After Clay recovered from surgery and things got back to "normal" I had to focus on making money because we were broke.  Typically I excel when my back is against the wall but this time I had trouble making anything happen.  I still had the office I never used, equipment, customers, and ownership of an exceptional vertical market software package I could sell to executive recruiters.  What I didn't have was operating capital and momentum.

The details are of little import, but for months I failed to sell any software.  During this time the Greenville newspaper did a feature article on me titled "Local businessman thinks on his feet." They were excited to have a software developer in town (the only other high-tech operation in town was the video store) so they came to my office to do an interview.  The story was suppose to be about my business but the reporter was so taken by my desk that it became the story.  I'd built the desk myself and it was unique because it was a stand-up desk.  Though I am sure somewhere someone else had had the idea for a stand-up desk too, this was something I came up with on my own.  At the time every one who saw the desk said they had never heard of such a thing.  Years later when stand-up desks became popular in Atlanta my mom told everyone, "that was my son's idea."

We rented a house in Conyers, Georgia, a rural community east of Atlanta.  Another unlikely place Mary and I favor, back in the woods far enough the house is barely visible from the road.  Home number twelve in nine years.  To help keep our growing family straight, we now had five children, Emily (8), Clay (4), Becky (3), Kelly (2), Luke a few months old.  With five children the logistics began to become a challenge, too many children for a car.  We tried the mini-van route, but Mary didn't like the small van.  From this point forward our family car of choice would be a full size van, and Mary's favorite was the one ton, fifteen passenger Dodge Maxi Van.  While we were shopping for a decent Dodge Van I fell into the largest single deal of my life.

I had just purchased my first car phone.  They weren't called cell phones back then, though that's what they were. They were called car phones because they were so large it's the only place you could have one.  Soon after I bought my car phone Motorola introduced the "bag phone," a reduced size car phone fitted in a large bag with a phone receiver on a cord.  Silly looking thing, but in 1986 it was the equivalent of an Apple Watch.  After spending $1,200 on my first car phone, I passed on the bag phone.

After leaving the installation shop with my new car phone I needed to use my new toy.  I called home, but Mary wasn't there.  I called my mom, then my brother, neither were home.  It was late Friday afternoon and most people were stuck in Atlanta's heavy traffic, as was I.  Since I didn't know anyone else with a car phone I couldn't reach anyone.  Remembering a potential customer I had wanted to follow up with I tried them.  The customer was glad I called.  They had to spend their money before the close of business that day and didn't like the bids they had received so far.  I was only a few miles from their office, so I stopped by.

I was one of four Altos dealers in the Atlanta area.  This company needed Altos equipment and could only purchase it from one of the four dealers.  The customer had its own software its own programmers and technical people.  They didn't require any support at all, just the bare equipment.  The other Altos dealers wouldn't give them a price break for a no work deal, so they had hoped I, being a small operator would.  What they needed was $250,000 (wholesale price) of Altos equipment.  They offered me $25,000 to order the equipment.  I agreed without hesitation.  My car phone paid for itself and I could get Mary the big van she wanted.  I was sold on car phones and Mary loved her van.

At first I made a few more sales to executive recruiters, one in Atlanta and the other in St. Louis.  I had also sold several airport management software systems I had written after becoming a pilot: Key West, Naples, and Long Island, New York.  During this time the software Lance and I wrote was beginning to take shape.  We made a few local sales, the software was $3,200 plus profit on the computer.  One of those early insurance customers asked us to integrate a new computer phone answering device into our system.  I saw this as a distraction, but Lance followed up.  It was a computer board with a standard phone plug that integrated computer and phone.  A great piece of hardware that lacked application software.

Lance wanted a shot at the thing, so we bought one and began to develop software for it.  Today we all hate the business phone/computer: "Press 1 for sales, 2 for service," etc..., but in 1986 it didn't exist, or at least not on a PC.  Lance wrote the  phone integration software for our customer's needs and we gave our insurance customers a useful new tool.  The board's manufacture claimed we delivered the first application software for their new device and that some of the largest developers in the country had been working on it.  As I said, my brother's a great programmer, brilliant software developer.  Had I realized this phone answering computer was much bigger than our group of insurance agents, we could have led the industry in automated computer/phone systems.  People would have hated us for the automated response, but we would have been rich.

With the phone software integration with our insurance agent database we began to sell A.L. Williams offices in earnest. I wont bore you with all the computer jargon and stories, but will share a few entertaining stories of flying to customer sites.  On one trip Lance and I had flown a Cessna Cardinal 177 from Atlanta to coastal South Carolina in the morning and were on our way back to Atlanta the same day.  It was late afternoon, low visibility with cloud cover down to 1,800 feet.  A terrible day to fly, what's known as "scud running." So we're flying west, retracing our earlier flight and I notice a large lake under us.  We'd not seen the lake on the morning trip east so knew we were off course.  Flying low makes navigation tricky (pre-GPS days) so I wasn't alarmed that I'd become "disoriented." Pilots are never lost, but we do get a bit disoriented at times.

This plane lacked an auto-pilot so I couldn't let go of the yoke, so I asked Lance to hold the plane straight and level while I checked the sectional chart.  This was Lance's first time to fly with me so I gave him a short course in how to keep the wings level and how to look at something straight ahead and fly to that point.  Basic straight and level flying.  Once Lance was comfortable I let go of the control yoke and studied the chart, looking for a large lake.

After a few minutes I got a little queasy from looking down so I looked up, and out of habit did what is know as a "clearing scan" out the windshield.  I gave a quick scan then looked back down at the map.  It took half a beat for my brain to sort out what I'd seen.  I looked up again grabbing the yoke as I did.  Directly in front of us, at our altitude were a pair of large military transport jets.  "My airplane," I said.  Lance released his yoke and I did what I'd been trained to do.  On a head on situation, both aircraft are suppose to turn right.  I applied full right rudder and turned the Cessna into a hard right turn.  As soon as I did this I lost sight of the pair of military planes.  I didn't like not knowing where they were, so I unfastened my seat belt half stood in my seat so I could see out my right side window.

What I saw was death.  The pair of military planes were in a medium left turn.  We were close enough that I could see the face of the pilots in the closest aircraft.  Neither pilot was looking at me.  They had not seen our small plane.  They'd been in a left turn when I saw them, which was why Lance hadn't seen them.  He was focused on a point across the lake, like I had told him to do to fly a straight path.  Had I taught him to do a clearing sweep with his eyes he would have easily spotted the two large jets in plenty of time to avoid.  As it was, since the military jets had been in a left turn when I made a textbook evasive right turn, I'd hooked directly into their flight path. 

With the Cessna banked hard right it was like the time three year-old Becky turned the yoke all the way to the right.  I'd committed so much to the right turn that with the military jets so close there wasn't time to reverse direction, so I did the only thing I had time to do.  I mimicked Becky's act and turned the yoke to the stop, rolling the Cessna.

There are a few differences between my roll and Becky's.  This time I had less altitude to recover, the Cardinal 177 I was flying now was heavier than the smaller 150, and equally important, I wasn't wearing my seat belt.  I've never read a book on aerobatic flying, but I would imagine rule one is to have plenty of altitude and rule two to have your seat belt tightly secured before a roll maneuver.  Somehow we completed the roll without my getting thrown into the backseat or out the flimsy door, and without crashing into the lake.  I don't remember being tossed around, but the lake was a near thing.  We leveled off about fifty feet above the water.  I was worried about jet wash from the two heavy jets but we must have come out of the roll in the right direction to miss the vortex because we didn't feel so much as a buffer.

We landed Augusta's Daniel Field to have lunch with our mother.  She mentioned the need to go to Atlanta so I offered to fly her.  My mom laughed and said, "I don't like riding in a car when you're driving.  There's no way I'll ever get in a plane with you."  And she never did.  Wise woman.

On another flight Lance and I got caught in a horrific thunderstorm between Pensacola, Florida and Orlando.  It was so bad my brother shut down and went to sleep.  I wish I could have.  Somehow we survived.  Another time we had an extra day in Key West so did a little sight seeing south of the keys.  Unknowingly I flew a little too close to Cuba's airspace.  Miami Center ATC called and warned that two unidentified aircraft were approaching us at 900 knots.  That's about 200 knots faster than the speed of sound, so it had to be Cuban fighters.  I turned north and gave our Cessna full power, which was about 130 knots.  We'd have been in trouble were it not for two U.S. Air Force F-16's who arrived to chase the Cuban Migs back to Castro.

Lance commented that flying in a small plane was always an adventure.  He was being polite.  It was flying with me that was an adventure.

One other flying story and I'll stop.  I was alone on this one flying a rented Cessna 150 from Naples down to Key West then back to Naples the same day.  Both locations were customers for our airport software.  The Cessna was the oldest plane I'd ever flown, built in the late 1950's.  It had very limited instruments and its compass had a forty-five degree error.  I flew to Key West with no problem, delivered a computer to our customer there then flew back to Naples.  Naples is directly north of Key West so the entire trip was over water.  About half way to Naples a storm built up on my right, the land side, but the way ahead was clear so I kept going.  Shortly after, storm clouds began to build on my left, the Gulf of Mexico side.  The dark clouds had closed in behind me, but the route ahead was still clear.  When I didn't think it could get any worse the old plane lost all electrical.  The engine worked fine, but I'd lost radio, lights, and all navigation aids. The old compass still worked, but I'd not been using it and I couldn't remember if it was forty-five degrees off to the east or west, so it was useless to me.   Regardless, I now had a narrow lane of clear sky in front of me that was about two miles wide and closing.  It's impossible to fly zero visibility without instruments, so if the open lane fell in I would have no choice but to ditch in the ocean.  If the narrow land didn't lead me to land I'd have to do the same thing.

I gave the little plane full power and putted on.  All I could do was hope the open lane held and led me to land.  Any land crash landing would be better than ditching in the ocean.  To my astonishment, at the point where the clouds had at last joined and I could go no further I spotted the Naples airport.  While trying to figure out where to land on the multi-runway airport a blinding green light hit me in the eyes.  A light cannon, I remembered from training, though I'd not actually seen one.  The controller used the light cannon to let me know the run way was clear.  They'd tracked me on radar, knew I didn't have a radio, so were expecting me and cleared all traffic.  This time I kissed the ground when I landed.  Then I had to fill out an FAA form for non-procedural landing.

Cheated death again.

*Daughters note: the story about me flipping the plane will be in the final version of "A Life Wasted." I didn't flip anything on my first lesson and thoroughly enjoyed myself! Will definitely be flying again soon. My brother Luke, is going to take his first lesson too. Guess we both got bit by the bug :-)

I have also been asked about pictures and am planning to go through them, and ask some of my sisters what they have as well, so we can get a few more up.

Emily is taking the picture above, but that's the other four of us: Clay, Rebecca, Kelly & Luke and of course mom and dad.

Thanks for reading and voting!

~Rebecca