AVIATION'S LIVING HISTORY BOOK : BARNSTORMING, WING-WALKING, HE'S DONE IT ALL.

Time seems to pose no threat to Tailspin Tommy Boggs. It just passes him by and keeps on going - catching up with the rest of us mortals, but leaving old Tommy alone so he can get on with his next adventure.

I'd been trying to catch up with this living piece of aviation history for some time now, but every time I got close, old Tommy would be off somewhere: working his gold-digging machine on his claim up in British Columbia, or flying with friends up to Canada or Alaska, places where he flew prospectors and trappers deep into the wilderness back in the '40s after the Second World War.

But even history has to take a breather once in a while, and Tailspin Tommy, 82, took his recently under a shade tree at Whiteman Airpark in Pacoima. And he held 150 Girl Scouts from the San Fernando Chapter spellbound with tales of adventure from back in the days of barnstorming and walking on the wings of flying machines.

Tales that these girls attending an aerospace workshop weren't reading about in a history book or seeing in a movie. Tales they were hearing from the lips of a man who was there - a man who lived them all.

You only had to take one look at their wide eyes to see that old Tailspin Tommy had them right in the palm of his hand with this personal history lesson.

``I ran away from home on my ninth birthday in 1923, and wound up selling ride tickets for a couple of pilots barnstorming through the Midwest,'' Tommy said, warming them up a little.

One of fliers was a man named Bud Gurney. The other, Charles Lindbergh - before he became famous and a household name.

``I remember one day I sold a ticket to a man wearing a straw hat,'' Tommy said, smiling at the girls. ``I told him that I'd hold his hat for him while he went up, but he said that he'd just hold it down on his head.

``Well, I knew it would blow off, and sure enough, it did. It came flopping down to the ground, and when I ran up to get it, I just froze. Inside the hat was a wig.

``I'd never seen a wig before, and thought that somehow this man had been scalped up there in the air,'' Tommy said, as the girls broke out giggling.

``I was petrified. When the plane landed, the man ran up to me and grabbed his hat and wig, and ran to his car, which he had to crank up to start. He couldn't get out of there fast enough. He was pretty embarrassed.''

By age 14, Tailspin Tommy had saved up enough money hawking ride tickets - $350 - to buy his own secondhand plane, and go off barnstorming with his own crew.

``We'd go from town to town, and land near a busy road,'' Tommy was telling the girls. ``Not many people had seen an airplane up close before, let alone fly in one. They'd all come running out of their houses.

``We charged a penny a pound for a five-minute ride, and while we were up in the air, another guy would be going on to the next town, putting up posters that we were coming.''

And come, they did. In a big, colorful, loud way, Tommy said.

``We had an old hand-driven siren on the biplane that we'd crank up as we neared the town,'' he said. ``When people started running out of their houses to see what was happening, I'd climb out and stand on the wing.

``I'd balance myself with one hand by holding the brace wires, and wave to the people as we flew in low over the town,'' Tailspin said.

By now, the girls' eyes were wide and their mouths had dropped open. Wing walking on an airplane in midflight? Who was this guy?

But barnstorming was dying out by the time Tommy joined the British Royal Air Force in 1939, and went off to fight a war - returning to work on the Alaska Highway before starting his own little airline with war surplus planes up in Canada.

That's when the worst thing that could ever happen to a man like Tailspin Tommy happened. He got bored.

``I was sitting in my office one day and there was a big map of the world hanging on the wall,'' he said. ``I threw a dart, and it landed in L.A. That's how I got here.''

A couple of the girls laughed. He had to be kidding, the look on their faces said. Nope. Tommy was serious.

``I went to work as a factory rep for a trailer company, traveling from Canada to Mexico, and everywhere in between,'' he said. ``At 50, I decided to go to college, UCLA, for a teaching degree.

``I spent the next 20 years teaching industrial arts, the last 11 years in a school in South Central Los Angeles. And, of course, I kept flying.''

``How'd you get the nickname Tailspin?'' one of the girls asked.

Tommy smiled, and told her about the first plane he flew alone at 9 years old - a Thomas Morse Scout with a structural flaw that caused it to go into spins easily - something the young Tommy didn't understand.

``I got in the plane one day when nobody was looking, took off, and landed it without any problem,'' he said. ``After that, everyone started calling me Tailspin Tommy.''

With that, the history lesson was over. Tommy thanked the girls for listening, and they thanked him for giving them something a book or a movie couldn't have given - the face of a real, honest-to-goodness, aviation pioneer.

When I caught up with Tommy on Monday, he was on his way back over to Whiteman Airpark to visit an old bush pilot from Alaska.

The guy wanted Tommy to spend the next month or two flying around Alaska with him, and Tommy was leaning toward going.

What the heck, he said. He's got plenty of time.

MEMO: Dennis McCarthy's column appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday.

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PHOTO Tailspin Tommy Boggs, 82, says he flew his first plan e at the tender age of 9. It tended to spin, hence he earned the nickname, `Tailspin.'

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News