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Welcome to my homepage. I do a lot of stuff in my spare time, see my childhood page and this is where I attended a Latvian School for the Deaf in a D.P. camp at Esslingen, Germany for 6 months after I left Rezekne, Latvia where I was born. Also I attended Ontario School for the Deaf in Belleville, Ontario for 13 years also see alumni site. Since my journey to Germany was during hardship year of Sept. 1944 I got ill and became deaf.
Work, Hobby and Retirement First up is my skilled hands to draw pictures, also as handyman on house repairs, cars, appliances, etc. During awesome years of 1970’s, I traveled with my own beautiful 1972 Green Corvette Stingray on several vacation trips that were my toy obsession for 9 years. The Corvette was sold at twice the purchase price and that money was the downpayment on my first new home last 1982. See West trips page. I worked for Department of Highways, Ontario as Sign Maker for 33 yrs and retired at 53 years old under early retirement formula 80. Thankfully I am a pensioner with full benefits. The work I produced was highway signs first sign painting by hand in the 1960’s until I started using Mac computer operating systems with Adobe Illustrator and Signmaking programs at omega. During retirement time, I produce signs to sell or donate to some charitable groups and some businesses from my own business signs mobile service. See my sign service
Aviation I have
always been an aviation “hobbyist”. My
obsession goes back to childhood which is filled with memories of the
feats of aircraft of WWII and early jets I witnessed during WW
II. Most bombers and fighters passed over me in Europe wartime
and in school not so far from Trenton CFB where Vampire, T-33,
and Harvard were often flown over the school for the
Deaf. One day I was 8 years old and I was inspired when RCAF’s early jet aircraft Vampire F3 ‘s flew over and acted crazy like a “joyride” with a zoom in dive down to
road.
The left wing tip was so close to the road and zipped past me so close
I saw that cockpit with helmet and goggle. A
woman with baby carriage yelled at the Vampire. My first Air Show visit
was Trenton. Oh, I still know many popular aircrafts from a
Spitfire to a Sabre. So, in 1975’s I
joined Canadian Warplane Heritage in
Hamilton where I painted some letterings, numbers, logos, marks on
B-25, Corsair, Mustang P-51, DC-3, Harvard, Chipmunk, TBM, C-45 Expeditor, Cessna T50 Crane, PT-26 Cornell, Fairey
Firefly Mk.5 and more. Also, I rode in the
aircrafts that went to visit some air shows in Texas, NY, Halifax,
Ohio, Trenton, Goderich, Geneseo and Toronto. Look at photo gallery
page. My first witness
of modern aircraft F-4 Phantom
put on such a show at Trenton Air Show that I was dumbfounded. It was
such a big jet fighter - what had happened to sleek jets? This thing
had a droopy nose, bent wings, heavy fuselage, and it looked as though
the stabilizer was so low downward (Anhedral). Also I witnessed F-4J
Phantom Blue Angels F-4J and F-4E Phantom Thunderbirds both were on
Demo teams at CNE Air Show twice. So I went down to the local bookstore
for the F-4 book and I was surprised that book had a list of Ace combat
pilots including Robin Olds, Randy Cunningham,
Steve Ritchie and more aces. I collected many books and die cast 1/72
scale of the Phantoms. I found some errors and missing some
details from the models and books.
However, my thanks that the first books were by Lou Drendel who
knew all the details of F-4. My
goal: to write a book on same F-4. I'm collecting most of my photos and slides from bins in storage: everything from family, friends, school alumni, Latvia, Germany, Auto sport club, air shows and more. I am using a computer with a flatbed scanner to copy old photo prints and slides. At spare time I add into this photo gallery.
Deaf
Since I
became Deaf which was caused by the very serious illness of spinal
meningitis at
2½ years
old, I did not know the hearing world till I enrolled
Ontario School for the
Deaf in Belleville which changed my
strange life. No home with parents except
Christmas for 2 weeks
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