can you hear me now?

Wife, it seems has gotten on to my blog, so maybe it is in fact alive. The best value today in a used aircraft is a Piper PA-22 Colt. Buy one for $12k. They're pretty cool to fly, kind of rugged like a Cub. They are basically a clipped wing Cub. But you have radios, xpndr, starter, lights,etc. and a nose wheel. Cubs cost $40K. I have a few Colt stories. When I was a kid I used to rent planes from Brinkerhoff( a whole other set of stories) and sometimes the planes were all booked up especially on weekends. But he had this Colt which was in marginal shape and always available. He used to use it for parts runs to other airports. So after I was told there was nothing available to rent at all, I would say "what about the Colt?' Then he would look out the window( I guess to see if the Colt still existed), and say "it may not start" as he handed me the keys and a little clipboard. Sometimes he would offer a little plastic box of fuses because you would need them. The Colt would always have a dead battery, but after some good pull throughs and prime and a nice snappy hand prop she would always start. The spare fuses were for later, if you needed lights or radios. I logged many a happy hour as a young private pilot in that Colt that no one else wanted to fly. One of the instructors was telling us one day about the "old runway" there at Brinkerhoffs and a kind of a dare or bet was set up and I watched that instructor land that Colt on a 150 ft. stretch of old cracked aspalt and weeds. He may have used up what was left of "my" brakes. Nobody flat-hats like that anymore. One more thing: the reason I love the Colt may simply be because it was the airplane I joined the mile-high club in.