Joe Kimm, Inventor of the Burp Bag and NWA Pilot Turns 100

Walt Kollath, Deke DeLong, Joe Kimm, Coral Yahr

Happy Birthday, Joe! Yesterday, Aug. 18, 2011, you passed another milestone.

And congratulations for being an inductee into the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame!

This storied aviator, who started flying for Northwest Airways as a steward when he was 17, learned to fly when he was 18 and became a co-pilot when he was 19. He retired 40 years ago at age 60, only because government regulations required it. Currently it is 65.

When he was a steward, he invented the burp bag. It seems he got tired of cleaning up the old airplanes and passengers. One day, unwrapping his lunch, he looked at his paper lunch bag in a different way. He bought some extras and took them along on his next flight. When passengers felt the urge, he offered them a lunch bag.He disposed of them out the window. Joyce Rudquist Norvold relates a story she heard. "It seems a passenger who had availed himself of Joe Kimm's burp bag later grabbed Joe's arm and asked for his teeth back. Sadly, it was too late."

Along the way, he gave Amelia Earhart a ride from MSP to Spokane on Northwest's first flight to the Pacific Northwest and appeared on the Arthur Godfrey show with Deke DeLong when they commemorated the 30th anniversary of the airline by flying a Ford TriMotor from Coast to Coast with Coral Yahr as stewardess and Walt Kollath, mechanic.

Joe's home town paper, Puget Sound Business Journal, published this piece about Joe yesterday.

Arthur Godfrey, Deke DeLong, Joe Kimm