I have always been asked and even ask myself that question. Why me? Why am I even in a commanding position of the AyreWolvez or carry a leadership role in the Knytes-of-Anarchy? There are many days, weeks, even hours that I would love nothing more than to just go to a meeting of the clubs, have a few beers, swap war and other stories, chow down on some good food, and go home. Curl up on the couch, watch TV . Hell I’d love just once to go on a trip for a real vacation. With nothing to do cept maybe get a good tan, read some good books, and even get laid on a regular basis, without the trip being tied to doing my duty to the club somehow some way. I have not gone on a trip for just myself since 1985, and even then 60% of it was for the club.
In the first part of the answer to that question , Why me? It was my own search of some possible way in 1976 to get behind the wheel of 18 wheels. With one year prior discovering from a few years ratchet jawing on ye old CB with all too many truckers . There just was not a training academy for wanna be OTR truckers under the age of 21 and even fewer if any for the 17-18 year old crowd. A year after , through events our CB club, became part of the ITA, and as such our adult leader besides my own Dad was a Owner/Operator Independent, bull hauler. Year and a half later I elected to rather doing the interstate long haul gig, I would rather be going towing. And although there was many mentors, from John W Nausbaum (Johnny’s Towing, Twin Falls Idaho) there were no young towing owner drivers groups. I read all the time of the training sessions by TRAA and all, but what about us who were just cutting our teeth in towing? So Dad said , since there is none, why don’t you head that up son? That was the start of it. Later the Hazzard Knytes were formed, and although I have never ever held the rank of President of any of the groups, might as well have. I have always been a go getter. If it needs fixed I fixed it. Although in many ways what we did was just a band aid, for wounds that needed healed, still someone had to do it. And as my Dad a well ranked Marine on his own, would tell me on that creek bank fishing, if your pointing towards someone else to do something, remember there are three fingers pointing back at you. So in 1979 on leave from the UCSMC, I sat down with Johnny’s son, a few more friends going towing and we formed what would ultimately be called the Road Commanders Club, later refined to the Road Commanders Association. Nick named in 1981 as the Hazzard County Towing Association. Did we do any good? Well lets see now, the current Towing Lien law of Idaho, was co authored by the Hazzard County Towing Association. The first statewide towing operators certification program was constructed by us and is now part of both the WreckMasters course as well as TRAA’s certification course. Along with the no prowl law, prohibiting renegade towing services from prowling or as its sometimes called scaving short for scavenging tow calls during the first snow storms. The list goes on but we were the ones setting the standards by which others would later be judged. Then of course long after Dad and Mom had passed on and all discovering that F-4-U in Jerome, reignited my love of flight. Outside of one good group of vintage warbird group called the United Confederate Air Force, or UCAF for short, a meeting with some like minded Knytes, and in mid 2001, the BlackSheep Vintage Aviation Association was born, that would in 2003 later be renamed the AyreWolvez. But know this; there is no I in a group, nor the word me in team. As such and it is with that and in the part meaning of the word Anarchy, that not one of us thinks we are better than another. While one of us designs the course, we are still all equal. Every one of us has a voice. As such I may lead or be in command, but I’m no better than any other member of the Wolf-Pack, although many of you have put me in the place of an Alpha Wolf, still I’m very small in the silo of grain, but even that one small grain of wheat, I do make up the flour that makes the loaf of bread that is the AyreWolvez. But even so, I do ask myself at times, Why me? Just like Mark said last night, Why not you?
L8R Aviators
Quote of the day:
To be pleased with one's limits is a wretched state. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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