I found love at Love Field
Bill Hooten called and said they needed more fuelers. They being Allied Aviation Fueling at Love Field. I needed a job, so I wheeled out to Love and talked to the supervisor, Mr. Charles Floyd. He assured me I could work my way up to minimum wage and maybe even a day shift at some point. The gig was easy. Show up at their clients office and sit till they told you to do something.
Allied contracted to Braniff Aviation Services to provide personnel, and equipment to fuel aircraft for their general aviation customers. Don’t confuse this with Braniff Airways. Even though they were distant cousins, Aviation was a small operation in the southeast side of the main Love terminal serving mostly private aircraft. Pipers, Beachcraft, Cessnas, Mooneys, Grummans…that sort of thing.
Fueling GA was pretty straightforward. Drive the fuel truck up to the aircraft, pull the hoses, pump away just like at the Conoco. Most pilots ordered you to “fill to the tabs”, the tabs being a sleeve inside the fill hole about 3 inches below the top. I believe filling to this point gave the pilot a pretty close approximation on just how much fuel he had onboard. You can’t just pull an airplane over at the next exit when you get low on fuel.
The tanks were pretty large and if you went to sleep you might fill all the way to the top, and that wouldn’t be good. You can actually see into the fuel tank somewhat when fueling and see the level of fuel rising. It is slow and even when it gets close to the tabs it can take several more gallons before it reaches them. You have a five gallon margin to shut off within making it so easy a gorilla could probably do it. I also learned that there was more than one kind of “tab” in the fuel process. The fuel cap itself resembled a beer can top in that you pull the tab on top to release the pressure, then turn the cap to remove. The tab locks the cap into place. When you are standing in front of the wing, the tab is positioned at the towards the back so you place your fingers underneath it, and pull towards you to pop it. It was possible to replace the cap backwards with the tab closer to you and pulled forward instead of pushed back. Any reason come to mind as to why this wasn’t a good idea?
The truck was not a tractor-trailer rig. It was just a three axle truck with the fuel container built on. Much easier to drive around than a truck pulling a trailer. It probably held a couple of thousand gallons of aviation fuel and when we got low, we simply drove around to the tank farm and filled ‘er up. Very low tech. I mean this job couldn’t get much easier. Little did I know.
In the fall of 79 there was a shortage of AvGas. This must have been a rinky dink operation because they weren’t able to purchase gas. Allied didn’t provide the fuel, only the storage tanks. It was up to the GA operation to buy their fuel. I think there was some kind of miscommunication that fall and Braniff was without AvGas for about two months. No fuel, no fueling. Braniff was still under contract with Allied so the fuelers still reported to work. Even though there was a possibility of jet fueling, I pumped more gas into my motorcycle at the Exxon than airplanes. 4 to midnight did no work at all besides taking off early to go to concerts or out on dates. There was a sign on the door for about two months “No AvGas”. The guy working the midnight to 8am shift was a professional sleeper. He clocked in, laid out his sleeping bag on the couch and told the desk supervisor to wake him at 7. For two months there was absolutely nothing for that shift to do. You might say “why didn’t they at least have you sweep the floors, change lighbulbs, or clean the bathroom or something?”. Did I mention this was a union job? Then one day we got gas and the free ride was over.
For those who actually liked to work, the best part of the job was the rare occasion we got a jet call. We had a jet tanker that we drove over to the jet operations on the field to service their aircraft. Most jets were fueled under the wing. The larger jets the wings may be eight foot high so you use a ladder to connect the hose. These hoses are about 8 inches thick and are very heavy. You can wear yourself out trying to lift the nozzle up to the wing and connecting it to the fuel neck. The secret was to not pull the hose directly from the roll to the wing, but pull out more hose than was needed and double back so that the hose has some bounce to it and lifts itself up to the wing.
Occasionally we would get a call that Southwest Airlines was short on fueling personnel and asked us to take a gate or two and service the 737’s. At that time Southwest did have one 727 in it’s fleet which is the biggest plane I ever had the opportunity to fuel. To fuel Southwest, you pulled your truck into place at the gate before the aircraft arrived. They are on a tight schedule and sometimes the fueling takes longer than anything else, and they are waiting on you to unhook so they can push the plane back. That is why you open the panel and connect as soon as the plane is docked. That alone takes a few minutes and the pilot comes over in the meantime to tell you how many pounds to put on. It may take twenty minutes to gas up, and as soon as you lock the panel back into place the plane pushes back. You then move your truck to another gate and wait for the next arrival. On an eight hour shift, you might get in 6-7 planes.
After about three 737’s you had to fill the truck. The fuel racks were just across the the driveway, so you could top off the truck between arrivals. One Saturday I started in the morning and worked a double shift. I was relieved at midnight after fueling 17 thirty-sevens. I was able to do it, I guess because the shift partners were somewhere else and not right there with me. I’m more efficient alone. I enjoyed watching the Southwest mechanics do their magic on the ramp. They ran the place. Dressed in civilian clothes, these guys were in their fifties and sixties and would make any necessary repairs while the planes sat at the gate. These guys were good and took their jobs seriously. They were inspirational.
The baggage handlers on the other hand, were younger, and more relaxed. I would say the orange jumpsuit wearing baggage guys were good at their job too, but as soon as the stuff was loaded, they were in the break room and I soon found out why. I had the option of staying out with the mechanics, which I sometimes did, or hang with the handlers and I sometimes did that too. They knew where all the hot pants wearing flight attendants were and made checking them out into an art form. Yes, they were inspirational too.
We also fueled corporate jets on the field. This was different than GA because we were being watched and couldn’t goof off. They had shop foremen hang with us to keep an eye on their baby. Fueling a Learjet was very empowering, but the foremen wouldn’t let you touch it anymore than necessary. You couldn’t even hardly look at the thing. Don’t even ask to board it.
The thing about a Learjet is that it has a 150 gallon tank on each wingtip. 150 gallons of jet fuel weighs almost a thousand pounds, so you can’t just fill up one side then fill up the other. In order to keep from putting 20 gallons on the left then driving then 20 in the right and back and forth and back and forth, we had two trucks and fueled the cells simultaneously. One truck was smaller and easy to use GMC which only put out about 15 gallons per minute. The other truck was a great big behemoth of a monster and was a fueling mofo. Once you maneuvered it into place and pulled the hoses, it would output some serious flow power.
Hehehe. One time the foreman was working in the shop or something so me and the other fueler (a bigger goof off than me), decided to supervise ourselves. McManus commandeered T-Rex and I had the smaller truck because I had less seniority. Having exactly one more month of on the job experience, he was lead man. Lead man said to go ahead and start fueling the starboard side with the GMC and he would catch up with Big Mama. I did, hehehe. I pulled the hose, busted the cap, and squeezed the trigger in one motion and the meter was clicking with purpose. While he was still trying to wrestle the giant sequoyah close to the port wing, I was juicing this baby down. And I do mean down. I thought the foreman was going to have a runaway bug-eyed fit when he came over and saw my side about three feet off the ground and big Mac reaching as high as he could just to stick the nozzle in. Oh my gosh that was good stuff and worth the lecture. Those wings are really well attached and quite flexible.
Other recreational activities included taking the courtesy car (a '78 LTD Wagon) out for pizza and other late night field trips. I was on 4pm to midnight and we actually spent more time figuring out how to stick it to the man than pumping fuel. We would drive around on the ramp service road for fun. The service road was two lanes marked off that traveled the perimeter of the airfield looping around the terminal and the end of the runways. The rule was pretty simple. If you see an aircraft moving, stop. Airplanes always have the right of way. One night me and another slacker drove the Ford wagon to the end of runway 1-3 left just as a Southwest 737 was making approach. We cut the headlights and sat there with just the parking lights on and watched the bad boy careen right over the top of us. You can’t buy this kind of entertainment.
The Braniff Aviation ramp was about 1 mile from Lemmon Avenue which was home to a few good rock and roll clubs. I’m not sure if there are any rock and roll clubs today, but there sure were in the late 70’s. Gerties was a small smoky room with a small stage and some pretty good talent on occasion. Mother Blues on the other hand was a large house hosting two or three bands each night. This was a place to watch the band and get into your rock roots. It wasn’t a place to meet girls. To do that you had to go to the Southern Plantation in downtown Dallas. It had more of a disco feel so the girls would flock into it to show off their latest “look at me’s”. McManus and I and a few other fuel jockeys really liked hanging out at the rock clubs. After we got off at 9 or 10, we would go over and take an hour or two to drink one beer and listen to the bands. Live music is great. Even bad live music.
The period of time I worked at Love was also at the time I went to a lot of rock concerts. Of course the concerts took place during my 4 to midnight shift so you could say I was a professional concert goer. I know it wasn’t right to go on the clock, but I can assure you that no work was missed. My shift partner covered for me so there was always at least one person doing the no person job.
The so called union meetings were held at DFW. We weren’t required to attend, we were just required to allow the union dues to be extorted from our checks. The serious union guys were at DFW. We just thought we knew how to get paid for doing nothing, but these guys were trained killers in the art of avoidance. In all fairness they did work hard at fueling, but union members are not permitted to “help” their employers succeed on any other level. These people invented the phrase “It’s not my job”. I worked at Allied for six months before I ever attended a union meeting. I adopted the union mentality instantly because everyone wants to belong to something. Some people choose gangs, but we chose something more disturbing. We chose the International Sisterhood of Fueling Sons a You-Know-Whats.
There was talk of a raise going around and the results would be announced at the next union meeting. Raises weren’t given on merit or some other measure of efficiency. Thank goodness. Nope, it was strictly seniority, position, and contract. When one person got a raise, everyone else rose accordingly. Visions of being able to move out of my parents house and into my own chick magnet address danced wildly in my head because of the raise. We marched into the union hall like we were someBODY, and left with a 15 cent raise. That was 15 cents for each HOUR, homes! From that day on, I bought my OWN gas for my motorcycle. The raise issue took about six minutes of the hour-long union meeting. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the bulk of the meeting was used to argue over who would be responsible for bringing donuts to future meetings.
At some point the Braniff contract was over and the Allied fuelers had to find a job. Our sisters at DFW wanted nothing to do with us, but fortunately the powers at Braniff decided to do their own fueling and needed fuel personnel pronto. They also must not have known about our work ethic.
Braniff was mostly staffed by under 30’s. The chief there was Mr. Harry Kifer. We gave him no respect whatsoever, but looking back I don’t know why. It was just expected from the supervisors on down. Mr. Kifer was probably a hard working man who was trying to do a job for the owners of the company and inherited a bunch of losers for personnel. It was hard to supervise people who didn’t care if they lost their job.
The only people around there who seemed to be working were the employees of the rent car company which leased space at the Braniff desk. People who didn’t come in for the two months we had no AvGas, had the convenience of renting a car from a perfectly ready to work employee of Econo-Car, and usually a very pretty employee at that! One in particular. Oh how I loved to pretend I did not hear her sexy voice say “Thank you for calling Econo-Car, this is Sharlette speaking, how may I help you?”. No sweeter words have ever been spoken.
The entire office of various tenants got together on occasion to party. This was 1979 mind you and the word “party” was not yet universally accepted in verb form, but we did do our share. The venue of choice seemed to be country dance clubs. Now, if you know anything about me, country music is not my thang. When I was 20 years old I did however appreciate pretty girls, so if they wanted to go country, I said country it is. I had a hat, boots, and a buckle. Sharlette and I had not yet paired up, so one day when I saw her at the barbeque place, I was surprised that she seemed genuinely happy to see me. As I sat in the booth talking to my friend, she came over and stood beside me with her arm around my shoulder talking about why we hadn’t gotten together in a while. “I thought you didn’t love me anymore”. I was happily stunned to hear her throw the L word towards me, so I pretended it was no big deal, but it did make a big impression with me.
One Saturday night, Randy and Eddie and I drove over to the Cotton Eyed Joe with Sharlette and another female or two following us in their car. We weren’t really together, but in my mind, I was there to be with Sharlette, not to pick up chicks (which only took place in my mind too). I don’t think my team even got a dance and after awhile, we all decided to leave. I remember walking out to the black Camaro and standing in front of Sharlette leaning against her car. I just gave her a kiss pretending it was because we were all laughing and having a good time but I saw it as a huge opportunity to get much closer to the pretty eyes and smile.
I think this was the night Sharlette and I ditched the rest of the group and secretly went to Denny’s cause Sharlette wanted some french fries and gravy. We were pretty hungry and (Sharlette was) maybe a little under the influence. We were seated at a booth and the hostess gave us our menus and said “Jane will be with you in a moment” and walked away. Sharlette said in in one of those low voices, but not quite as low as you intended, “Well, tell Jane to get her butt over here”. Just then we noticed a tall lady standing over us saying “Hello, I’m Jane”. We laughed about that one for a long time.
My memory fades over the next few months. I don’t think we went out again while we were both at Love. Maybe she left, maybe I did, I don’t remember. But one day in the summer of 1980 I was talking to McManus on the phone and he said he had called up Sharlette to see if she would go out. I thought “Man, I better call her if she’s talking to him”. So I did. Invited her to a neighborhood party and she came. We stuck together pretty close after that and were married six months later.
Today is Jan. 30, 2007 - our 26th anniversary! Sharlette, I love you.
Jan. 30, 2008 - Sharlette, you are more beautiful than ever. I will always love you.