February 19

Friday, February 19 — It was a ragged night last night. Into AKM at 9:15, much warmer and windy, King Air on the ramp. Took two pics of it. New-looking or a recent repaint. Sorted scraps, slips and articles upstairs from 11 to 12:40, made good progress. Had “lunch:” three cookies from Wednesday’s model club meeting. Drove over to Richard S.’ house at 1:05 and visited until 4:45. He’s going through a rough separation from a woman he also almost married. He has an incredible aviation collection, and I am happy to be a friend. Back to the AKM office at 4:55, pretty depressed by so much wallowing in woe; almost went home at 5:30 but went back to the Intake Room and FINISHED a major part of the sorting project. There are still TONS of sorting, but for the next week I’m concentrating on putting a new Lincoln Flyer together and finishing some models upstairs. I am considering disposing of the clippings collection devoted to foreign built aircraft which were not used by US armed forces, civilian general aviation  and airlines. Perhaps I could buy more storage boxes and place the files that don’t meet those criteria into another room out here. Visitors to AKM have certainly not shown any interest in say, TS-11s or Gloster Javelins or Tu-104s. I do need the filing cabinets that would be emptied by the change for expanding files of US-built aircraft. We DESPERATELY NEED MORE FOUR-DRAWER FILE CABINETS! Went home at 7:30. Day rating: C-.