Cowboy Mafia book review

Cowboy Mafia first published in 2000 isn't very good read though it could have been and if re-written it could still be.

The Author, Roy Graham obviously self-published it since there is no publishing company listed anywhere inside or out. The cover art was copyrighted by JR Graham so I'm going out on a wing here and say that's a Roy Graham pseudonym.

I'm doing research on the drug smuggling industry as it relates to Corrosion Corner so I got the book through Amazon (Barnes & Noble online offers it too). I read its forward and it sounded like a good amount of information could be gleaned from the pages. There is a story here but it is very poorly presented.

I went back to Amazon's site and read the 35 reviews to see if anyone had the same reaction I did. To my surprise I found 17 of them to be five stars. When I read those reviews I saw a pattern develop and I recalled the old marketing technique from the past about writing you own reviews and back cover endorsements under various pseudonyms. Sorry to say, in this case the ploy was very obvious.

Upon looking at the one, two & three star ratings I could see my evaluation had hit the mark. Most were very eloquent in there encouragement of the author but pointed out the many flaws they found. However, more than a few were very direct. Review titles include "Can You Say Run-on Sentence?", "Great Story-Horrible Writing!", "Incredibly Idiotic", "Lost in Space" and "needed a proof reader".

My own comments would echo those and as I said above, it still could be a good story. Authors are often a fickle lot who don't take critique well. Pilots, who often have big egos are the same. Most of us are Type-A personalities. But I even question some of Roy's qualifications though I am sure he is a pilot.

In his personal assessment of his own background as a pilot he made a glaring error in the first three pages of the book by calling a T-41 a jet. It isn't. It's a Cessna 172 (145 HP version) and it was often used by civilian instructors to give U.S. Air Force pilots their initial flight training. However, the aircraft he describes is a T-37 and I'd have to research further but I don't think civilian instructors taught in the U. S. Air Force's T-37s.

I personally don't like his depiction of these guys as having some sort of moral code. He comes very close to idolizing them and almost painting them as victims.

Finally, the font for the typesetting appears to be a basic word pad or basic word processor font. There are no changes throughout the book except the foreword. It was obviously written using a different word processing program. Parts of the foreword were used many times in the "positive" reviews I saw on Amazon.

I'll do a bit more reading and see if there are jewels-in-the-rough here but I wouldn't recommend it as a good read.

Book Overview - From Props to Jets

From Props to Jets - Commercial Aviation's Transition to the Jet Age 1952 - 1962

Authors: Jon Proctor, Mike Machat and Craig Kodera
ISBN 978-1-58007-146-8
© 2010 Specialty Press, North Branch, MN

Old propliners or jetliners, I love them all. I love the Golden Age of Aviation when life was a lot more simple and you saw the adventure in air travel. Today, most air travel is only drudgery due to the TSA and its supposed fight against terrorism. I think all of that is politically motivated as a form of control over the populations ability to move about. But then that's my opinion. Pushing that aside, I wanted to review a book about the historical changes that took place in air travel during the transition period between propliners and jetliners. I've started with this book.

I went to the Houston Aeronautical Heritage Society's 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport to pick up some airplane toys for our grand-kids. While I was there I perused the selection of books they have on sale and found the above titled book. It is a coffee table book much like others I have, lots of pictures of old airliners. I think on of the main reasons if was offered for sale in the bookstore was because it had a picture of the 1940 Air Terminal in it from back in the 1950's. Either way, it was an appropriate book to be offered for sale there.

I think the book does a good job of introducing the reader to the period and the aircraft of that period. It isn't and in-depth study because there is just so much you can put in a 160 page hard cover book. It's worth a look at.

Chapter Titles

One: Setting the State (1946 - 1950)
Two: The Jet Age Begins, Or Does It? (1949 - 1952)
Three: Pistons Forever! ( 1952 - 1954)
Four: Promise of Things to Come (1954 - 1956)
Five: Coast-to-Coast in Only Eight Hours (1953 - 1956)
Six: Zenith of the Propliners (1956 - 1958)
Seven: Changing of the Guard (1958 - 1960)
Eight: Coast-to-Coast in Only Five Hours (1959 - 1961)
Nine: Stage Two: The Fanjets (1961 - 1962)
Epilogue: What Has Happened Since
Special Salute to the Boeing 707

I hope you enjoy your reading...

Jimmy Bryson's Irish Pub

In coversations with people who worked at Corrosion Corner or frequented the area, the subject of Bryson's always seems to surface. Bryson's has been there for 61 years. I have had one pilot tell me that it was at another location and that this was the location of the 600 Lounge but as far as I can find, that club was at 600 east 36th street. That's closer to Miami Beach. Bryson's remains at its original location at 3790 Curtiss Parkway just north of where "The Corner" was along 36th Street. I also found references to The Pilot Lounge as a local watering hole for the pilots, mechanics and others that worked among the derillics of The Corner. I have to do more research on the subject.

Researching The Past

As I have begun researching Corrosion Corner, I have come across many places of interest. Several of the people I work with either worked in the Corner or flew airliners in and out of Miami International during the time the corner was chock full of old airplanes. So as I get into some of their stories, they tell me about all the "hang-outs" that the airline pilots, the flight attendants, the mechanics and such, visited. Johny Bryson's Irish Pub was one such place. Bryson's still exists though after I have told many of those around me where it is they say that was the old location of the 407 club. So I have more digging to do. But I am slowly compiling bunch of stories from many a person who lived the life of the corner rats and the adventures they had while doing so.

What is Corrosion Corner?

Back in the 60''s to the early 90's the northwest corner of Miami International Airport was known as Corrosion Corner or Cockroach Corner. This is where a large assortment of mostly old radial engine powered tramp freighters began and ended their journeys out over the Caribbean to the islands, to South America, to Central America and even to Africa. I remember reading a number of articles in Flying and other aviation magazines about it and the stories fueled my imagination. Here is an aerial view of the northwest corner from a 1984 mapping photo produced for the US Geological Survey.

The above picture took me some searching to get but I found it through the USGS site and others as well. The reason is I am in the process of writing a novel with the Corner being a central part of the story.

The heyday of Corrosion Corner was in the 70's and 80's when all along 36th Street on the North side of the airport were aircraft in various states of disrepair. Some came to this place to be cannibalized so that others would be made airworthy once more, for one or fifty more flights. Once all the useful parts had been removed from an aircraft, what was left suffered the final blow from the scrapper’s guillotine.

Classic Airliners, Tramp Freighters, Proliners, all were names for these craft. There are a few blogs and websites about these aircraft and a few about the corner which I will write more about here in later posts. But this is to remember about a magical, somewhat romantic spot in history that while a bit tarnished by time and circumstance, i.e drug smuggling and the CIA and such, is something to be remembered.