. There is helium in the gas in the Texas Panhandle and when it burns it puts off tremendous amounts of carbon monoxide gas. I almost lost my whole family, but luckily they were all okay within a few hours. We all had severe headaches, but aside from that, there was no lasting damage done.

While we were in Borger I took the examination for my Aircraft Engine Mechanic License and passed. I now held a Commercial Pilot License, with single engine land privileges, and an Aircraft and Engine Mechanic License. Both licenses would help qualify me for my next flying job. I was also able to build quite a lot of flying time while I was there and did my first executive flying for Producers Chemical Service. I flew a Beech Bonanza to the West Coast and to Denver for them several times.

I worked a split shift at the airport. I would open the airport at 5 A.M. and fly students or demonstrate new airplanes to a few prospective customers until 10 A.M., then return at 5 P.M. to fly students again until 10 P.M., and I would close the airport. This arrangement gave me the opportunity to fly students both morning and evening, and I had seven hours off in the middle of the day.

When I left for work at five o'clock one morning, I thought it was foggy, but soon discovered that what I thought was fog was dust in the air. There was no wind blowing and as the sun rose the whole earth seemed to turn red. By ten o'clock I could not see far enough to drive home and so I remained at the airport. By noon we had to soak handkerchiefs in water and tie them over our nose and mouth to keep from choking on the dust. The local people were familiar with those conditions and referred to the dust storm as a "black duster". About 2 P.M. we heard a clap of thunder and it started raining mud balls. Within thirty minutes the skies were clear, but there was a one-inch layer of mud on everything.

On another occasion I stood on the ramp in front of the hangar and counted nineteen tornadoes visible at one time. Borger had its weather extremes. Because of the extremes of weather and the carbon black soot being released into the air, Loraine's asthma became worse. I decided to look for a full time executive flying job and sent out a number of resumes.

I received an offer from Sinclair Refining Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They required a Commercial Pilot License and also an Aircraft and Engine Mechanic License. I had both. When I went to Tulsa for an interview with Dave Peterson, the Chief Pilot, he made me an offer and I accepted. We moved to Tulsa in August of 1955.

I was assigned to co-pilot duties with Jim Sneed on a Twin Beech and began to learn executive flying the way it was meant to be done. I would continue as his co-pilot until I received my multi-engine and instrument ratings. After that I would be assigned to duties as a co-captain, which meant that I would fly an airplane one trip as captain and the next as co-pilot. Jim started right away to help me every way he possibly could.

I enrolled in Ross School of Aviation and passed all my written exams for an instrument rating in about three months. I had my multi-engine license by the time I was ready to take the flight test for the instrument rating and was qualified as a co-captain with Sinclair in February of 1956. I continued to fly with Jim Sneed until he was transferred to Denver and was then assigned with Howard Bradley, who transferred to Tulsa from New York.

I learned a lot from both Jim and Howard. Jim liked to do a lot of experimenting and would fly a hundred miles out of the way to fly through a thunderstorm, if we did not have any passengers. Although there were a lot of risks involved, we both learned how to handle our airplane in extreme turbulence. We also learned a lot about flying in icing conditions. Both he and Howard liked to practice instrument flying, and with their help I was able to meet the company requirements for an ILS waiver which required a pilot to take off using only the instruments in the cockpit, simulate the loss of an engine shortly after takeoff, and return to the airport, and land without ever looking outside the cockpit. This ability would save my life a few years later.

Lois and Loraine liked Tulsa very much. We would go to the City Park on Sunday afternoons and let Loraine ride the ponies, watch the monkeys, and ride the train or merry go round. We have eight-millimeter movies of her chasing squirrels around the park and teasing the monkeys on Monkey Island. They also enjoyed being with the Bradley children. We would go on picnics with them and spent quite a bit of time together. We also enjoyed time spent with Louis and Betty Stallings and Ernie and Louise Phillips, who each had two daughters near Loraine's age.

In May of 1956 I was scheduled for a trip to the Canadian Yukon Territory with Bob Dunfee in a Twin Beech. We left on a Monday morning and Bob became sick just before we got to Great Falls, Montana. We decided to spend the night there and hoped that he would feel better the next morning. After a good night's rest he was better and even though it was his turn to fly as Captain, he asked me to fly to Calgary, Alberta, Canada where we were to pick up our passengers for the Yukon.

We arrived at Calgary about nine o'clock in the morning and the tower advised us of small patches of ice on the runway from a shower the night before and the freezing temperature of the early morning. I told Bob to pick up the flaps on a signal from me, when we touched down, so that I could get as much weight on the runway as possible, in order to have some braking action. When I touched down, I signaled "flaps up", and to my surprise almost immediately felt the nose of the airplane pitch downward. I knew something was wrong, and as if by instinct, applied full power to both engines and put back pressure on the controls, hoping to get the airplane back into the air and go around for another landing. I heard the propeller blades striking the pavement, felt the vibration, and saw little pieces of metal and insulation flying up and over the windshield. I closed the throttles and cut all the switches as we slid down the runway on the belly of the airplane. Almost immediately, I felt concussion and saw fire going everywhere, some coming into the cockpit. I tried to get out of my seat but could not. After the second try at getting out of my seat, I discovered my seat belt was still fastened. When I arrived at the back door to get out of the airplane, although Bob was still in the cockpit when I left it, I found the door open. I remember wondering how the door got open, but when I got through the fire that extended past the wing tip, I found Bob waiting for me. He had passed me in the cabin and opened the door. His first words were "Jim, I'm sorry, I hit the wrong switch." He had indeed; he had hit the landing gear switch instead of the flap switch.

When I called Lois to tell her that I was alright, even though the airplane had been totally destroyed, she told me that she was alright even though the car wasn't. She had been hit by a dump truck about the same time I had landed at Calgary. Neither she nor Loraine had been hurt, and I only had minor burns. We were all lucky.

We had been living in an apartment, which was part of the home of John Snook on Oxford Street, for quite a while when we heard about a house for rent on Virgin Street. We had wanted a house to ourselves and we could afford the rent on this one. I went to our new Chief Pilot, Joe Lacy, and asked if there were any plans to transfer me away from Tulsa. When he said that there were none, we rented the house and moved in.

Lois wanted to hook up her electric cook stove and we had saved enough money to have it done. I called an electrician and made arrangements to have the wiring done while I was to be on a trip to New York. When I returned three days later, I called Lois and asked if the stove was hooked up. She said that it was and she would have broiled steaks for supper. Then I called the dispatch office to report back in and the dispatcher told me I had been transferred to Independence, Kansas. I didn't want to go home and tell Lois, she would be so disappointed. We had lived in the house for only about three months and she had her electric stove back at last after such a long time.

The transfer to Independence meant a promotion and a small pay increase for me, but was a real hardship on Lois. Not only did she have to give up her electric cook stove, but also she had to make new friends. She relied heavily on the church, and the friends she had there for support when I was out of town; the church in Independence was downright unfriendly. The first six weeks she and I attended services there, no one, with the exception of the preacher and his wife, even spoke to us. His name was Wilborn and he had come from Texas. Even the other pilots for Sinclair were not all friendly. When I invited Larry Marshall to bring his wife and visit us, his reply was "We don't go visiting and we don't want any visitors." Fortunately the Ralph Barr and Alan Sparrowhawk families were hospitable, and we became very good friends. Loraine enjoyed playing with the Sparrowhawk girls and the Barr boys.

Ralph Barr was from Ohio and was assigned to fly a Beechcraft Bonanza. He and I were flying the only two Bonanzas based at the airport in Independence and because we flew alone, and they were single engine airplanes, we only flew during daylight hours and under visual flight rules, no instrument flying. There would be several days at a time when the weather would be too bad for us to fly, so we would be together at the airport working on our planes, and became very close friends. We were both amazed to learn that our grandfathers had fought against each other in the Civil War. His grandfather had been in the Union Army and mine had been in the Confederate Army. We were able together, at a later date, to visit Lookout Mountain, Tennessee where they had fought against each other.

Mother became ill in 1956 and came to be with us in Kansas and to get medical treatment. First she had gall bladder surgery and later had an intestinal obstruction, which required surgery that brought about the discovery of a cancer of the pancreas. The doctors told us that there was nothing they could do, her cancer was terminal.

She wanted to go back to her home in Mart, Texas and live, but she was too ill to live alone. About that time Sinclair had an opening for a co-captain on a Twin Beech in Houston, and when I asked for the position, they granted my wish in consideration of Mother's health. We flew her to Waco, on a company plane, to stay with Aunt Nancy Patterson in Mart until we could move to Houston.

We moved to Houston in February of 1957. I remember that Lois wore a wool knit dress from Kansas, where it was snowing when we left, to Houston, where the temperature was in the mid eighties. Most of our summer clothes had been packed by the movers and were on the moving van somewhere in route. It would be three years before Lois or Loraine would see snow again. Houston would be our home for the next seven years.

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