I was living in Syracuse at the time and was driving a 1959 English Ford. It was approximately 35 miles from my house to the Utica hangar if I took the NY State Thruway. I got a Thruway plate ($40.00 for unlimited use of the Thruway for one year) and drove it every day.

The second, or afternoon, shift started at 3:00 p.m. and ended at 11:30 p.m. Overhaul had only two shifts and ran from Monday through Friday with Saturday and Sunday off. Good deal!

I reported in on Monday, April 13, 1960—I was supposed to start about two weeks earlier but there was a threatened flight attendant strike. They called me to hold off coming to work. They called me again for work starting on April 13th. I reported to lead mechanic, Howard Brooks. He showed me about where I punch in and out; when break times were (12 minute breaks every 2 hours); where I get my work clothes (white coveralls); where I get a locker in the locker room. He took me over to meet the afternoon foreman, Joe Burns; the Overhaul manager, Kenny Atwell; and introduced me to the other guys in Overhaul. Here are some of the names I remember working with when I started:  Chester Alexander, Jack Church, Jim Clink, Hank Condes, Don Cutter, Al Demartino, Jack Farrell, Tony Gaglianese, Jim Heath, Ed Kolis, John Kranik, Freddy Luck , Bill Luellen, John Major, Harry “OB” O'Brien, Herbie Parsons,  Jim Quinzi, Mert Smith, Al Stiffa,  Walt Urbanczyk, Charlie Ward, and Tom Williams.

When I started in Overhaul, Mohawk was using the Douglas DC-3, Convair 240, 340 and 440. The airplanes were painted red, white and blue with Mohawk Indian heads on the sides. The Convairs had maroon vinyl interiors.

The first job in Overhaul I was assigned to was the fuel tanks of a Convair 240. I had to stick my head and shoulders into the tank (which actually was the inside of the wing - called a Wet Wing) and scrape the sealant off the corners of the tank. Because of gas fumes in the tank there was a venting device run with air that was put on the top of the wing to suck the fumes out. It didn't work that well, so they gave a guy working in the tank an old oxygen mask with a long piece of hose dangling our of the tank. Kind of a crude way to breathe! Guys would always pull tricks on the guy working in the tank. Like farting into the dangling end of the hose. (Mert Smith was famous for that!) Then all the guys would laugh at the guy in the tank as he would come out swearing he would kill the guy who shit on his hose. Of course everyone would act innocent with a halo over his head. Nobody liked working in the tanks so usually they would take turns. I recall I spent a few days cleaning out the tank and then resealing it. I remember Howard Brooks making a comment that the sealing job could have been a lot neater - but it didn't leak so I guess it was okay. I wasn't too crazy about the fuel tank work.

When a Convair 240 came into Mohawk Overhaul, all the panels were removed, rudders, elevators, ailerons, and interiors (seats etc.), engines, landing gear, etc. were taken off and the plane was washed. Then the inspectors went all over the plane writing up all discrepancies that they found with the aircraft. At that time in Overhaul everything that the inspector wrote up had to be fixed before the aircraft left Overhaul. The aircraft would stay in Overhaul for roughly three to four weeks. When it first came in it had a long time to go so everything done was pretty unhurried. The inspectors would go over everything with a fine tooth comb, making sure everything was repaired like the maintenance manual says it should be done. But when it got to the last couple of days before the plane was due to go out, the pressure was on the inspectors to buy out the items fast. There was a lot of tension put between the foreman, to get the plane out on time, and the inspectors, who wanted to make sure that everything was repaired properly. The inspector's name was on every item he okayed. If a plane crashed, he was the one who got blamed. If something failed after he said it was okay. Problems arose when an inspector wouldn't buy out some repair he wasn't sure of. That's when the inspector's foreman would come in. He would buy out the item or if possible re-schedule the repair at a later time when the plane is back in service and is on a R.O.N. (remain over night) at some station. I'm sure the inspection foreman had a few sleepless nights worrying about some delayed repair - but that was part of his job. The company felt that's why he got extra pay as a foreman. If he wouldn't do it, they would get someone else who would.

After the initial inspection, all the work repair cards that were written up as well as the routing work cards that had to be done (like lubrication, filter changes, etc.) were given to the Overhaul lead mechanics. Each lead had twelve mechanics under him. At the start of each shift, he would hand out work cards to all the mechanics assigned to him. Some jobs were better than others were so the newest mechanics got the shit jobs like greasing, corrosion control, fuel tanks, augmentor tubes, etc.. At the beginning, I usually got these shit jobs but I expected it and didn't mind doing them. Some guys resented doing these crappy jobs and they would bitch like crazy. I recall once being assigned to clean corrosion inside a DC-3 wing with three or four other mechanics. It was a boring job of sanding and wire brushing, then painting it with zinc chromate. I remember Howard Thatcher (another mechanic) complaining to everyone that he was hired as a mechanic not as a cleaner and that he shouldn't have to do this job. Our lead was Mert Smith and he told Howard that Hess getting mechanic's pay so shut up. It didn't shut Howard up. I felt that Howard wanted to do bigger and better things, and he eventually became a training instructor.

Another crappy job was spray painting inside the wings and nacelles. We would use zinc chromate primer and this other paint called Xim.  We didn't even use masks when we sprayed, just suck in a big mouthful of air and hold your breath as long as you can while you sprayed. Fun, eh?! I goofed up once. I was told to spray this aileron with Xim, a silver gray looking paint. I asked the lead where they keep the Xim and he told me in the Paint Shop. So I found a five-gallon can of silver gray paint, filled up the spray gun and painted the aileron. It came out real good. The lead (John Major) even complimented on hoe it looked. Well the paint dried real fast. Xim takes a long time to dry. So the lead asked me what paint I used. I took him to the Paint Shop and found out I had used silver Dope (it comes in a five gallon can, just like Xim.) No harm done, they just let it go with the Dope on it.

I remember painting inside the wheel wells. You climbed up on a step stand and then you stood on the gear doors, straddling the open spot where the wheels come up. Well, one of my feet slipped and I fell just catching myself by my elbows on the edge of the gear doors. Boy did that hurt! I had black and blue marks on my arms and also on my shins where I banged them on the step stand as I fell. I was sore for a month! It's a wonder that we all didn't kill ourselves on some of the work and chemicals we used working on the planes. We would use carbon tet, gasoline, Naptha, Paint thinner, Toluol, etc. to clean things and we never wore gloves or protective clothing. Later on (in years) it was forbidden to use a lot of these chemicals because of the harm it does to your body. But, at that time, if you refused to use it, everyone thought you were screwing off trying to get out of work.

After I was working in Overhaul about six months they started changing the color scheme for all of their planes. The new paint scheme was black, gold and white. The tail paint scheme was the hardest to do because they made stencils for slanting stripes and to mask off the tail for painting was hard to get it right.

The black area was painted but the gold area was decals that you cut to fit the stripes. Art the beginning this decal material would blow off and the planes would look terrible with missing or partly missing gold decal material. It took quite a while before they got the right stuff that would stay on. I thought black and gold looked pretty good though.

Mohawk named the 240’s as “Cosmopolitan” and the 440's as “Metropolitan”. At about this time Mohawk wanted to phase out their DC-3’s because they didn't hold that many passengers. On October 10, 1960, in an effort to make them more pleasing to the flying public, they painted some in a “Gay 90's” motif with a Victorian look inside and outside of the planes. They called it “Gaslight Service” and had a gaslight painted on the tail. The stewardesses all wore long Victorian gowns and served local food and drinks on the flights. They served Utica Club beer, New York State cheese and pretzels. I thought it was great and was sorry when they stopped flying them. Of course I liked DC-3's anyway, so I was prejudiced.

Here are some of the names of guys in Overhaul who were hired after me: Joe Aquilino, Bill Kopie, Jim LaCoe, Joe Matis, Ray Mills, Ralph Rhinehart, Zeb Roberts, Gene Seften and Chris Worst.

One night I was walking under a Convair. Someone called my named and I stood up and whacked the top of my head on a bayonet radio antenna. I started bleeding like a stuck pig and was sent to the Rome City Hospital emergency room where they put in about ten stitches. Baldswhiler from the check crew drove me over in his car. I thought from the sound it made that I had knocked a hole in my skull, but fortunately it was only a cut. All I got was a headache and a day off!

When the aircraft left Overhaul it first had to go on a test hop before it was put into service. I was picked to go on a test hop and my job was to write up any discrepancies found during the flight, especially any air leaks around doors and windows. Well this test hop was combined with a checkout flight for a pilot. We took off and they would shut off one engine, do the procedure for single engine shutdown, then start up feathering the engine, flying around on one engine, then doing some stalls and recoveries. I was in the cabin while all this was going on. I strapped myself in because I was bouncing all over the place. I didn't do much checking for discrepancies. I was pretty close to being airsick! I was relieved when the training was over and we landed at Oneida County Airport.

Working during the winter at Utica County Airport was pretty bad with snowdrifts all over the place. The line had to start the engines of their aircraft every two hours or they wouldn't start. They made a little game of starting the engines. If you backfired when starting you had to throw a quarter into a kitty they had in the line break room. Some guys were pretty good at starting without backfiring. Others sounded like shotguns during hunting season. I didn't get much opportunity to run the engines during Overhaul, but I remember running DC-3’s and Convairs occasionally  when I would be farmed out to the line.

Some of the guys who were hired shortly after me come to mind. One guy, a cleaner, sued Mohawk because he opened  a 55 gallon drum of paint stripper that was sitting out in the sun and it spurted out and hit him in the face and burned him. He claimed that nobody trained him on safety precautions in handling chemicals. He sued for a lot of money and I never heard what happened to the case. Another guy just came out of A&P mechanic's school where he was first in his class. He never made his probationary period. He was scared to do work he had never done before. He would always be asking the lead how to do this and that and I guess they felt that it was too much trouble having him on the job. So they laid him off before he finished 90 days. Too bad because he was a good mechanic and probably would have been a good asset for the company once he got over his self-doubt. I know I was a little leery when I got a job assigned that I never did before. What I would do is ask some of the mechanics if they ever did this job before. They always helped you out (with a few exceptions). I remember when I first started, I was given a job to change some “Lord Mounts” in the cockpit. I didn't even know what a “Lord Mount” was or what it looked like. So I told the lead I couldn't find the new Lord Mounts and he went over with me to the parts rack and dug some out for me.  As soon as I saw them, I knew what had to be replaced. That way I didn't look stupid! Crafty, eh?! Another mechanic who didn't stay was a kid from Bolivia called Rudy (short for Rudeshonser). He was Hispanic and I remember our lead, John Major (who evidently didn't like “Spics”) used to give him a hard time. I felt sorry for him. I even had him come over to our apartment in Syracuse for Thanksgiving dinner. He spent the night with us. He was a nice kid. He made his 90 days through a goof up. They miscounted his days and were going to lay him off until they discovered he had 91 days. Rudy didn't stay very long after that anyway. He quit and went either to Miami or back to Bolivia. Too bad!

As I mentioned before, winter was a pisser in Utica. When flight line planes were going up to the gate in the morning they would try to warm up the interiors with these big heating units (Hobarts?). They would start them up to heat air to blow through big ducts into the cabin to warm them up. They had to keep a mechanic on each unit in case they caught on fire. It was kind of a hairy operation - kind of crude - but things were done crudely in those days. Sometimes we would have big snowstorms and the cars would be buried in drifts in the parking lot. They would let everyone part their cars in the hangars. In addition, if you had trouble with your car and couldn't get it started they would let you shove it into the hangar to thaw out, which I thought was pretty nice of them.

The work uniform that was issued for mechanics was a white coverall. On the back was a Mohawk emblem. The guys in the shops (Hydro, M.A., Elect, and Sheet Metal) wore shop coats and some guys in the Instrument Shop wore jackets.

After your ninety-day probation period was up you are expected to join the union. Tom Williams was the steward if I recall, and he was supposed to approach you with the right forms etc. Well a couple of weeks went past the ninety days and nobody came over to ask me to join, so I had to look him up and ask about joining the union - International Association of Machinists Local 75. I had to pay an initiation fee and the fill out forms which authorized the company to take dues out of your paycheck. I think the union president was Charley Pease at that time. I don't remember what the union dues were at the beginning but $6.00 seems to come to mind.

My pay when I started was approximately $2.50 per hour. I would get a raise every six months until I reached top pay as a mechanic after 2 years. I also got a shift differential of 6 cents for 2nd shift plus some 3 cents for having an A&P license. I also got pay raises in between my six-month periods if the contract had scheduled pay raises for everybody, which was nice.

When you came to work you would punch in at a time clock by the main entrance door to the hangar you also would punch out there when you left. The union contract would allow you 5 minutes clean up at the end of the shift, but everyone would clean up and change their clothes about 15 minutes before and would be lined up at the time clock waiting for the buzzer to leave. The bosses, especially Kenny Atwell, would always be after us not to line up at the clock. We would do it anyway! After punching in you went and changed your clothes and if early enough have a cup of coffee before starting work. At the job you would use your time card to keep track of what work you did and what kind of plane you worked on. Your hours had to total up to 8 and the company was always harping on keeping the times straight because the FAA kept track of all the work done for their records. It had something to do with the subsidy the government paid Mohawk.

In those days the government told the airline what city it would fly to, how many flights it would have and in return would make up any losses the airline would incur by flying to these cities. If the airline made a profit then it was to the good. It wasn't a bad deal for Mohawk.

While I was working Overhaul, there was a three-man crew in the same hangar that worked in the check crew: Bill Kopie, Ralph Rhinehart, and “Baldy” Baldswhiler. The airplane due in for the overnight check that was done on the midnight shift would be run up and engines checked by about 11:00 p.m.. Then it would be pushed into the hangar and started to be opened up for the regular check crew guys who started at 11:30 p.m.. Sometimes the guys in Overhaul would help by opening the hangar doors, especially in the winter time when the hangar would cool off instantly when the big doors were open. The guys would open and close them as fast as they could.

Mohawk used to do customer work on other peoples airplanes - CV 240’s and DC-3’s. some of the customers were John Kennedy’s - “Caroline”, C&O Railroad, Sears, Kodak, Rockefeller and some others I can't remember. I do recall that one guy would bring his plane in and would always have Danish and donuts on board and all of us mechanics would rush to get first pick of the goodies. When a customer came in they would pull guys off of O/H to work on the plane and you had to be very careful not to scratch or damage paint jobs when you worked on them. I recall wearing cloth covers over your shoes when you had to walk on the wing. I remember the guy in charge of the Sears plane was a pain in the neck. He was always complaining about the work being done too slowly or that there weren't enough mechanics being assigned to the plane. Sometimes when the line had problems with aircraft and didn't have enough guys to work on them, they would pull guys from Overhaul and if there was a customer plane in, they would pull mechanics off of it. Then you would really hear screaming! The order of priority was to get the line planes first, then a customer, then Overhaul. When it was getting close to getting the Overhaul plane out, the bosses in O/H would be screaming about mechanics being pulled off their aircraft. It could be a rat race at times.

While I was in Overhaul, Mohawk sold a couple of their Convairs to Japan Airlines. They took one of our foremen, Joe Burns, and he went with them and stayed in Japan for about a year until they got checked out pretty well on maintaining the aircraft. I remember when the Convairs were leaving the hangar for Japan, one engine wouldn't start and I recall seeing Bob Shaw (a lead mechanic) pounding on the starter with a 2X4 trying to get it going. It was funny as hell! They ended up changing the starter anyway. When they finally got the engine started it blew a ball of flame out of the augmentor tube; a ball about 5 feet wide, and it made a loud bang. Everybody around the airplane jumped about ten feet in the air! It didn't seem to hurt anything though and the plane made it to Japan okay.

All the mechanics had to have their own tools. When I started they gave you a minimum tool list that every mechanic was to have by the time his ninety-day probationary period was up. I had most of the tools already but had to buy some more. When I stared I had a small toolbox that I bought at Parks when I first started mechanic's school. I didn't have enough room for all of the required tools so I bought a six-drawer tool box at Montgomery Ward. I still have it in my garage. I made a roller platform for the toolbox because you would be working all over the hangar on different airplanes and it was easier to roll your toolbox over than to carry it. I eventually made myself a two-drawer roll away out of a parts cart which lasted me until I retired. In Overhaul you needed some big wrenches for different job. You could usually get these in the tool room. I think the biggest wrench I owned was an 18” crescent wrench and a couple of adjustable Ford wrenches.

Stock room clerks operated the tool room and they used to play little games on the mechanics, especially new hires. The lead would send you to get a special tool (like a “prop dome plug wrench”) and when you got to the tool room window and asked for that tool, they would ask for the “tool number”. Then they would throw a loose-leaf binder with a bunch of sheets containing lists of tools with their Mohawk number. They only did this to piss the mechanics off. It was their way of having fun. Naturally the mechanics didn't like it, especially if they were on their probation period. Not all the stock clerk did this but there were a couple of beauties that did it all the time. The tool room also issued foul weather jackets in the wintertime.

Around 1961 or 1962 Mohawk bought a bunch of Martin 404’s from Eastern Airlines. I don't recall exactly how many, but they use one of them just for spare parts. They took the wings off and stashed the fuselage and wings next to the hangar. Every time they needed some part they would take it off the cannibalized pile of Martin parts. I used to lay on the wings during the summertime with other mechanics during our breaks. It was a pretty comfortable spot!

While I was in Overhaul I kept looking on the bid board for job openings in Syracuse but none ever came up while I was in Overhaul. I was car pooling with a couple of guys from Syracuse: Tony Emmi (an ex-American Airlines mechanic) and Gordon Lawrence (an ex Franklin Engine Company employee). We used to take turns every day driving. We would meet at my house. Gordon Lawrence was not a very dependable car pooler.  Twice he left his car keys at work and I would have to drive him home to get a spare key. He lived on the West Side of Syracuse and I would waste an extra hour driving him home and back. He was a pain in the neck! Tony wasn't any trouble at all. I can recall one night that Lawrence was driving...we got out of work and he drove the back roads to Syracuse to avoid the tolls on the Thruway. When we got to Oneida Lake he turned the wrong way and started heading north. It was a good thing I wasn't sleeping that night or we would have ended up in Camden. I hollered at him, asking where the hell we were going, before he realized he was going the wrong way. After that I never slept when he was driving.

I was in Overhaul for about one-and-a-half years when some bids came up for the Hydraulic Shop daylight. I didn't bid it because I didn't know anything about hydraulics. But another mechanic, Howard Thatcher, who had less time than me, bid it. He got it. I asked him if he had any hydraulic experience and he said no but he told them he worked on brakes on light aircraft and other similar units. They accepted that! So in another month, another bid came up for the Hydraulic Shop and I bid that. I also bid a job in the engine build up at the same time. Well, another guy, and I Bill Scheri were accepted for both jobs. There was a little controversy because I had more mechanic time than Scheri, but he had more company seniority. Larry Peck was the local union chairman at the time and he got Scheri and me together and I picked the Hydraulic Shop and Scheri picked engine build up.