Click here to return to our home page.

Ferry Trips
Click to learn more about ferry trips needing pilots, or having your plane ferried.
Ferry Pilots
See interesting articles we've posted on our home page over the years by clicking here.
Articles
Click to read my latest.
Editorial

Finance
We have lots of Aviation Links
Links
Interesting aviation and other videos
Videos
Click here to send us an email
Email

Home

April 20, 2021 Click here to mail this page to a friend.
Ignoring Clint Eastwood's advice in "Dirty Harry" that opinions, like certain body parts, are best kept to yourself.
Walter Mondale 1928 - 2021

Only an occasional motorcade or a van of reporters glided up or down the streets of the lake-and-tree-covered subdivision of North Oaks, Minnesota. The suburb is so preoccupied with security that the entire 5,100-acre subdivision is private property. Even the streets are owned by a property owners association, with signs warning that all except residents are trespassers. Today, newspapers and electronic mainstream media are carrying the story of the death of 93 year old former Vice President Walter Mondale, but here is a story that you probably won't see elsewhere, sent to me by my daughter, a resident of North Oaks, Minnesota.

Back in 1983, this was a big deal for the gated community, "Fritz", as he was known to friends, was a likeable Minnesota native. I met him twice, once back in the mid-1960's on an early Saturday morning in front of a grocery store, where he was handing out his election brochures and campaigning for office. It was still pretty early, and I had a chance to spend a couple of minutes with him. He was one of those fellows you would like instantly.

1984: Tiny North Oaks, Minnesota Survives Mondale Invasion
Only an occasional motorcade or a van of reporters glided up or down the streets of the lake-and-tree-covered subdivision of North Oaks, Minnesota. The suburb is so preoccupied with security that the entire 5,100-acre subdivision is private property. Even the streets are owned by a property owners association, with signs warning that all except residents are trespassers.
Several years later, as Vice President, he loved to fly Air Force Two up to International Falls on summer fishing trips. I was vice president of the local bank, and before he started doing that the local airport was just a typical small town one. The men's room had just one faucet on the sink, cold water, and for some reason, it was painted red. After Mondale started showing up, so did a lot of government money to make the place one of the finest small town airports in America.

About lunchtime one summer day, I got a call from my friend Dave at the newspaper, "Ron, Mondale's going to be at the Holiday Inn, let's go over there for lunch." So we did, walked right in the place, no security, and waited in the lobby for a couple of minutes. Then, a side door opened, and there he was, accompanied by four or five Secret Service agents, and he started shaking hands with everyone as he made his way to a private dining room. Everyone included Dave and me.

Fritz was up for one of his fishing trips, those Secret Service guys always came to town a few days early to check things out, including the local characters. Strange, they never talked to me. Wearing suits, dark glasses, and whispering into their cufflinks, they blended right in, where the only other people in town wearing a necktie worked at the bank or a law office.

I remember Dave and I tried to guess just how much those walleyes were costing the taxpayers. Whatever we came up with, it was a big number. I complain now when the Minnesota reservation Native Americans sell them at local grocery stores for $17 a pound. But i have to admit, that if you've ever had a good walleye dinner, it is worth all of that.

Good memories from good times.

Please visit my travel blog to learn more about my life on the road.

Follow us as we travel around in our motorhome.


Global Air Aviation Referral Service


I welcome responses, and will be glad to post them here. Email your remarks to ron@global-air.com



Adding Global Air Links to your website is free, easy to install, and helps build traffic. Click to learn more.
Most Recent Editorial


Recent
Global Air Links:



Originally country music shared structural similarities with folk tales. The performances were usually live and the songs and instrumentation would vary depending on the geographical location. Listening to traditional country music allowed one to learn about the history and culture of that area.

If you feel an evil sort of glee at the slip-ups of another, are you a bad person? Just about all of us experience schadenfreude at some point in our lives.

The system was tested every Saturday. But on that Saturday in 1971, a real message, not a test message, came over the special teletype network that sat inside every radio and TV station. ''Message authenticator: hatefulness, hatefulness'', it read. ''This is an emergency action notification (EAN) directed by the President. Normal broadcasting will cease immediately.''

A cell phone app that’s flown under the radar for even die-hard music lovers. Radio Garden is a free app for iPhones and Android devices that brings in tens of thousands of radio stations broadcasting live 24 hours a day.

The last B-52 rolled off the assembly line in October 1962, but has been given a new lease of life by the Pentagon in what some predict will be a new Cold War against the twin threats of China and Russia.

Hemisphere is a secretive program run by AT&T that searches trillions of call records and analyzes cellular data to determine where a target is located, with whom he speaks, and potentially why.

Burt Prelutsky is an American screenwriter, newspaper columnist and author. He is known for his work on M*A*S*H, Hobson's Choice, and McMillan & Wife.


Ferry Trips | Ferry Pilots |Articles | Editorials | Aviation Links | Financing | Videos | Home

For more information, call us at 763-389-9399.
Specifications are based upon owner's representations and subject to buyer's verification. Aircraft are subject to prior sale or removal from market. Occasionally, registration numbers on photos may be altered or removed to protect the privacy of the owner, and to ensure that buyers will work with us to complete the purchase.