Galley Cart Sticker Project

Aviation fans will understand that which I am about to expound upon. Others.... may not get it. But read on my friend.


On Wednesdays I volunteer as a tram driver at the Pima Air & Space Museum here in Tucson, Arizona taking visitors around the museum grounds and telling them a bit about each of the 150+ aircraft we have on display outside on the grounds. The visitors are great, I never fail to meet someone each week with a story to share about an aircraft they (or their dad/grandfather/uncle) flew/crewed/traveled on. The volunteers are just the same: so many stories, so little time. I need 4 pair of ears really. It is just an incredible place to spend an entire day every week.

At the end of each day I have to turn in my radio and often that means taking it into a very dangerous place at the museum (for me anyways): the gift shop. Rows upon rows of aircraft-specific reference books, histories of long forgotten commands and bases, DVDs, aviation apparel and the like. Most days I walk through with my hands in my pockets and my head down trying to resist the gauntlet of temptation that have to run.

Yesterday I looked up. The first step on the slippery slope, so to say.

The MOST dangerous place in the gift shop has a collection of various parts scavenged from surplus aircraft (not museum aircraft mind you) that inhabit the numerous storage facilities around the country. Small parts like spent shell casings, remove before flight flags, pitot tube assemblies and even the occasional technical manual. I glanced over and saw a few manuals for the OH-6A and realized they were sitting on something and upon closer inspection I saw IT.

A fully intact, all the drawers accounted for, present in decent condition airline galley cart. You know, the beverage cart that comes down the aisle. It was love at first sight. What a perfect addition for my office! I mean, as much as we move around, what are the chances of THIS getting damaged by the moving company? It's built to fly for crying out loud! And to my lovely wife's credit, she indulges me from time to time. I think she could hear in my voice when I called her to describe what I found she detected that little bit of "kid" in the voice that this was COOL! And believe it or not IT FOLLOWED ME HOME!!!!!

It is constructed out of stainless steel, aluminum and Formica (or the industrial equivalent) and has all the included drawers complete with dividers for those teeny-tiny liquor bottles. The keys for each door are present, cup holders work, fold out table folds out and overall is one snazzy looking piece of industrial utilitarian equipment.

But it lacks "soul" and this is where I am asking for YOUR help. If you've read my previous posts you know how I love stories; passing down a memory from one person to another. I would love to do that with this piece of equipment, but the cart is just the vehicle for the story. The stories will be represented by aviation stickers. Military, civilian, airline, manufacturer, whatever! For example, the first sticker on the cart that you can see on the photo is a USAF Thunderbird sticker. They're very common, handed out at airshows and school visits in what I imagine are unbelievable numbers. But this sticker is special for me. I obtained this sticker when I was touring the Thunderbird headquarters at Nellis AFB, Nevada as part of the ISAP IX convention. Having spent a couple of hours standing in between the runways during a Red Flag exercise photographing jet after jet leaving for a mission (F-22 Raptors, EA-6B Prowlers, F/A-18 Hornets (from the US and Australia), British Harriers, B-1 Lancers and the F-15s and F-16s of the Aggressor squadrons in their Soviet-inspired paint schemes) the cherry on top of the day was me in the hanger of the Thunderbirds. A very ordinary sticker but the story behind it is what makes it special.

Now every sticker won't be a "I did a fly-by on Penny Benjamin at Mach 3 with my hair on fire" but even a sticker that says HEAVY LIFT can have a human connection to it and that's the kind of stuff I love to experience and share. I would love to have this covered in stickers that, someday, I could sit in front of and point to each one saying "This sticker came from my friend Mike who lived on a small island with us in the Atlantic" or "This sticker came from a guy I knew from Flickr where we shared photos and one day he was......".

So if you have something you'd like to share, slip it in an envelope and send it my way. If there's a story behind it, let me know! I'd love to post them as they arrive to share with others readers of this blog.

My mailing address is:

James O'Rear
14290 S. Via Del Moro
Sahuarita, Arizona 85629
USA