The International Cessna^® 170 Association

Anybody have any photos or stories of Recklaw this year? Like to hear some good ones. Truthful or not, either way.

Joe was there with a new Dollie. She said he was slow. R e a l S l o w !! Just like she liked it!

THIS is the truth, the previous is not! New dollie asked Jamie if George scares her at night. Jamie said "No. . ." George politely interrupted her with " . . right off the bat, first night, got her use to it!"

Reklaw was a huge success this year with near perfect weather on Friday. (Quite a contrast from last year when only about 7 of us made it in [flying]and several of us parked our planes there for two weeks!) Most folks, myself included, took advantage of the weather to arrive early and set up to watch arriving traffic and give our "unofficial" grading of landings. Boy, it really gets interesting! Dave said a record number of arrivals/registrations for Friday. If I remember correctly, there were just over 400 registered people by dinner (supper for us Southerners) with about 390 being fed. Saturday's weather was OK until about noon when it rained a couple of times (settled the dust), but while it probably held down the usual number of arrivals, it didn't dampen the fun and tire kicking we all did. A cool front came in on Sat with the rain and we found it much cooler Sat pm, but again a great bunch of folks, good food lots of neat airplanes and a good time had by all. It seemed to me there were more RV's (rec.vehicles) there this year than in the past. Dave & Marcie's new home is nearing completion and really a beautiful site sitting among the East Texas pines! To steal Joe (Straight Wing) Harris's description of Reklaw, "Oshkosh Texas" without the formalities!! You should plan to come next year.

Ole Pokey (with bent wings)--Hummm! Could that be why its so slow????

Like Frank said, a bunch of us got there early so we could pull our planes back in to the trees alongside the runway and be right there at the action while at our camps. After those spots are filled, people have to camp in the meadows, not bad, but not near as good as being on the runway. The Rec Vehicles park alongside the opposite side of the runway(the East side), the huge motorhomes have to stay up on more firm ground by the house. Meals are available at the BIG hangar, but it is also permissable to cook at your campsite. I had planned on cooking all meals at the campsite for the fun of it. The meals at the hangar are good and the visiting is fun, but there is a line and there's nothing like food cooked outdoors while camping. Friday night the steaks, corn, and potatoes, and wine really went down well! We shared wine with our camping neighbors and pretty soon cell phones were being used to make sure more wine was on the way for Saturday night. Saturday morning and the thought of fried potatoes, sausage, and eggs while the planes were taking off and landing right in front of us got me cooking early. The sausage was done, I had been carefully tending the fried potatoes for nearly an hour, and the eggs were sitting by in a bowl all mixed up with the good stuff ready to go as soon as those crispy potatoes came out of the frying pan. It was all just about ready to eat. One of the prettiest planes there, a twin engine twin tailed beautifully polished Beech came taxieing by. Oh my, good food, great planes, beautiful pine trees, etc - it just didn't get much better than this. Well, the twin Beech was a little too close to the trees and camping airplanes and his left wingtip was going to hit a prop of a plane 2 or 3 down from mine. So, he had to swing his tail around towards us to miss the prop. There happened to be a real dusty spot inbetween the ready to eat food and those two big round engines swinging those big props. Might as well have been standing in the Sahara with 90 knot winds holding the frying pan of food - uncovered. EVERYTHING got smothered in dirt. At Reklaw, there is so much fun to be had, when something like that happens, you just smile and go on.

At lunch time Saturday we made a special tuna salad with really good tuna, eggs, sweet onion, and a few secret ingredients. You can tell by looking at it that its really tasty. As the sweet smell was drifting thru the piney woods I was wondering who we were going to catch with the aroma. We placed a table and chairs in front of 1478D and was sitting there making the sandwiches using fresh wheat bread when Flyguy happened by. "Gary, you want a sandwich?" I asked as I was spreading some on a piece of bread. He put both hands up palms out in the stop position "No, No, No, thanks though!". As I spread even more making a really nice thick sandwich watching him out of the corner of my eye watching me spreading it on "Are you sure, we have plenty, it's really good?" "Naw, . . ." I held it up from my sitting postion towards him and it was his. While I was counting my fingers to make sure I still had em all, Mrs. Flyguy was walking up. "Gary, do you think your wife would want a sandwich?" "No, she's not hungry, she won't want one." She could see from a ways off what he was doing with his sandwich, it wasn't exactly an attack, but it was dissappearing rapidly. As she approached another big thick sandwich was ready and it was hers. It was one of my most favorite moments of Reklaw03 sitting there sharing and eating those sandwiches. There were a lot of favorite moments - Randal and his family sitting close by watching the traffic, all of the camping buddies, Steve brought his telescope again, etc. Right after lunch Mr. and Mrs. Flyguy had to get back home and took off popping their flaps to help them lift off before a mud puddle in the runway.

Hey Joe,
You should not tell everyone what there missing at Reklaw or those excellent parking spots you had might be taken next year. Well, then again, maybe we should get there on Thursday next year and start the fun a day early. The rain helped more for settling the dust than it hurt in dampening spectators spirits. I enjoyed meeting other members there and look forward to next year. Randal N1745D