telling our favorite "Yeager Stories" (essentially,
flame attacks that he has visited upon us "groupies" at some point)

Sounds like Shatner yelling "have you ever kissed a girl?" at the
trekkies.

mmm, quite. In our case, this was typical:

Yeager sits at a desk in a large hall, with the entire outer wall of the hall
surrounded by other fighter aces, sitting at similar desks. Of course, twenty
minutes before the official start of the event, General Yeager's table has a
line of the 'faithful' quietly waiting, each with a couple faded photos or a
rolled up poster or two for the General's signature. Seeing the line, Yeager
sits down, still early, and proceeds to deal with his fans.

"@#%$#%^%, this **** is all going to be on Ebay before the ink is dry."

"Err, no sir - I would like to give this photo to my son, and this one to my
brother in law, serving in Bosnia."

[Yeager signs two items, grumbling, then the next 'fan' approaches the table.]

"You don't fool me - you probably don't give a @#$% damn about this and are
just in it for a buck."

Star-struck young man, wearing obviously fresh military haircut says, "Uhhh, no
sir - I have been a fan of yours since I was eight, it got me interested in
flying!"

"....grumble, grumble...NEXT." Repeat process five times, until Yeager spots
an old buddy on the far side of the hall and stands up to leave -

"All for now - I'll be back." - walks away, telling the friend how all of us
just want his autograph to sell it.

I'll never sell an autograph. Not his, not anyone's. My flight helmet was a
brand new form-fit that I never got to wear inflight; it was issued with only a
week left in my service. With that white dome to play with, I have taken it
around to approximately 300 fighter aces for their signature. Chuck's is easy
to see - he signed in bright blue pen, where the other few hundred men all used
black sharpie.
My collection of his signed items is enough for a small three ring binder -
original photos from the past 60 years from various events in his career,
signed reports that Edwards (did you know he 'flew' one of the "UFO"
Aerocars?), etc. When my kid needs to do a book report on a famous person, he
knows exactly which binder to go to!

v/r
Gordon