I enjoyed the three weeks at school in England and was very happy to have made new friends from all over the world. But now, it was time to get back to work in Detroit. Looking back through some of my old agendas, which I still have, 1967 had a lot of interesting events to tell you about.
As mentioned previously, Bill VonWeiler got me interested in Rotary, a businessmen's worldwide organization, and invited me to join. You can't just join Rotary; you must be invited by a member. Membership is limited to one member per job classification in each club. Rotary's main goal is to eradicate polio throughout the world; this has been largely accomplished, by raising millions of dollars to fund inoculations of children in mosquito infested areas worldwide. On the local level, Rotary clubs, often provides college scholarships to high school students and participate in various community needs, besides supporting Rotary International's goals. I have always been proud to be a member of Rotary. In May of 1967, Rotary's International Convention was going to be held in Nice, France and I was planning to attend.
Also in 1967, I met Dick Robison, editor and publisher of Impresario Magazine, and his assistant Joe Scolara. Impresario was dedicated to the Arts and covered all the concerts, ballet, etc., in the Detroit and suburban area; it was heavily supported by the auto industry. I wanted Impresario to sponsor a "Performing Arts Tour of Europe". It would include Amsterdam, Moscow, Leningrad, Budapest, Prague and Rome, for a total of 14 days. I agreed to support the tour by providing several evenings of films of the areas we would visit, for those interested in going on the tour; more about this later.
This is also the year when I got very involved in Holy Land Travel, or, "Walking in the Footsteps of the Lord". The salesmen and myself set a goal of getting at least three different ministers to organize and lead tours to the Holy Land. Michigan had a number of evangelical ministers. When they learned that they could get a free trip, plus money, for leading a group of at least 15 parishioners, we signed up four who wanted to do it. I never thought of religion as a business but, Boy, those ministers sure did. KLM had a fly now, pay later plan and many of the people wanting to go with their minister took advantage of it. Since I was responsible for submitting their applications, one particular mother and two children submitted an application that no one would ever approve. The Minister, who happened to be an American Indian and had a large following, begged me to approve it. When I said I couldn't, because the family would have no money left to eat or pay rent, etc., he said: "These people are highly religious and would go hungry just to walk in the footsteps of the Lord". When I asked him if he would be willing to co-sign and be responsible, the subject sure changed. All the tours did go; I don't recall the numbers, but I was surprised how many people signed up and travelled with their minister.
Roger Ackley decided to have another regional meeting. This was to be held at Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin, from November 12 to 16. The whole Regional Sales Group of about twenty people was going to attend. It was a great meeting, but the highlight which everyone will remember was about Roger, who, on one evening, took a late night swim in the indoor heated pool. After getting out of the pool he decided to go out the exit door to roll in the snow. (Snow had come early that year.) He was stone sober, and as he told us later: Heck, if the Scandinavians do this, I'm going to try it, too". He did not realize that the door from the pool area cannot be opened from the outside. He must have been about half an hour out in the snow, before he could find his way back inside. I think most of us were already in bed, but when we found out about it in the morning, he sure got a ribbing. Roger was a very good sport and all of us liked him immensely.
Back in Detroit, the Dutch Immigrant Society charters were going so well that we were going to schedule six 747 charters for 1968. The charters were a lot to handle as I made it a point to be on hand for all the departures and arrivals. Don Barrow, one of my sales reps always gave me a hand. With over 200 people departing and arriving each time, there was always some problem to be solved. We had the use of a ticket counter from Eastern, however, baggage had to be checked in, tickets picked up, and much more. John Witte and others from the DIS would ride down by bus from Grand Rapids to Detroit, and they were also a big help. After the first charter of the year to Amsterdam, we operated them on a back to back basis; when that first charter returned a few weeks later, bringing back the passengers, we would have it scheduled to pick up passengers in Detroit and take them to Amsterdam. In that way each aircraft would be full both ways; no empty legs to run up the cost. All the charters left Detroit in the evening for an arrival in Amsterdam in the morning. Coming back, they would leave in the morning, arriving back in Detroit in late afternoon.
Things were going so well for my district; little did I anticipate the problems that were about to take place with the Impresario Magazine tour. You'll learn about that next, along with the Rotary tour to Nice, France. And, of course, the race riots in Detroit, July 23rd of '67.
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