Just took it easy this morning and slept real late. Nothing to do except wait for the UPS guy to deliver the alternator parts for the Waco, and for the mechanic to drive over from Paducah (a real name) Kentucky. Everything was supposed to be there by noon, so we showed up at the airport at around 11:30 to find the mechanic already there and unwrapping the goodies. This was a good sign that maybe we would get to fly today.
The mechanic, Dale, was all business and got right to work. Although he had never worked on a Waco before, he said he was looking forward to it. He said he read about one of these planes about a year ago in Private Pilot Magazine..... some guy had one he kept in his bedroom in a hangar somewhere in the desert out West. When I let it slip to Dale that I was that guy, and this is the exact same Waco he read about, well Dale started taking a personal interest in his work. It wasn't just another alternator replacement job anymore.
Three hours later, I was packing up the plane and saying good-byes to some of the townsfolk who had gathered to see us off. Word of this kind of stuff (a couple of crazy guys flying biplanes around the US) gets around pretty quick in a town the size of Cairo (pronounced Care-o).
It was getting kinda late in the day and we were just getting started, and Art said he had some friends of his going to meet us at our next stop, Branson Missouri. We were running a bit behind schedule so we took off quick and headed straight west for 235 miles at fast cruise at 3,500 feet. Art led the whole way and flew straight as an arrow like a man with a mission. I had never seen him fly this way in the 3 years I have flown with him. Usually he flies his Waco like a man with a Attention Deficit Syndrome.... all over the place, down on the deck, hedgehopping, constantly on the radio with questions and comments.... basically like a kid in a candy store. But today he was strangely different. I felt that he was plotting a hoax.
We hammered out the miles and landed in Branson after passing through light rain. When we parked the planes in the transient parking area, a group of locals came out to greet us, which is fairly normal. Since Art was parked first, he was already out of the plane and talking with them when I pulled up, so I just started to tie the plane down and went about unloading my bags, computer, etc. All of a sudden I hear: "Well I'll be darned! It's Mike McCafferty!" I couldn't imagine who it could be and when I turned to find out, I still couldn't figure out who it was until he introduced himself. Mark Trimble is a fellow I only met over the phone just about 5 months ago. He built an absolutely magnificent 8 foot wide neon sign "Waco Airplanes" with huge neon wings in the original style. He liked it so much that he was going to build 9 more just like it for some Waco pilots, and when I got news of the project, I ordered one immediately, and two months later it arrived and I hung it on my hangar wall just the week before I left on this trip. His neon sign was so nice looking that I became a fan of his and we talked about meeting up at the National Biplane Convention in Bartlesville OK, but since I never made it there on this tour, I completely forgot about meeting up with him.
Mark says that he lives nearby in Branson, and that we can park our planes in his hangar overnight just down the taxiway, and points to a BIG hangar a couple of hundred yards away. The hangar door is open and I can make out some interesting planes: a Beech 18, Lake amphibian, T-6 Texan, Cub on floats, Waco UPF-7, and a lot more. They're all his! Seems like Mark Trimble is into planes in a major way.
Then he drives us over to his "garage" where he loans us a new Chevy while we're in town. The "garage" is loaded with at least 30 classic cars of every imaginable description, from Fords to Buicks to Rolls Royces. Mark Trimble is into cars in a major way.
We're late for meeting up with Art's friends, so we make an agreement that we want to meet up with Mark in the morning and talk plane and cars.
Art's friends have fixed us up with a special rate room at the Lawrence Welk Hotel in Branson. I'm a little bit apprehensive about staying at a Lawrence Welk place, but I figure I won't see anybody (else) that I know in Branson, so what the heck. Shower and change and right back out to dinner with his friends, Jim and Kathy. Turns out that Kathy is Kathy Lennon, one of the Lennon sisters, the Lennon sisters who sang every Saturday night on the Lawrence Welk show on TV. The same Lawrence Welk show that I had to watch because my parents watched it, and therefore I didn't like it. It was a prime motivation to have something else to do on Saturday nights when I was growing up. So now here I am sitting down having dinner with an actual Lennon sister, only I'm thinking that maybe Art has this elaborate hoax going on, so I am playing it pretty cool with her, and I tell her more than once that I kinda doubt that she is a real Lennon sister, but she sticks to her story. In fact, she says, she will prove it in two hours because she has reserved two seats in the fifth row at the Lawrence Welk Show featuring the same real live Lennon Sisters.
Well now I'm thinking that this hoax that Art has going is really getting wild. I figure that what he really has up his sleeve is to get me to actually sit through an entire Lawrence Welk Show, in an audience with a thousand tourists bussed in from America's heartland. I'm thinking that maybe Art made a phone call to my parents and asked them what is the one thing that I would fear the most in this world, and they came up with "sitting through an entire Lawrence Welk show".
Well this Kathy-whoever-she-is is really a very likable person, so I kinda figure that maybe, just maybe if she's going to go to this show, there may be some other likable persons there as well, so I go along with the plan, although I'm really apprehensive about ruining my lifetime record of never having sat through an entire Lawrence Welk Show. I vow to leave immediately if I detect the hoax unfolding.
Branson Missouri is the NICE capital of America, nestled in the Ozark Mountains in the southwest corner of Missouri, with a population of only 3,700 souls. The amazing statistic is that over 6 MILLION people come to Branson every year to catch the shows, including Andy Williams, and a whole bunch of other famous (except to me) entertainers who are loved by middle Americans. There are more than 25 different shows running all the time, even breakfast shows, all live, with big name stars. It's like Vegas, except that all the nasty stuff is missing. There is no drinking during shows, there is no profanity or off-color stuff, no skin, no gambling, no vice... just good old-fashioned wholesome entertainment the whole family can enjoy.
So here I am sitting in the fifth row at the Lawrence Welk Show and feeling VERY out of place in the midst of all these freshly scrubbed corn-fed middle Americans with family values. The show is an amazing amalgam of bubbles (of course), people singing and dancing, dogs dancing in supposedly cute outfits, the Lawrence Welk Orchestra, more singing and dancing (people), accordion playing, juggling, and more singing and dancing. There is at least 1/3 Christian content, 1/3 Flag-waving American content, and 1/3 Just Plain Nice People Stuff. The people in the show were all so darn clean and healthy and good and wholesome looking that I just wanted to squirt some Waco oil on them. Where do they GET people like this? One of the girl-type singer/dancers who are introduced as the Lennon Sisters, looks suspiciously like Kathy, so I grudgingly stay around to see more.
I'm wondering if all these other people would feel out of place in a room with a thousand biplane pilots.
At intermission, a security guard comes up to Art and me and leads us backstage. I figure Art is really laying it on thick with this maneuver, when Kathy comes out in a bathrobe, along with the other Lennon Sisters, all in bathrobes. I am getting the feeling that the only hoax going on is the one in my mind. All of a sudden, I am standing surrounded by Lennon Sisters, and Art, getting my picture taken. I kinda felt out of place without my bathrobe. Kathy gives us a whirlwind tour of backstage, and I even saw the "fog" machine, but I missed the bubble machine. Maybe next time.
Bottom line: this Lawrence Welk Show really wasn't as bad as I feared. I hate to admit it, but there were even parts that I kind of liked. And Kathy Lennon was really the star of the show. Her energy was incredible, great enthusiasm, awesome talent, and a real nice person.
I can't wait to get my copy of me with the Lennon Sisters in bathrobes. I'm going to put it right next to the one with me and the Pope... in the "Wholesome" section of Mikie's Fun House.