A Guy I Used To Know

When I first started at SWA I met a lot of really great mechanics. The very first night I was there I worked with a mechanic I will call "The Dawg". The Dawg showed me around and tuned me into the way to do my job and ultimately become a successful member of the team at OAK MX. The guy I wanted to write about today is a fella I will call "The Trooper".

When I first encountered The Trooper he was an intimidating figure. When you think of the term "gruff" that would describe The Trooper. Think of a Marine who had a look in his eye that said "I know what I am doing, and I see what you are doing, and I can kill you and eat you". He was mostly unshaven, swore a lot, and for the most part liked to work alone. To say I was intimidated by him is mild.

My first week at the job I was working a plane on gate 12. It was probably around 1 or 2 am when all of a sudden I hear "FUUU&&&%%%%!!!!". I look up and see sparks flying across the ramp. I found out later that The Trooper was working an APU problem on gate 23 (which by the way is about 3/4 of a football field away from gate 12), something went wrong and he yelled out and chucked his 3 D cell MagLite across the ramp. By the way he never did find the light. Over the years this repeated and no wrench or flashlight was safe from his rage.

After a while I realized that The Trooper was one of the more fun guys to hang with and work with. The Trooper was a good wrench. He was a wrench in the way that he worked on what he was assigned (even though we were not assigned work back the, we volunteered for our work). The Trooper never complained about hard jobs or working all night.

One of the things that you could never forget was going downline with The Trooper. In OAK back in those days we would send three guys down to San Jose to work a Service Check and any airplanes with MELs that happened to be spending the night down there. Since The Trooper used to work at that airport he liked to go. One of the first times I went down to San Jose with The Trooper we had four guys. We finished up our work and as we were driving to make our way out The Trooper says "whats that fluid over by that landing gear?" It looked like a hydraulic leak from a brake on the wheel and under the strut. One of the guys jumped out and ran over. Most mechanics know that when we come across a leak the first thing we do is dab our finger in it and smell it. Well this guy dabs his finger smells and immediately scrunches up his face, wipes off his hands and runs back cussing. it turned out The Trooper had to take a leak and he did it  behind the strut!

On another visit to San Jose in the MX Bread truck it was The Trooper, another guy, and I. The way we operated our downlines was that one guy would knock out the three planes on at the gates and the other two would drive a belt loader and the bread truck to the two planes on the pad (remote parking) finish them up and return to help the guy at the gates. I grabbed a  belt loader and The Trooper drove the bread truck with the lift bed down. I'm driving along slightly to the left and behind the bread truck when I hear "Who's driving this truck?" I look up to see The Trooper standing on the lift bed doing his best George Washington crossing the Delaware pose while the truck is motoring on its own down the ramp. These were typical types of nights when working with The Trooper.

Once while on a road tip with The Trooper we had to go to San Jose and then swing by SFO when we were done. About half way through the San Jose portion I got real sick. I could hardly stand up and felt like I was going to pass out. The Trooper had me sit down in the bread truck where I passed out. I briefly remember coming to when we got to SFO but only long enough to realize that we were there. The Trooper and the other mech with us finished up all the work with out me, no complaints! That's the way it was back then.

Always on the road back to OAK he would stop to get a box of Entemanns Chocolate Doughnuts and consume the whole box before we got back. He ate grasshoppers and moths and belched real loud and talked with his mouthful. He was loud sometimes scary and could tell you off real quick but he was a great guy to work with.

The Trooper no longer works with us, unable to change with the increasingly political environment at SWA he was a victim of being too real at a time when being real with people could get you in real trouble. He never gave up and he didn't back down through the end. We still hear from The Trooper every now and then and the shop is a little smaller without his over the top personality. I miss The Trooper and I am sure he misses us too. He is chilling at his house in his barber chair, with about twenty or thirty caged frogs, watching questionable movies, eating chocolate doughnuts, wearing his Marine too short shorts and his Boony Cap A mechanic from another time trying to make it in the present world. A guy I used to know.