There were at least four guys in Jacksonville who had done some time in Chicago before I got to either: Bill Howard, Art Knettle, Doug Porter, Larry Tyree. They were all interesting people and were well known in both facilities as I later learned. Three are longer among us but I was greeted with the greatest and most pleasant surprise when I went to Traffic Management School in Washington, DC, in 1989. In the information packet I received on Sunday evening when I checked into my hotel in Arlington was a note from Art announcing that he was there and was looking forward to seeing me—after all, it had been 16 years.

We caught up on lots of people, glossed over ’81, and I learned that he was back in Kansas City Center (whence he’d first hired on). Being an adjoining facility, we often had occasion to chat over the succeeding year that I spent in the TMU (traffic management unit). That was a good time.

Last updated: 06 April 2009