Originally Posted by
megatop412
Phil I can kind of commiserate with what Speedbird was saying, at least from a kid's point of view. Maybe it was because I didn't have a car and therefore was limited to spotting from my backyard, but I clearly remember being the ONLY kid in school that paid any kind of attention to what was flying around in the 1980's. Had I known a kid my age named Joe Pries was a couple towns over starting to do his thing I would have made some kind of effort to organize some spotting activities, but the thought that there were people out there that loved aviation like I did didn't cross my mind. Hell, I never saw anyone spotting from Bay Harbour Mall or TSS/Big Banana(now Costco) and we went there on a regular basis. I was definitely ridiculed for being into aviation instead of the things that kids followed back then like sports, Duran Duran, and Reebok sneakers. So once the internet and later this site and others took off yes I was surprised there was a crowd of us out there and that what I thought was a minority was actually a community.