About Bill Sandlin
From every viewpoint, Bill Sandlin senior was a special, fun and admirable person, who left a big space that will never be filled again. Those memories will be treasured, some presented here.
Below you will find memories of Bill as seen through the eyes of his family.
Mini-Biography of "Big Brother Bill"
Bill Sandlin was truly all of our "Big Brother" in so many ways. He loved his little brothers and sisters and we could all feel that. But more, he was caring, and would teach and protect us. To the younger ones, he was a respected, mature figure who also like to do things a teenager in the 1950's did: Old cars, working on Engines (he overhauled his Dad's "White" Semi-Tractor engine), motorcycles, airplanes, model airplanes, working at "Daddy's cotton gin", and helping with house chores (cow, pigs). In those days, a boy was expected to be "a man" by age 13 or 14, including being responsible for others, and Bill lived up to that.
When Bill got his first car (A Model A Ford) in 1954, and his first Motorcycle (an Indian) in Uvalde Texas, he was generous to take the younger kids for rides, and take them to watch his flying of big Flying models he bought from "Young Brothers" Bicycle and Hobby shop. We recall him flying a big Box kite about half a mile across the town, so far that he had to use an electric drill to reel it back in! He was clever like that, and could fix anything, which proved great advantage in his construction, industrial and flying career.
At 15 and 16, Bill was a lead driver on family trips to Los Angeles to see Grandmother Weeks in Hollywood. Bill was the cautious safer driver, always. He went fast, but safe.. All his life !! Bill always enjoyed food creations, making 4 or 5 layer "Dagwood" sandwiches, before he rode off 5 miles to work on his bicycle.
Bill was awesome with equipment, running a huge crane to pour the concrete at Harlingen High when he was only 17yrs old. That's how mature and capable he was. He loved cranes, and as he was with airplanes, he was a top expert in operating and piloting.
Bill was surprisingly athletic, and could do precision riding, ride bicycles and cycles backward on the handlebars, and was strong as a horse. Yet he could hang from his heels off of a pipe-tank we used for a jungle jim. Bill torched a barrel in half for the kids to try to use as a boat in the family pool (a big galvanized stock tank).
(Bill only recently told us that he decided to learn to ride a bike backwards after he saw their Dad, Friday (Ross Floyd) ride a bike backwards, too. All the family was adventurous and a little bit athletic-coordinated, it seems )
Bill also soloed for private pilot license at age 16 in Uvalde, and continued flying from then on. He would take his youngest sibling up to "go flying" which was terribly exciting (and dangerous!), as he practiced stalls and lazy-8's just a mile from the House on Wilson Road in Harlingen. He would watch Ag Planes with admiration for pilots and saw one hit a palm tree but make it to the airport a mile away.
Later, when Bill was around 27, he fell in love with old planes again at "Rebel Field" in Mercedes, when he and little brother went to an Air Show there. Bill so wanted to buy a P51 Mustang for sale, and regretted not doing so. The Confederate Air Force (later Commemorative Air Force) was born at the field he later bought for his Ag Flying Service, Sandlin Enterprises. His love of flying and motorcycles remained his main hobbies when he could, even when raising his family took priorities.
Bill and Betty rode good-looking Triumphs and BSA often.
At age 28, Bill had great times announcing motorcycle races at Bott's Park in Harlingen, where he also won maneuvering contests, but would never chug beer in the beer runs-he stuck to sodas! He took his brother on a "chalk run" and on cycles to boat races near Santa Rosa.
Bill was practicing his night flying skills in a Cessna Low wing around that time when he was run down by a TTA High Vertical Stabilizer Pamper Jet Airliner over the end of the runway, which entirely cut off one wing at around 300 feet altitude. No one knows how bill survived that, but we saw the skid marks down the top of the Airliner, and the dent in the tail.
Bill was ALWAYS a straight arrow, good, kind, giving, and avoided vices like drinking, drugs and smoking that so many others did in the 1950's and 60's.
He co-signed to help little brother buy a keyboard to join a rock band, and even at age 28, Bill would still take his brother on outings with the family, fondly remembered.
Bill graduated to running bigger equipment, in dangerous jobs, at Union Carbide, then running an Asphalt plant near Mercedes. Up and down the Valley, Bill developed a life-long love of Whataburger and Mexican food (well, any good food!), that lasted all his life (as all can attest !). Bill took great pleasure in almost everything he did (except some home chores !)
Bill's love of planes took him into legal flying of merchandise and later the Wall Street Journal, (for 10 years without missing a beat, alone over the Gulf at night in old Twin-engine Beech-18's). Bill had many hairy stories of near-mishaps, lost planes, and getting out by skin of his teeth. One of his last trips was in heavy rain, but he got down OK only to chop up a parked plane while taxying to park. Bill hit a line once while Ag spraying in a biplane that flipped the plane over, and landed in the Resaca. Again no one knows how he survived!
Using his extreme skills to buy and slowly build up two small airports (Rebel Field and a small strip south of Donna), he risked life and limb to reliably deliver merchandise (not drugs!), Wall Street Journals and ag chemicals to many grateful customers over many years, enough to pay off his commitments on the equipment and the airports, while helping his new family, and others.
Bill was practical, always planning ahead, keeping spares at ready, rigorously maintaining everything, prudently and laboriously investing in what to others might seem risky business. He kept his equipment in top shape and it showed. Bill long flew big Ag planes that took strength and stamina, he said was like driving a truck with no power steering!
Bill acquired Rebel Field around 1985, for his Sandlin Enterprises, Inc. -Sandlin Flying Service. His card read FlybyNight flying service (from his Mexico days).
Bill was not stuck in the past: He was an early-adopter of Ag GPS instruments, back around 1996, he automated field flagging to computer, even attaching spray paths to invoices. He was ahead of his time. He surprisingly adapted to computers without getting too involved in them! (Smart !)
Bill methodically adapted to changing times and regulations, taking courses, using protective gear, and cleaning out carefully. He did almost ALL the Ag work himself, hauling, mixing, loading, fueling, flying, cleaning, billing, and even maintaining, with help from a couple of good part-time mechanics.
Not long before retiring from Ag spraying around 2005, Bill hit a tall Ham tower that took off about 2 feet of one wing, almost crashing. He could only turn in one direction and barely hold level at power, so he made a large circle estimating the intersection and alignment of his field approach. Barely able to hold it, he kept the speed high (around 100mph) instead of normal 65-70mph landing so his wing would not stall (as he had seen the same accident in an Air Race at Reno, where the pilot made it until landing but slowed, stalled and crashed). Bill made it, barely, but almost collapsed from legs shaking as he crawled out.
Soon after that his landing gear collapsed on one side halfway down the runway when landing!
I think Bill knew his Nine Lives of Flying and Cycling were near used up!
Again he was smart and practical, not pushing too long or too-unsafely. He soon retired, gracefully, selling out. Ironically, in the last 6 years, he would say don't get in those things (airplanes), "They're dangerous", and would laugh. But he enjoyed his "airport" office, as a refuge from a rather hard life, enjoying Rush Limbough at noon. Once again Bill turned out to be "Right" (as he said, "to the right of Attila the Hun"!)
We in the family can't tell all the wonderful, amazing things about Bill Sandlin senior, how he helped friends and family alike, often. Plainly, all his life, Bill was "there" for people, with his time, his love, his wisdom, his skills, his personal efforts, and anything he had. That's another way Bill was so special.
Many talk the talk, but Bill "walked the walk".
Bill was a heck of a man, upright, tough, practical, with character, integrity, strength in the face of adversity, always giving more than he received, and teaching us all how to live better. He was "prepared" for whatever, and he did that to the end. Bill even didn't want to bother people, and felt self-conscious about attention to himself, to the end.
Bill lived life "his way", taking the tiger by the tail, and did the best any man could do, to the very end. Bill, we'll always "look up to you" as the best Big Brother any siblings ever had !!