Yo Dawgs, Check It Out!

That’s my great granddad...

Reprinted from a register-required newspaper site. Given what happened a month or so back, I have removed the last names of my family members.

1927 pilot's license comes to rest in Vero
Pilot's license found in Baltimore and returned to daughter in Vero Beach.

By Alexi Howk
staff writer
April 23, 2005

VERO BEACH — Roger Snyder transformed himself from a mechanic at a Baltimore post office into a regular Sherlock Holmes when he found a 1927 pilot's license loose in a mail hamper.

Rather than act on advice from a few of his co-workers suggesting he should donate the historical license to an aviation museum or a science exhibit, he and others wanted to make sure the license got into the right hands.

Enter 80-year-old Vero Beach resident My Great Aunt Peggy, the youngest of four children and the only living child of the late Joseph Randall, the man pictured on the pilot's license.

"I couldn't believe it," My Great Aunt Peggy said, when she received word from her late sister's retirement home that a man who found her father's pilot's license was looking for her. "I said, 'What would it be doing in Baltimore? How can this be? First of all, that it even existed and that they were able to track me down. They didn't give up. That's what amazes me.'"

My Great Aunt Peggy, along with her daughter, My Cousin Pam, great-grandson Gordon, 9, (Gordon is her grandson, as she was sure to remind me as she crossed out the “great” in the clipping she sent me, twice. *chuckle*) My Cousin Randy, and longtime friend Shirley Last Name Removed, all of Vero Beach, attended a brief ceremony Friday at the Citrus Ridge post office branch off State Road 60 to receive the found license.

Surrounded by several postal workers, Branch Manager Ernesto Gonzalez presented My Great Aunt Peggy with her father's original pilot's license, as well as a poster-size replica, which My Great Aunt Peggy gave to her great-grandson as a keepsake.

"Oh, isn't that lovely. Wow," My Great Aunt Peggy said upon receiving it. "I'm still in shock."

My Cousin Pam said she and her brother (and her older sister Ann) never met their grandfather because he died before they were born. She said the family kept an old oil painting of him in his pilot's uniform similar to the one he wore in his pilot's license.

"I just remember him from the stories (my mother) told and having that painting," she said. "It's bizarre."

My Great Aunt Peggy said her father enlisted in the Army at the start of World War I in 1917 and later became a pilot, delivering airmail. She brought along a picture of her father being presented with a watch from President Calvin Coolidge.

"He received the watch for, I think, having something to do with starting airmail service," My Great Aunt Peggy said, noting her father died in 1948. His pilot's license listed his age as 46.

When Snyder found the license in early January, it was inside of a small black leather holder, which also contained a 1929 membership card to the Almas Temple Shriner's club in Washington, D.C., where Randall lived. There was no envelope or return address.

"It's important that everyone realizes this wasn't lost in the mail," Gonzalez said. "Someone found it and somehow it ended up mixed in with the mail in Baltimore."

Just how it got there, officials don't know.

"In my 36 years with the post office, I've dealt with about a dozen of these types of things," said Joseph Breckenridge, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service based in Atlanta. "It's not common, but it does happen."

Breckenridge said the post office has received lost driver's licenses and old letters. For some reason or another, people use the post office as the lost and found, randomly dropping them into collection boxes.

It took Snyder almost two months to track down Grant. After several phone calls, Internet searches and help from co-workers and the District of Columbia American Legion, Snyder finally located her.

Why did Snyder go to such lengths?

"I'm retired military and I'm interested in aviation-type stuff, so I took an interest to it," Snyder said. "A family heirloom such as this is something to be treasured forever and passed down to generations to come."

First of all, what a very, very nice guy. Thank you Mr. Synder!

My mom told me stories growing up about “Pop-pop” & “Nana” since she and My Nana (Grandmother) had to move back in with her folks after her divorce. (Yes Virginia, divorces happened back in the old days.) The most idyllic times of her childhood were spent in that house. He was quite a guy.

What funny is the number on his pilots license: 115. He trained with LaGuardia in the Italian Caproni Bomber. Dawn of aviation indeed.

Yep, The Pope’s German.

Brewery Sends 185 Gallon of Beer to Aficionado Pope Benedict XVI.

Transubstantiate the body of Christ into Pretzels and they’re set.

Yes, I know. One ticket please, straight down.

Oh, Do Calm Down.

Everyone seems to be in a tizz about Kurt Busch’s little tantrum last week and the lack of monetary or points penalty.

Of course these are the same people who bemoan the loss of “colorful figures” of “real race car driver” of eras gone by and who hold up the Yarbrough/Allison fight as one of the greatest moments in NASCAR.

Hello!?!

Was any one hurt? Did he wreck anyone? Did his “choice words” end up on a national broadcast? Who the fuck cares then? He got told he was being a child, that’s all the attention it deserves.

Onto Richmond!

(For some reason that phrase always makes me expect a cavalry charge.)

NASCAR is off to Virginia this weekend and a great race. The 8 car has been steadily gaining in races and that’s what I am happy with. I have no concerns about where Dale starts and so don’t worry too much about the Qualifying.

Of course, my lazy butt is sitting on the couch at home. I’m sure the guy behind the wheel has concerns. Best of luck to the Bud Team Saturday during both events!

The 38 hasn’t had the best of times here in the past. Here’s to a great finish at Richmond at last.

As always best of luck to the 6!

I happen to like the impound rule for the most part, though I will say I am getting a tad annoyed by the schedule changing this way and that every single race. I swear one of these days I’m going to pull up NOL and it’s going to be “Practice, Race, Qualifying.”

Anyway, it promises to be a great race and I hope everyone has a safe, successful and fun time!

"Well Lady, I must say. You're my kind of stupid." ~ Mal Reynolds.