Gone Fishing – 2 Decades Ago I Took a Little Fishing Trip…

July/August/September 1997 (no, that’s not a typo)

Now for something completely different. A look into past Marshall’s life. Something totally unrelated to what I am currently doing, or who I currently am.

I’ve done several things in my life for employment. I wasn’t always a carefree (ha!) nomad. (Though I was at heart.) This is the story of something that I experienced during my first ‘career’ as an aircraft mechanic.

Little known fact about me – I got my private pilot license when I was a senior in high school. I had (misguided) aspirations of becoming a commercial pilot. It would be the culmination of my lifelong love of aviation.

I quickly decided that the commercial pilot route wasn’t going to work out for me, which left me at a loss of what to do. I distinctly remember (which most likely means it didn’t happen this way) my dad coming home one day and suggesting I go to aircraft mechanic school.

I thought this was an interesting idea. I also found it quite amusing since, during high school, I worked for the local flight school where I helped out the mechanics. I swore I’d never become an aircraft mechanic. But I did.

Fast forward a few years. I went to a two year technical school and got my Airframe and Power Plant licenses (from the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA), which meant that I was legally allowed to work on anything that flew.

I soon got a job working for a major helicopter manufacturer as a quality assurance inspector. This was after working on their helicopters in a flight school environment, both while I was going to school and just afterwards.

One thing led to another and I got the opportunity to take a leave of absence from the helicopter factory and head to the South Pacific. Here I spent 2 months (49 days of which were at sea) working as the mechanic for the tuna spotting helicopter on a StarKist tuna boat.

I kept a handwritten diary of my experience during this trip. I knew that one day I’d have a platform to share this story. Not sure I realized it would take me 20 years to do so, but here we are.

If you are at all interested in reading my little fishing tale that took place 20 years ago this year, you can read my Gone Fishing story. This is also accessible via the “Gone Fishing” link in the navigation menu.