[ARC5] Inflicting Your Collection on Relatives

[Robert Eleazer]

I heard of a case of a man who started an oil drilling supply company after WWII.  Over the years he acquired equipment as required and storage buildings to put it in.  He sold the company before he passed away; his son ended up being one of the vice presidents, and was given the job of looking at all of the equipment in storage in various locations and getting rid of it.

 

One piece of property was an airplane hangar at an airfield in Arizona.  He and one of the other employees, his cousin, went there to survey the contents, figuring it would be full of pipes and worn out equipment.  When they walked in the cousin looked at the contents in dismay and said "Oh no!  How are we ever going to get this thing out of here?  It's huge!  What is it going to cost us to have it hauled off?"

 

The son of man who built the company said "Oh, I don't think we will have any trouble getting rid of this piece of equipment."

 

He was right.  The hangar held a perfectly preserved Lockheed P-38 Lightning.

 

His dad had always wanted one, bought it in 1954, parked it and left it in the hangar.  How could his dad inflict that item on him, indeed..



Wayne

WB5WSV