(You need to read it to see why!)

Folks….

Yesterday we had an excellent crowd for what turned out to be pretty much Comedy Central! When we finally called a halt to it there were still some guys waving their hands to contribute… Since most had already had the stage we told them to wait until March (your humble scribe was one of them!) to tell that joke or story!

One person there as a first time guest was Bennet Aiken, Jr, son of Eastern Captain Ben Aiken (former REPA President, Charm School Chief in Miami and lots of other honorable positions, including one great guy to fly with!!!!!)….

Ben Jr. has a business up in Cleveland, GA called Mountain Air Apparel and Embroidery… He has put together a lot of Eastern designs and was actually wearing one of them on a long sleeve blue denim shirt… In addition to the Eastern Logo and EASTERN in caps above the shirt pocket he also had a small Eastern 1011 in Hockey Stick colors, all of this embroidered on the shirt, with the airplane just above the word EASTERN… He has a wide variety of shirts and other garments that can be embroidered with Eastern logos, airplanes, names and so on….

Ben has a website www.mountainairapparelandembroidery.com which one can visit for more information and also for ordering items…. He did say that they can be purchased cheaper however by contacting him direct via phone at 1-866-965-4072 or via Email at mtnairembroidery@windstream.net.

Now it has been the policy of REPA for many years to not do advertising except for books that were authored by REPA members, which we do at no charge… That applies to the REPArtee magazines and the REPA Website…

However it does not apply to the EALinfo Email net as that belongs to your, once again, humble servant, that being me!

Even though we are advertising Ben’s business it is done so at no cost to him, I have ordered a shirt from Ben and it will be paid for in full by me!

Another reason we are giving Ben this publicity is because, as all should know by now, we shut down the Cash Sales at our conventions, the last one being at Tampa last November… But those wishing to buy some Eastern shirts and so on can still do so by contacting Ben Aiken…

We had other guests at the luncheon yesterday… From the Silver Liners we had first time attendee June Dalton. Also with Clyde Biddle was his guest, former Atlanta Manager of Line Maintenance Gerald Dailey, who had over 50 years service with Eastern! Another first timer was UAL Captain (and former EAL F/O) Jack Cochran, who also joined REPA while at the luncheon.

We had loads of Door Prizes, one of which was to have been the Wings of Man book (about Dick Merrill) but somehow in the hustle and bustle at the Head Table we overlooked awarding it! So it will be available for a Door Prize in March.

And the Winners Were!!!

Ron Gabler……… $15.00
Ed Bruce………… $10.00
Howard Tucker….. $ 5.00
Tom Gray…………Framed A-300 Painting (donated by Jim Whitlock)
Ben Aiken……...…Framed A-300 Painting (donated by Jim Whitlock)
Marty Tabacchi…..Eastern embroidered Golf Shirt (donated by Ben Aiken)

Ron Gabler donated 12 free Chick-Fil-A sandwich coupons so we decided to have drawing for a set of two each per winner…

The six winners were: Hoyt Davis, Jay Allen, Keith Crosby, Dick Garner, Gerald Dailey and Jim Holder.

One last bit of information!

After the luncheon Jerry Frost and I installed the new Information Plaque at the new Bronze Memorial… The text on the old one did not accurately reflect what is now presented on the Memorial so we had a new one engraved. We simply placed the new one on top of the old one as they are the same size.

In a few years we plan to have engraved the third (and final) smaller plaque which will have the names of anyone we missed on the two large plaques. Even though they contain 6,744 names, we are already aware of some we inadvertently left off….

Jim Holder