Tales of Forest Service Flying

Some old stories and some new about flying for the Forest Service.

As I've stated in other blogs, my Ag flying season usually ended about mid-July in this neck of the woods, namely north Idaho.  Being well acquainted with most of the commercial pilots, operators and other aviation persons in the area, I could usually expect to be called upon to perform other types of flying if I was available, which I most often was.

Flying for the aviation operators who had contracts with the U.S. Forest Service was often my best offer. Some years it was as a patrol pilot, sometimes as what was generally referred to as a utility pilot, some years as a tanker pilot and some seasons it was a combination of patrol and utility flying.

As a patrol pilot, the planes I flew were usually a Cessna 180, a Cessna 185, a Cessna 206 or a single engine Pilatus Porter. My duties were to fly a specific route each day with a forest service person on board as an observer/radio operator. On his lap he would have a detailed map of the forest including the logging roads, the lookout towers and most important, the locations of the landing strips.

Of course, we were primarily looking for fires in the great back-country of Idaho, Oregon, and sometimes other states of the Northwest. These forested areas were in the custody of the U.S. Forest Service.

There were many look-out towers scattered on strategic peaks in the various forests. As we fly by these towers, we contact them by radio to find out if they have spotted a smoke or other indication of the sightings. Usually it is just an old snag that is smoldering from a lightning strike or possible just dust from a logging road.

Anyways, if we spotted an actual fire, we contacted a base of operations and give the exact location of the fire and particulars such as how large the blaze, the intensity of the blaze, if there is fuel around it, or is it isolated. With this information the people at this forest’s headquarters will then decide what the suppression response is to be - maybe a couple of smoke-jumpers can handle it or maybe a half dozen will be required. Maybe a tanker aircraft can be sent to snuff it out, etc.

One year, the contracting company I worked for put me in a Cessna 206. This 300 hp, six place aircraft had been modified a bit so it could carry two smoke-jumpers and a jump master as I made my patrol circuit. The modifications included the removal of the large rear door on the right side of the fuselage as well as the four rear passenger seats. A small cable was attached on the inside of the fuselage opposite the large rear door to which parachute static lines could be attached. The opposite end of the static line was attached to the rip cord of the jumpers parachute so when he leaped out and fell away from the plane it would pull a handle and deploy the chute. There were a few other modifications as well. 

So now if we spotted a fire or a suspicious smoke while flying my routine route, the jump master, an old experienced smoke jumper, would have a look at the fire or potential fire and decide if a couple of smoke-jumpers could handle it. If not, he reported this to Forest headquarters.

I no longer had to call for another aircraft to come out and take care of the situation. Instead the jump master would have me fly over the target and he would toss out some streamers which were long strips of DayGlo colored cloth which were attached to a small weight.  He would observe the way the streamers drifted and note the time it took them to reach the ground. These streamers were designed to descend at about the same rate as a parachute jumper. He would then make the decision whether or not to deploy the two jumpers. 

If he decided to deploy, he would give me the altitude and direction to fly over the target. I would slow the aircraft to a speed that was appropriate and as we came over the target area, he would give the command, “go!!” and the jumpers bailed out. As soon as the jumpers hit the ground, the jump master would have me roll into a bank and circle the boys and they would give us a signal. In those days we had no radio contact with them so we used signals.

If we received no signal it usually meant something was wrong and we acted accordingly. If the signal was “all is well,” then the jump-master would have me fly over them at about two or three hundred feet altitude above the ground and bring him over the target two more times. Each time he would shove out what appeared to be a large canvas duffel bag that was called a “fire-pack.” This bag contained the necessary equipment, survival gear and food rations the jumpers would need. When this was done, our mission was accomplished and we would generally head back to base. As we did so, the jump master would talk to the base on the radio and give them the exact location and other particulars as to where the fire was and the information that the jumpers were deployed.

As a rule, this system worked very well. We had a hitch only a few times during this fire season. One time after dropping the jumpers I was circling the them as they were descending and the jump master became a bit excited and cursed and said, "One of the boys has a line over!!"  This was a condition when one of the lines that supported the jumper below the parachute had become misplaced over the top of the canopy. It causes the canopy to spill air out of the side and this would increase the speed of descent and the jumper would hit the ground hard - sometimes hard enough to injure him, like a broken leg or even a broken back. Fortunately, on this occasion the jumper was not hurt.

On another instance because of wind currents, a jumper came down in some very tall trees. His chute became entangled with a dead limb. The limb gave way and the jumper fell about forty or fifty feet through the branches and hit the ground hard enough to break a leg. As we circled to see if all was well, no one gave us a signal. We could not see down in the thick trees so we didn’t know exactly what had happen but assumed something was wrong and called base. They soon had a helicopter on the way to pick the boy up.

An interesting little aside - If it was a very windy day with lots of updrafts and downdrafts the jump master would throw out his streamers and decide it was too dangerous to deploy the smoke jumpers. So we would report this to headquarters and then continue on with our surveillance and no one left the plane. On some of these flights we might have some newbies on board. As one might expect, they were usually a bit nervous. If it happened to be one of those windy, bumpy days, out of pure orneriness, the jump-master would throw out his streamers and watch them fall. Then throw out more streamers and watch them with a look of concern, knowing full well he had no intentions of deploying the jumpers he would throw out some more and watch them intently, at which time the new jumpers who were already sweating would usually curse him and sing out, “You son of a____, you aren’t going to kick us out in this kind of wind are you?" At which time the jump-master would grin or chuckle and say, "You boys ain’t skeered are you?" He would look at me and wink and say, "I guess these here boys is too skeered of a little breeze so I guess you will have to take us home."
   
As a utility pilot, I was called upon to do many different types of flying. I hauled forest service personnel to various destinations, such as carrying Forest Service VIPs from our base in Coldwell, Idaho to the Ogden, Utah office or other destinations.  I would transport Forest Service people to strips in the back country on various kinds of business or fly in to pick them up and bring them back to the base. I hauled loads of feed for horse or mules into the outback strips because some Forest Service people use these animals, since there are no roads to these strips. And any number of other similar errands. This was my favorite kind of flying because there was something new almost every day and it was not so monotonous.

As an example, on one occasion I transported some horseshoe farriers into a back-country strip where a forest service ranger lived and used horses and mule regularly as pack animals or to ride. It took most of the day for the farriers to do their work. I had to stay there with nothing to do until they finished. It was interesting to watch them work because some of the mules were five or six years old and had never had shoes on their hooves and they didn’t like the idea of anyone messing with their feet. The farriers knew their business though, and some of the animals they led out to a grove of small trees where they were thrown down, turned upside down and their legs lashed to a tree. In this position it then was easy for the shoes to be nailed on. 

I remember one of the animals resisting every attempt. Nevertheless, he got a set of shoes anyway.  He was so put angry when they took the ropes off him, he refused to get up. He lay there making strange mule noises. One of the farriers picked up an empty tin-can. Filling it with water, he then walked over to the protesting mule and lifted up one of his big ears and proceeded to pour it full of water.  I’m here to tell you that mule came up in a big hurry!!! Slinging his head from side to side he gave forth such braying as I had never heard. We all had a big laugh at his antics. At sundown we loaded up and flew back to base.

As a tanker pilot, my job was to fly an aircraft heavily loaded with fire-retardant and drop it on the fires. When I was involved with this type of flying, single engine planes were still in use.  This was considered the most dangerous with good reason. As a tanker pilot one must fly a plane heavily loaded with fire retardant to the fire site. Skimming low over the blazing forest, he drops the load. If the fire happened to be located on a flat meadow in an easy accessed area, it was not so bad. 

However, more often than not it was in a rugged piece of real-estate with deep canyons and steep, heavily forested mountains all around. The air was full of smoke with wicked up and down-drafts causing the plane to buck and pitch enough to rattle your teeth, as all the while you are trying to place the retardant where it will do the most good.  Believe me, it ain’t easy and was quite dangerous. I lost some good friends who were carrying out this work. Of course, this type of tanker planes is not in use anymore, only larger multi-engine type aircraft and planes especially designed are in use now days. It is still dangerous duty and requires a pilot with good judgement and a steady hand and nerves.                               

Stealth Cropdusters

Many years ago I was employed by an ag-flying company or as some would call it, an agricultural-air application company, based in Oklahoma called "American Dusting Company."  It was quite a large company with dozens of planes and pilots, one of the largest in the U.S. The company divided its planes and pilots up into units of two, three, or more. Each unit had a manager and these units were scattered all over the southwest. The main base and maintenance shop was in Chickasaw, Oklahoma. I became acquainted with many of the pilots during the three years that I flew for American.

Of course all pilots have flying stories: Some true, some true but "embellished," and some out-right LIES. One of the true ones I shall pass along because I thought it very interesting. This story I believe to be authentic because it came to me from several different sources and they all told the same tale.

Back in the middle 20th century there was an outbreak of a certain kind of beetle that infested very large areas of forests of the northeastern states of the U.S. A group of companies got their heads together and made plans to gather up as many ag-planes and pilots as they could lay hands on and get them organized and attack the devilish little creatures that were doing great damage to the forests.

The word went out all across the fruited plains of agricultural America that there was much money to be made by this armada of bug-fighting flyers. American Dusting Company was contacted and agreed to send six of their choice birdmen to join this effort. This detachment was to be led by one of the owners, Mr. Bob Smith (not his real name), who was a former Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Air Force and was still a member of the reserve.

The planes to be sent were PT 17 Stearmans converted to ag-plane configuration, including a 450 hp Pratt Whitney engine. I might also add that none were equipped with a full panel of flight instruments, just the bare bones of a primary panel which had a magnetic compass, an altimeter, an airspeed indicator and engine instruments such as RPM gauge, manifold pressure gauge, oil pressure gauge and possibly a engine temperature gauge. If you were lucky some of these still worked. At cruise speed the Pratt Whitney burned around 20 gallons an hour and the gas tank held 46 gallons, which gave approximately two hours of safe flying between refills.

Plans were made, routes were selected, bags were packed, and one fine morning the intrepid gaggle of beetle battlers left Chickasaw for the great state of Maine. Oh, did I mention - the planes had no radios for communication. All would be following their fearless leader Mr. Bob. Oh, and did I also mention - the planes had no running lights or any other kind of lights either.

Of course many fuel stops were made along the way which made for slow progress across the country. Nevertheless they made their way without mishap to the state of Maine where weather began to be a factor. It was getting late in the day and the overcast was getting lower and lower. Their next gas stop was a small town airport. The pilots began to get uneasy because dark was fast approaching. Eventually the only way they could see each other was by keeping in sight of the long blue blaze of flame from the exhaust pipe. Of course they were over strange country and one could not even see their maps. They were just following Mr. Bob, who was reading his map by flash light.

Then when it seemed that disaster was steadily gaining on them they saw some very strong lights on the horizon. As they got nearer they could make out that it was runway lights at an airport. Each pilot was thinking, "I don’t care what Mr. Bob or any of the other pilots do, I am going to land at this airport, come hell or high water."

And so they did.

One by one, Mr. Bob and all the pilots landed on the big, wide, long runway and breathed a sigh of relief as they taxied into a tie-down area on one side of the field. It seemed there was a airport terminal on one side and what appeared to be a military base on the other side. Anyway, they all got out of their planes and were laughing and congratulating themselves on their good fortune as they strolled inside the terminal building.

When they entered the building the clerks behind the desk looked at them in surprise and then all hell broke loose, as one pilot told me later. A clerk picked up a telephone and they noticed he was wearing an Air Force uniform. 

Within minutes a military vehicle pulled up to the door and half a dozen soldiers with submachine guns came charging into the room. They were quickly hustled into an adjoining room, searched and told to stand against a wall. Of course this was all a big surprise and they could not imagine what was going on. Mr. Bob approached the officer in charge of the soldiers and demanded an explanation. When the officer heard that Mr. Bob was a reserve officer in Air Force his attitude immediately changed.

The officer explained that this was a SAC (Strategic Air Command) base and on this night they were on a practice high alert. Suddenly it all came clear. This group of cropdusters had inadvertently stumbled in to a bad situation. The base was on alert and yet six low-flying aircraft with no lights had managed to land unseen on the base. They were flying too low for the radar to pick them up. They had taxied in the dark to a tie-down area, parked their planes and entered the terminal - all totally unseen until the a clerk saw them and wondered what the sam hill was going on.

The men at the base knew that General Curtis Lemay, who was the overall commander of the Strategic Air Command, many times did such things as this to test the base’s security operations. They were sure this was another of those tests.

It took a lot of explaining but finally the officer in charge of security became convinced that it was just a weird happenstance. However, he knew that if the story got out that a flight of six airplanes had snuck into his base without detection, his job would be on the line. His main aim was to prevent this. 

Consequently he had the unlucky cropdusters placed in a military truck and escorted under guard to a hotel where they spent the night. No one was allowed to talk to them. The next morning they were returned to the airbase and their planes were fueled. The officer in charge said, "Now, you boys get in your planes and get the h--- out of here and DO NOT SAY A WORD ABOUT THIS TO ANYONE OR I WILL HAVE YOU UP ON MORE CHARGES THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE."

The American Dusting company pilots did as ordered and that was pretty much the end of the story, as far as the Air Force was concerned. The pilots proceeded on to New Brunswick and fought blister rust beetles until the outbreak was under control.

But there's no way a story like that can be kept completely secret. One of the pilots in this group was a friend I knew well and he was the first to tell me, under a request of secrecy of course. I've honored his request and changed the names to protect the "guilty."

Three Mistakes and You're Out - Almost

While flying for the Forest Service, I had another "adventure."

In order to be at the airport one morning, I had to arise before daylight and drive for an hour and a half. I was assigned a different airplane to fly this particular morning. As I recall, it was a Cessna 180, one that I had not flown before. Each airplane, like a car, has its own set of peculiarities. I had flown this type many times, but I checked this airplane over as usual, including a careful "walk around inspection."

After being given my day's assignment, I was introduced to my Forest Service observer partner whom I'll call Ted (name changed to protect the stupid). We climbed aboard. I cranked the engine and taxied out to the active runway. At this point I realized that in my rush to get going that morning I had forgotten my watch. I mentioned it to Ted as I started to return to the hanger. He said, "No problem, I have a very good watch and I’ll keep track of our time."  Reluctantly I agreed, "Well, OK."

Mistake #1.

We took off and headed out over the forest to look for smokes or anything that might indicate a fire. We checked with each lookout tower as we passed. It seemed each one had seen a suspicious looking plume of smoke which turned out to be false alarms such as a patch of lingering fog or dust thrown up by a truck on a logging road. Checking these out, we slowly made our usual route over the dense woods, deep canyons, and high peaks. Altogether, it was a normal, boring day of forest service surveillance.

 We were cruising at a relatively slow airspeed of some 110-120 mph. As the day wore on, I occasionally glanced at the electric fuel gauges and noted we didn’t seem to be burning up the fuel as much as I expected. Oh well, it was probably because of the lower power setting I was using. I casually mentioned this to Ted.  He looked at his watch and said, "Don't worry, we have plenty of time left." I went along with his assessment.

Mistake #2.

He hardly got the words out of his mouth when I spotted a fairly large plume of smoke. I pointed it out to Ted. He said, "Let’s take a look." We were flying at about 7000 above sea level. As I turned toward the smoke, I noticed we were over a large high mountain valley shaped like a big bowl. The smoke was near the middle of it. As we came over the smoke I could see flames flickering at the base of it.

Ted became very busy plotting the position of the fire. He had me circle the fire as he plotted - around and around and around. I again looked at my fuel gauges. We had emptied one tank and were now working on the other one. I said, "It seems to me we have been out here quite awhile." He again quickly looked at his watch and replied, "We got lots of time yet." I went along with his call.

Mistake #3.

He then said, "I need for you to fly lower in order for me to get an intensity reading on the fire." They do this so they can tell the dispatcher how many smoke jumpers to send out.

I throttled back and descended to about five- or six-hundred feet above the forest tree tops, continuing to circle. He then asked, "Can’t you take us down lower?"

I pulled the flaps down and we quickly began to lose altitude. At about the same time the engine of the aircraft went silent.

Then it caught and ran for a moment or two, then went silent again. Needless to say, I was startled and alarmed!  I quickly scanned the panel, including the fuel gauge. It registered that we had about a third of a tank of fuel. So my mind quickly dismissed the thought of fuel starvation and figured it was something else. This took only seconds, during which time the engine continued to burp and quit and burp and quit. I raised the flaps. Suddenly I had full power again for a minute or two. Each time it quit I would rock the wings back and forth and it would run for a bit. This proved to me that I did have a fuel starvation problem. 

During the couple of minutes this happened I did two things. First, I headed for lower ground which was a wide draw in the bottom of the bowl. This draw emptied into a shallow canyon and this canyon emptied into a much deeper canyon. At the same time I was practically yelling at Ted to give the dispatcher our location and tell him we are having engine trouble and could go into the trees at any time. Instead of doing this, he quickly shoved his boom mike up over his forehead and grabbed at the glove box for a barf bag into which he proceeded to empty the contents of his stomach.

By now my mind is racing in near panic. I thought, "This is just perfect. We are going into the trees and no one will know where to look for us and this joker is too busy filling up barf bags to tell them."

I was still getting little bursts of power so even though we were losing altitude it wasn’t as fast as with a completely dead engine. I flew out of the draw into the shallow canyon and on out into a very deep canyon which gave me a couple of thousand feet of altitude to work with.

Finally Ted got himself together and called the dispatcher in Grangeville and gave him to understand our emergency. The dispatcher laconically replied, "Well, tell him to land at Moose Creek."

I thought, "You idiot, that is 20 miles away! I’ll be very lucky if I can keep this machine in the air for five miles."

I knew that the canyon I was in emptied into the Selway River canyon and suddenly I remembered that two or three days before I had been flying over the Selway River in this area and had spotted an old abandoned Forest Service landing strip alongside the river. I remembered thinking sometime or other I might need to land on this strip and so I had gone in and landed there just to check it out. (The Lord sure looks out for idiots!)

Very shortly I sailed out into the big, wide Selway canyon, still steadily losing altitude. But by rocking the wings I was getting a short burst of power to extend my glide. I wasn’t exactly sure which way to turn to get to the strip, but was pretty sure it was to my left so turned in that direction. I came around a bend in the river and there it lay--abandoned, overgrown with weeds and small brush, but believe me it was beautiful.

It was one of those one-way strips which meant I had to go down stream past the strip and make a 180 degree turn and land going up stream. I was down to about 400 feet above the river and knew it was going to be close. I nursed my altitude like a miser nurses his money and prayed that I would have enough. As I came abreast of the strip going down stream, my engine fired its last shot. It was dead stick from here on in.

I made the 180 degree turn as carefully as I could and as I rolled out of the turn I remembered there was a small knob of a hill directly at the near end of the strip. At this point I could not see my strip because of this knob-like shoulder off the canyon wall. I wasn’t at all sure I would be able to clear it.

I was flying at half flaps and when I got within a hundred feet of the knob, I grabbed the flap lever and pulled full flaps. This had a slight ballooning effect and lifted me over the knob and there was the beautiful strip directly in front of me. I managed to set down with very little trouble from the weeds and low brush. We rolled to a stop and I sat there for a few moments thanking God for the help.

I looked at Ted and he didn’t seem the least bit excited as if he did this every day of his life. He was talking on the radio to our dispatcher saying, "Yeah, we landed at the old Shearer strip on the Selway. No problem. Yeah the engine quit for some reason, but we made it down OK." He then turned to me and said nonchalantly "What do you suppose is wrong with the engine?"

I dawned on me this clown didn’t have the least clue that we had run out of fuel. Realizing my stupidity could cost our company the Forest Service contract, I muttered, "I don’t know - might be fuel pump."

The word was passed along to my company boss, Frank, back in Grangeville and he said he would be in to pick up Ted and then we would see about getting the plane out. My boss soon appeared coming up the canyon in another plane. He landed, but rolled to a stop at the opposite end of the runway and got out and messed around the plane for a few minutes, making me wonder what he was doing. Finally, he climbed back in his plane and taxied up to where we were and got out.

Frank was not a talkative man. He said a few words to Ted and told him to go head and get into his airplane and he would take him home. Ted did so. As soon as he was out of ear shot, Frank turned to me and growled, "You [expletive deleted], you ran it out of gas. Does the observer know that?"

"I don’t think he has a clue," I replied.

"Good! I am going to take him out of here. I have left some five-gallon cans of gas down at the other end of the strip. After we are gone you can walk down there and get them. If you have any more trouble, call me on our frequency and I will bring a mechanic back with me."

Without further adieu he took off. I managed to pour one of the cans of gas into my ship, then I cranked it up and taxied down to where the other cans were hidden in the weeds. I poured the four remaining cans into my plane and flew home.

Frank never told the Forest Service honchos that one of his pilots was dumb enough to run a plane out of gas over the back country. It would have likely caused him to lose his contract with them.

Because of Frank and my good buddy Buck Erickson I became "famous" for this little episode. (Not a good kind of fame either!)

Like Buck said, "Roberts, only you and God know how you managed to stay out over the forests of Idaho well beyond the length of time it takes to use up the fuel, land dead stick on an abandoned strip, and never scratch the paint on the plane - WITH a passenger on board as a witness!"

Forest Fire Flying

The Northwestern part of the U.S. has thousands upon thousands of acres of forest lands that are managed and cared for by the U.S. Forest Service. This is timber-covered country whose mountains reach to ten thousand feet or more in elevation.

In my day, the Forest Service relied heavily on various types of aircraft to service these great forests lands. Though they actually owned few planes of their own, they contracted with privately owned air-service companies to furnish planes and qualified pilots to do their flying. This type of back country flying included fire-suppression tanker planes, fire patrol planes, utility and cargo planes, and planes suited for dropping fire fighters by parachute (which are better known as smoke-jumpers).

The Forest Service has created and maintained numerous landing strips scattered over this huge section of the Northwest. Many of these strips were located in deep canyons along streams, creeks and rivers. They were usually short, sometimes rough, and often were what was called “one way strips,” meaning you had to land in one direction only and no going around for a second shot if you missed the first one. It was well known that over the years quite a number of pilots and their passengers had been injured or killed trying to use these strips. Most of the strips required pilots with mountain flying experience to safely negotiate them.

My first experience with this type of flying with the Forest Service was as a fire patrol plane pilot for an air-service operator in Grangeville Idaho. On a typical patrol, I would report into the office in the early morning and be assigned a plane to fly, usually a Cessna 180 or 185 or a Cessna 206. I would be given a briefing on the route I would fly and introduced to a Forest Service person who would accompany me as an observer and radio operator. The observer was a man familiar with the route and he would occupy the right front seat beside me. In his lap he would have large map grid of the area with the route and all the lookout towers depicted on it. He would have ear phones and a boom mike on his head for easy and continuous communication with the dispatch office at the home base. Also he would be contacting each of the lookout towers along our route as we flew by them.

This particular season I was hired to fly a Cessna 206, which was a six-place machine. The 4 rear seats were removed and a few modifications installed. I would be flying patrol but with two smoke jumpers and a jump-master on board. Each jumper also had a fire pack to be dropped separately. These contained most of his necessary equipment, a sleeping bag, food supplies, etc. If a fire was spotted, the jumpers were deployed so as to land in a nearby clearing if possible.

As soon as they hit the ground I would make a low pass over them and the jump-master would shove the fire-packs out. This was a bit tricky. Each pack had its own small parachute. As I made the low pass I had to signal the jump-master the exact moment to shove them out so as to land in the clearing where the fellows on the ground were. As a general rule I managed to drop them on the spot or very close. I had done this many times.

It was late in the season. The nights were getting cold in the high elevations and the packs were important to the men I had just dropped. On the first low pass I yelled, "Let ‘er go!" and the jump-master shoved out pack number one. I pulled up in a tight turn so I could observe where the little chute and pack would land. There was one lone, very tall pine tree in the middle of the clearing and... you guessed it.

The blasted chute settled directly over the tip top of the tree. I made the second pass and again at the right instant yelled, "Let ‘er go!" As I pulled up and turned to watch, the second little chute was caught up in some sort of wind gust and started floating slowly away from the clearing. On and on...and on... it went on down the canyon. I don’t know where it landed, but it definitely was not in the reach of the poor jumpers on the ground. There was nothing else I could do so I headed home, knowing that those men were going to spend a long cold night and maybe several days without sleeping bags, blankets, tools and food.

About five days later I was out at the airport servicing my plane when two very large men walked up to me. I recognized the biggest of the two was one of the jumpers I had marooned up in the mountains. He walked straight up to me with a serious look on his face, reached out with his huge hand and grasped the front of my shirt. He pulled me up close and in a low controlled growl said, "Dale, I want to explain to you what it's like to spend two days and three nights at about eight thousand feet in these here mountains without anything to eat but some candy bars. No sleeping bags, no saw, no ax, no nothing. I OUGHT TO WRING YORE NECK."

What could I say but, "Yes sir, yes sir, no sir, yes sir." He then let go of my shirt and stomped off. Whew. I was very happy that the boss had told me that the season was over and I could go home for the winter. I sure didn’t want to have that dude in my care again!