The Rest Is Small Potatoes

This autobiography is about a man from New Jersey born in 1947. Following his graduation from high school in 1965 he enlisted in the Marines and went to Vietnam. He was home and discharged honorably before he turned twenty-one. He meandered for a few years in the time of the anti-war movement and psychedelic drugs before finding his feet in aviation. His involvement in the drug culture landed him in a Federal Institution and jeopardized his future career but he continued flying. He met a woman whom he married and they raised a family and built a house while struggling to stay employed as an airplane pilot. The ebb and flow of the pilot employment market led to various job changes and career change attempts. He was a restauranteur for a few years but managed to get back in aviation as the restaurant was failing. The return to flying was in turbine powered equipment at first doing more night freight work but then his best job ever came along when he answered a trade paper ad for a position in Africa. He was taking a job for a month but stayed on for four years as pilot for a dictator’s cabinet in the heart of Africa. It wasn’t all smooth air over there but survive he did. On returning he went back to grass roots stick and rudder agricultural aviation for three years and retired. In the journey there was one wife, two children, two sailboats, one airplane and one house built. He also earned two Associates degrees. One in Science/Math and the other Arts/Culinary.