I am still smarting after reading that a Renton boy has been named president of Boeing and feel ashamed that I did not try harder when I might have made the grade during my eight years working there.

While I don't know all the facts of his promotion, I can't help but wonder if I had tried harder I might have won that honor.

I was not perfect, for sure, but I had a perfect attendance record and never played hooky and was a whiz at soldering wires together and spelling words like rhubarb.

I never dropped a bucking bar on anybody and never napped in the pilot's chair. I did hold the third shift record for racing down the tunnel of the plane on hands and knees from the navigator's chair to the tail gunner’s turret over the bomb bay to the back exit. Since they don't make that plane any longer, I think my record is safe.

I also did not excel at math or even attend MIT.

I was a beautiful reamer and only got stuck in the blacktop on the airport blacktop two times when I tried to take a shortcut while I was driving a fork lift truck during those hot days in July.

I made a few mistakes.

We used to eat lunch outside at the Renton plant on day shift and there were a lot of seagulls anxious to share a sandwich. They would dive bomb us. One careless flier bombarded my foreman on top of his bald head and I could not help laughing. That mistake might have cost me his vote for company president if I ever ran.

I did meet the main Boeing guy on the putting green at a golf course a number of years ago. He was practicing and so was I. I did not know he was famous. I was so impressed when I found out, I missed a lot of putts. If being a good putter was a requirement for the president's job, I would never have made it anyway.

I learned later he lived in West Seattle and maybe I could have put his name in the paper if he hit a hole in one or something.

I don't think he ever did.

If I ever I do hit one, I know the sports editor here and I would have him tell all the people.