Time on Their Hands

A labor of pride, if not of love, a 1937-vintage military fire engine restored by prison inmates has been turned over to the Air Force Flight Test Center Museum at Edwards Air Force Base.

Prison officials relinquished the keys for the gleaming truck during a brief ceremony recently in the parking lot of the California State Prison at Lancaster.

The fire engine, of a type widely used at military bases during the World War II era, was donated to the museum by the family of Col. Milton Hays, a former test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base and a local rancher.

The museum arranged to have the badly rusted vehicle restored by prisoners in a beginning auto body repair class taught by vocational instructor John Hatzik.

Work began last February; an average of six prisoners put in five to six hours a day completing the job. Local businesses donated materials. Hatzik estimated the job would have cost close to $80,000 if done commercially.

Inmate Tony Richmond of South-Central Los Angeles, who is serving a 17-years-to-life sentence for second-degree murder, said working on the project taught him something important about himself. “It’s a trade I enjoy doing,” he said. “If I’d have known on the street that I could do this, things might have turned out different for me.”

Inmate worker Alfred Fink of St. Louis, Mo., who expects to be released in March after serving six years for attempted involuntary manslaughter, said: “We’re happy we achieved something. Out on the street, we don’t have a lot of chance to do that.”

The fire engine will be placed on permanent display at the museum.