Having a bad day? Compared to what? Ever gone sky diving?

This is a repost from May 31, 2010, that I chose to reshare today, on my birthday, August 30, 2026,

Mom was born on my birthday (long story, but funny). She passed in 2017. Love you mom.

I also have a pretty fascinating post out yesterday on my Substack about a very weird birthday I had, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, some decades ago with my girlfriend at the time. 

On a roll here--here's another birthday I had in 2014 in Bellingham, where one of my kids was living at the time, in my old university town from where I graduated in 1984 (what a year to graduate in, huh?). 

So...

Hi! How has your weekend been? Your week? Your year? Not too stressful, I hope.

[Boy! Does THIS have a different meaning now than it did in 2010 when I first wrote this article!]

Also, an old 2011 blog I did on when I was a USAF Parachute Rigger.

Thun Field, Pierce County Airport,

(FAA identifier PLU) 

1960. 16915 103rd Ave Ct E, Puyallup, WA

Mine has been quite over the top. 

Some of my "customers" are very high stress and they find it easiest to put some of that stress directly upon my head. My costumers are IT related, vendor related, sometimes other departments or other states of our four-state plan. I've long been on a high-level front-line IT team for a "Cadillac" type BlueShield health insurance company (yeah, I know). Some place that stress rightfully so, some I've been told, not so much. Or more precisely, not at all.

Just how stressful HAS this week been? Or last week for that matter, with this one giving it a good run for the money? How so? How can I explain? How can I draw this out and yet keep talking to you till you realize this was just another attempt to talk about strange and unusual times from the past? How can I even keep your attention for that long? Let's see.

I'll just say, this week has been slightly more stressful than I remember feeling one day years ago (harp music), while plummeting to the ground from about 3,000 feet up, having just foolishly let go of a perfectly good airplane, on one fine summer day. It was about just then that I had noticed my parachute was kind of open above me but had not quite really opened as I had been lead to expect it would. It was just flapping in the wind like a streamer held out a car window.

First, I really should mention, this experience I'm about to relate, took place the day after my High School friend Rod's birthday at his house. He had just turned eighteen. I was still seventeen. I woke after a night of very strange things, my ex-girlfriend I had JUST broken up with and my soon to be new girlfriend both being there, doing a variety of inebriates I had done and had yet to do, drinking at a kegger and the next morning waking on the couch in the living room, to a hangover and the murderous sounds--of all things--of someone dumping and counting, jar after jar of coins there on the living room floor. It was Jimmy, Rod's older brother.

I said, "HEY, knock it OFF!" Jimmy said, "Sorry, but I have to."

I said, "Why?" and he said, "Because, I'm going sky diving." 

Then he said, "I'm done. Later." and he ran out the door.

Shortly after the door slammed shut, Rod came down the stairs from his bedroom, rather quickly, and asked, "Where'd Jimmy go?" I told him and he kind of lost it.

"WHAT! Oh Hell, he told me he'd take me! I'm going!" I asked him, "What? Hey! Then I'm going."

On the way there, Jimmy realized he didn't have enough money. So, Rod and I gave him what we had to cover him. Then when we got there, I said I wanted to jump too but I had given Jimmy all my money. 

But I was now broke or at least didn't have enough. 

Jimmy felt bad and between him and Rod, we got the $30 together for me and we now all hand enough. We could start our five and a half hours of training, still miserably hung over and at times, jumping from a platform five feet up from the dirt out front of the dive loft where they stored and packed the parachutes.

We were learning "PLFs", Parachute Landing Form, which didn't feel none too good while doing them. PLFs are what they teach you, so you don't do, FKHF form (Feet, Knees, Hands, Face). Doing them hungover and dehydrated, only made it much, much worse. But were were also trying to hide being hung over.

Once I found I didn't need parent's permission, as I wasn't eighteen (I thought I did it and my mother previously made it quite clear she wouldn't give her permission), I really had to do it. 

Finally, we were ready to go, our hours of training complete, we suited up, packed up and climbed into the plane with two others, the three of us and Jesse our Jumpmaster. And the pilot, of course.

I remember someone asking, "Do you know what position you are in?" As we were all scrunched up together in the cramped cargo space, on our knees, in order to get the most jumpers on a dive as possible. 

I said, "No" and they replied, "The preying position." Ha ha. Everyone laughed, Jesse grimaced at the newbie abuse. Very funny. Dive humor. First timer/veteran dive humor.

After our training was done, still on the ground, the three of us noticed Jesse walking by and we all noted how attractive she was. It was hard not to be attracted to her, even though she was a bit older than us. One of the jumpers walked by, noting our interest (the guy who made the "praying position" joke later in the plane as we took off). He joked a long with us about how attractive Jesse was. Then dropped the bomb.

"You know (he smiled), her husband packs your chutes." 

We all looked at each other and swallowed (being dehydrated, with some difficulty). No more looking at Jesse with anything but respect and uh, respect, from then onward. Not that we didn't have respect from the beginning. She knew her stuff.

Skipping forward...I drove out to go jump one day without Rod and Jimmy. Not sure why, maybe they were busy.

The cloud ceiling was low, too low. Newbies like me couldn't jump, you had to be certified for that low of a jump. While I was there, a twin blade, heavy Army Chinook helicopter landed. The crew had wanted to have lunch at the restaurant by the airstrip, a bit off from the loft. Thirteen jumpers with military ID got to step off out of it that day. It was quite a site and quite a story that day. But that for another time...

But the next time I went out to go jump, I got to go. 

And it was an event... 

I jumped, static line snapped, chute was not inflating above me, slowing my descent nominally. Making things worse, I could not actually see it. The risers connecting me to the canopy had crossed against the back of my neck so I could only stare at my chest, where lay my chin just above where the emergency chute sitting all nice and tightly secured to me, ready for instant deployment which I was now supposed to use; oh, and of course that hard ground 3,000 feet below, beyond the chute on my chest, with its great grouping of tiny, tiny fenced off meadowland that was currently floating gently up toward me at about maybe 100 miles an hour. 

I could see it all between my dangling feet. But that was then.

Back to Jimmy's, Rod's and my first jump... 

After you jump out of the plane, you're supposed to take proper form to keep from tumbling terribly out of control, like Jimmy had just done, almost potentially hanging himself on the fifteen-foot static line that pulls the chute out as you fall away from the plane, for those of us not yet certified for free fall. 

You took your first long class, did your first jump, then some more jumps and eventually become certified for free fall. 

In those days, you didn't attach yourself to a jumper. It just wasn't done. It was, "weird" to consider. But the newer way doesn't tend to lose new jumpers, so... 

The two veteran jumpers (including the jokester) went first. No problems, no issues. 

Jimmy looked pretty scared as he got situated in the open door. He looked up at me and the look on his face was one I'd never seen before, or after. But hey, he didn't hesitate, she hit his leg, said, "Go!" and he jumped. However, as he existed, Jesse nearly leaped out the door, freaking both Rod and I out. She hung there for a while staring at--something. It was freaking me out. What the hell was going on with Jimmy?!!

Finally, she noticeably relaxed and pulled herself back in. Looking back at us, saw the looks on our faces. We asked what happened. She hesitated, then leaned in toward us and, maybe saw it as a learning moment. 

"He did what we taught you not to do," Jesse said. "He didn't flare properly and started to tumble. I was afraid he'd wrap up in the static line. I've seen it before. If that happens you can get it around your foot, or worse, around your neck and get dragged. If it doesn't kill you, you're just being dragged behind the plane."

"Then what?" I asked. She said, "Then the jumpmaster, me, has to climb down and clear you for hopefully a good fall. But he cleared the line and his chute opened. He's fine. OK. So...next." She looked at Rod. He looked back at me with a big smile on his face, the worry he'd had for Jimmy now washed away.

Rod crawled over to the door. I always held Jimmy in high regard, maybe a bit intimidated by him being the older brother, but he was always the nicest guy. I had assumed that day that he'd bravely exit the plane, and Rod might be the one feeling a bit tenuous about jumping. 

I don't know why I thought that. I think it was more about Jimmy being one way, than Rod being another. But Rod got just into position, then turned once situated outside the plane, looked Jesse, then back at me with absolutely no fear on his face, just great gusto and a big smile. 

I'm not now sure if he did, but I remember him giving a big thumbs up and then focused on thee task at hand, outside the plane. Jesse said something to the pilot, he responded. She looked at Rod and nodded, he nodded back and finally hit him on the leg, and said "GO!"

And he was gone. Mind you, being almost last wore on one's nerve. Seeing what I had just seen, also had. I think had I gone first, or before Jimmy, I would (maybe) have been fine.

Jesse closely watched Rod release his grip in fearlessness, and in perfect form. She turned to me and gave me a thumbs up and a smile. All was good. Just the opposite of what I would have expected as Jimmy always seemed fearless to me. I felt a great relief, except that, I suddenly realized, I was next. 

That shifted the entire world for me in that moment.

For myself, it wouldn't normally be a problem. I'd hung off cliffs in the Cascade and Olympic Mountains, and all kinds of crazy stuff years before in Civil Air Patrol on search and rescue maneuvers. I had my SCUBA license. SCUBA takes a different kind of bravery. As does repelling down a cliffside. Or climbing up one. But I'd always been like a fish in water, as my mom liked to say. 

So, I climbed out of the plane, finding it harder than I'd expected to place my foot on that tiny, TINY footpeg, hanging outside the plane, my right leg just dangling there in the propwash of the plane at a slow 100MPH, and looking down through 3,000 feet of--nothingness. 

Then Jesse our jumpmaster hit my leg and said, "GO!" Good grief.

So, of course, bravely I did what all courageous types did. Right? I hesitated, then--looked back up at her from what I found an awkward and uncomfortable position and said bravely, "WHAT!?" It was the only thing I could think of to distract and delay from my position.

She looked at me--incredulous. But fully understanding what stage of fear I was involved with at that moment. Mind you, every second of delay puts a jumper either closer to, or farther away from the LZ (landing zone), and that 10' circle of pea gravel that is the target everyone wants to land on. And few do.

Also, my delay changing the calculus for where I will land, was also changing her own. Something not quite on my mind at that time.

"GO!" she said and knowingly hit me again on the back of my thigh. I pulled my eyes from hers and looked forward, seeing my hands gripping the strut and the spinning propeller further forward, and thought, "I am NOT losing that 30 bucks because I rode the plane back down." That seemed to move me more than anything else. Then I wondered how to trick myself to do what I wanted. I thought, "I only need to relax one of my fingers and then the next..." That didn't work.

Then I thought, just go limp, stop gripping. Make your hands go limp and--it happened.

The plane leaped forward, out of my grasp as my grip failed and I realized I had let go and the plane was gone. 

Swimming back toward the plane, it quickly didn't appear to be working. I looked up for what I was trying to achieve (the plane) and realized was already out of my site. That subsumed my thoughts. Where the hell did the plane go? Which was when I realized that the static line had snapped and the chute was pulled out. 

However....

It was all quite hard to miss, the culmination of all that drama.

As I fell away form the plane, I remember, Count. "One thousand one. One thousand two. One... oh screw it!" My eyes were shut tight. I hoped for an opening. I heard the snap, an odd sound of the canopy deploying in a stream of nylon and then, the chute inflating and a slowing down. I opened my eyes. I looed up at a beautiful fully inflated canopy, and smiled. 

Then I looked below me and realized I was like 3,000 feet in the air dangling my feet. It was terrifying. But nothing bad happened. I breathed. After a minute I realized the absolute silence. The beauty all around me. I relaxed and enjoyed the ride that seemed to take forever. I noticed the tiny fenced areas of the farmland. I feared being lost. How the hell would I know which to aim for?

As I descended, I was eventually able to pick out the pea gravel LZ and people and I was headed right for it. The groundmaster was moving his arms, guiding me in. I manipulated my toggle left and right I could clearly see no one had landed in the LZ but off to the side. Except for me.

Which actually went quite smoothly and I actually hit the ten foot wide target of pea gravel. I was exhilarated. After all, I was the only one that jump who hit the target. The other more experienced jumpers already on the ground had all missed. And Jimmy and Rod, of course. Which happens, as the jumpmaster in the plane can only zero in on one or a few jumpers to hit the target as the plane is continuing on in a line at about 100 miles per hour. The new "square" chutes make this less an issue now a days.

When I realized the ground was coming up faster than I expected hitting pea gravel is a definite and softer benefit. As I found out on my second jump. The groundmaster nodded and said, "Gather your chute." So I did. But before I got my harness off, I knelt down and kissed the ground. I thought it funny, but also kind of meant it. I was glad to be on the ground. I looked over at the groundmaster who had a very disgusted look on his fast as he turned and walked back to guide our Jumpmaster Jesse down. 

I got my harness off and--first jump completed. I walked over to Rod and Jimmy and needless to see, we were all pretty pumped up and pleased with ourselves. No one felt our hangovers. That came after the adrenalin wore off.

But getting back to that second jump...

Once out of the plane, this time I was proud of myself that I counted the full 6 count. Then tried to look up to assure myself the canopy I heard deploy, was fully inflated and function. But something wasn't letting me look up. I couldn't move my head upward. That was weird.

What I missed most seeing was what that chute above my head was doing because. And frankly, I didn't seem to be slowing down. Count to six, look up, check the chute opened, make a decision. 

You either relax and enjoy the ride down. Or do some emergency stuff like cut away from the failed chute, releasing the connectors to the risers connected between the harness and the canopy, then just pop the emergency chute by pulling the ripcord handle on the canvass wrapped bump of nylon on your chest.

I began to consider feeling stressed out, but I had been told you only have about ten seconds to make a decision on what to do in a situation like that and at that altitude. So I really didn't have the time to stress out. Or be afraid. Which I thought I would save for either just before I impacted the ground, or just after I landed and somehow, continued living against all odds. 

Which, actually, I was kind of counting on.

Also, my hangover seemed to magically dissolve away. I guess adrenalin does that.

I remember thinking I needed to break away, pop the emergency chute; but then a thought broke into my consciousness. The realization that if I pop the chute, "I don't have $2.50 for an emergency chute repack." That would be embarrassing. So, I thought...I bet I could fix this. It's just twisted. If I could just get this one to work, the deployed one, I mean, it's just sitting there, out, but not inflated, then; no sense in being embarrassed. And that would really suck." 

Right. OK, then.

I did the obvious thing, what anyone might do. Right? No?

I tried to pull apart the risers so I could snap my head back. It was then I realized just how much strength it took to keep the risers apart for more than a second or two as they were supporting all my weight. It was too much. I had to let them snap back into place. My head still down. Pinned down, taking my agency from me, out of my control. I refused to let that defeat me and I was rapidly running out of time. 

At which point, I put all my strength into it and pulled them apart enough I could slip my helmeted head back and it went back further than I'd expected and I had to let the risers go. They snapped into place and now I found I was now staring straight up at the streaming tube-like, "cigarette roll" (as they call those malfunctions); a funny looking arrangement of a Hell of a lot of 1.1 rip-stop nylon NOT inflating and there, far beyond that, a truly beautiful, silent, blue sky.

Technically, this type of "function" as they liked to call them (I discovered a few years later with PJs when I was a parachute rigger in the USAF), is known as a "compression twist", but at the time, I really wasn't caring what the correct technical term for it was. 

Apparently, it can happen when you twist the chute as you put it into the pack during repack, so when it extracts it spirals and compresses, holding itself in a tube shape, so it can't inflate as air has no entryway into the canopy.

I noticed that it was really quite quiet falling like that through the sky. 

Except for this one noise, and what was that anyhow as it was getting quickly getting louder as I fell? I thought about it for a moment (just part of a second, don't worry) and realized finally that it was me, passing through the air, at drag decreased terminal velocity only 100 miles an hour (go ahead, stick your head out the window of your car at 100 mph some time, and you'll see what I mean). Full termina velocity is around 120MPH, but the tube above me was causing drag, slowing me down a bit.

There were some other minor sounds from material flapping, or loose harness webbing, but other than that, just the screaming of the air shooting past my ears that seemed to take up the majority of my attention. 

Funny how time slows as you're about to die...

At about that point, head was stuck back, the risers were holding my helmet back, I realized that I could have it either way, head forward and down or back looking up, but not easily transition between the two extremes. I hadn't expected that. 

So, I figured, well? I might as well try to fix it. I may have no choice at this point. Besides, I didn't really want to watch my knees being shoved up into my hips should it come to that. Wait, no, I wouldn't be able to see that, would I, not in this position.

I figured I'd feel it either way though. No sense in evoking sensory overload, ya know?

It was at that moment that I thought to put into play all my brilliance and act accordingly. So, I did the only thing I could think to do, what I thought in the first place, and pulled the risers apart as wide as I could with all my strength for as long as I could and hope that worked. Seemed like it should.

So the chute above me could then open at the bottom to inflate and I could just sit there happily and relaxed and watch the show of a colorful spectacle of yards of nylon spinning rapidly around up above me, so that it could open to its full and glorious (likely a) 32-foot modified round, TU-slotted flat circular, standard static-line gear of the day). I was surprised as I pulled them apart, that I was actually able to hold them far apart after a certain distance when it got easier, and again, I think some of it was the adrenalin. 

And that was when the amazing happened. But shouldn't have been the surprising. A parachute nickname is "air anchor." Should I have expected the chute to spin? Or... 

I wasn't considering a small, overlooked item. That being physics. You see, when you have above you an "air anchor" and try to move it against that of say 180 pounds of dead weight plus gear, well, the larger "air anchor" wins every time and the dead weight (yes, me) spins instead.

At which point I began to spin uncontrollably as the inflating parachute above instead got to watch my spectacle with feet flying out from centrifugal force as I did a strange little meat puppet twirl.

Unbeknownst to me, not so far below on the ground, down there beneath me at the LZ, the other jumpers, and our groundmaster--were watching in shared fascination and sheer horror. But I wasn't thinking of them. I was busy on my carnival ride.

"Why in the Hell isn't he cutting away and deploying his reserve!" The groundmaster wondered. He who controls guiding you in and the ground LZ, as Jesse handled the issues in the planet leading up to the jump.

Fascinated, they watched the display of me spinning, after having not broken away from the malfunctioning main chute sooner and using the reserve chute; and in horror at having lived moments that felt like hours to the more experienced jumpers as they watched the far more inexperienced sky diver (my esteemed self) not breaking away from the "compression twist" (something that has killed many sky divers and especially first-time parachutists for nearly a hundred years or more).

The groundmaster saw EVERYTHING and was not pleased with me. Something he made painfully clear once it was understood I was good and back on the ground, alive, mostly.

I had a grand finale as I snapped to and stopped spinning quite suddenly. I was a little dizzy and I had to let my eyes catch up to my head and allow my vision to focus again, but I was very happy to note that I no longer heard any high speed winds, and that above me (yes, I could now look up quite easily through the now uncrossed risers) there was finally a beautiful open and fully inflated canopy doing what it was meant to do: slow descent to a reasonable and much more fun speed.

I was now able to enjoy a quiet, and incredible view of a descent, with a massive panorama of the entire region below me with Mt Rainier in the distance. It seemed to last forever, until I got within about 40-50 feet of the ground at which point, things seemed to increase in speed and the culmination of the jump. That being, the landing.

Remember, on my first jump I was the only one who hit the pea gravel. So of course, I wanted to do it again. I was headed right for it. The groundmaster was guiding me not in the direction I wanted so I did what I wanted. I could see he was gesticulating frantically but I was concentrating on my pulling the risers and I overshot the pea gravel, something he knew clearly, I was going to do. 

I pulled hard on one riser and I thought I could spiral down back to the target gravel. But I kept going forward too much and as I spun around a wind caught the chute and spun me harder. Think bucket of water on a rope you spin around and centrifugal force keeps the water in the bucket.

But essentially what it meant for me was that I was gaining momentum in that spin at the end of those ropes until the road running through the meadow was rising to meet me far to fast. I slammed into it, but at an angle. My combat boot encased feet hit first, as they hit the ground the split down the sides, my body hit at such an angle there was no good way to cushion my slamming into the rocks and dirt of that road. 

After creaming into the road, I lost my happy feeling pretty quickly as the pain spread throughout me from my feet to my upper body. I just lied there in pain. The groundmaster ran over to me and asked if I was OK. Embarrassed I said yes, but do something about this chute! He said just pop a riser. I did and the chute deflated. I asked if he could help get my helmet off and he did. I just lied there in the dirt feeling like an idiot. A painful one at that. 

He asked if I was OK. I said, yes. He asked if I I was sure. I just yes, I'm fine, it hurts, but I'm OK, just let me lie here for a while. He asked again, are you sure you're OK? I looked at him oddly and said, Yes, why? He pointed at my boots. I looked down and say the leather had split down the sides. I was surprised but I just said, Yeah I don't know what that's about but I'm good.

He nodded and said, "OK, but when you're ready, I want to talk to you." I just nodded and put my head back in the dirt, staring at the sky as he walked away.

After about fifteen minutes, I got up, humiliated and walked over to the groundmaster wherein he "tore me a new one," and made it clear as you approach the LZ the groundmaster is in control and you DO whatever he indicates. He asked if I knew there was a draft running along that road. I said no. He said that's why you got slammed into the ground. I said I just wanted to turn and hit the pea gravel. He said you never had a chance at that, I was giving you your best path down. ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR GROUNDMASTER! Got it!?"

Yeah, I got it. I also didn't walk right for a week or so after that. I didn't need a better reminder.

Then he asked what I was thinking in not breaking away from a defective deployment. I said I thought I could fix it. He made it clear, you don't fix it you break away. Safety first. I wanted to explain to him I wasn't just some 17 year old who didn't know anything but I'd been in a lot of dangerous situation and trained to fix problems in real time. I had first responder first aid training. All kinds of things like that but--thought it best to bite my tongue and just, nod yes.

Also, I said, I didn't have $2.50 for an emergency chute repack. 

That stunned everyone within hearing range. Jesse had landed a few minutes before and was nearby packing up her chute and leaned over to me and said don't do that again. OK? She made it clear, that rather than go through what they just witnessed, with a new jumper (again, no tandem jumps back then), they would all have been happy to pitch in to pay the cost of a repack for the emergency chute. I was humbled looking around and everyone was nodding in agreement. 

Once again, Life was good.

Thinking back on it, that wasn't as stressful as this past week has been for me; that week that I would one time experienced, some several decades later.

No matter how intense things feel right now? You can almost always count on them getting more intense later.

Makes you think.

You know?

Oh. And here's the funny thing. 

I looked up who Jesse was and is today and found her! She's a world-class record-breaking sky diver who at 77 made her 23 when I knew her:

It's just total freedom': At 77, Washington skydiver Jessie Farrington sees no need to quit.

A Mafia Murder And An Armed Teen

This is the story of "The Teenage Bodyguard." Who? Well, if you haven't already heard about this, in 1974 a teenager protected a murder witness, a woman and cocktail waitress for a week, from the mob, the mafia, from their "Enterprise". And he kept her alive. But did she survive?

Graphic by Kelly Hughes

Welcome to the Pacific Northwest podcast, "Scene of the Crime", who recently did a podcast titled, "Enterprise" (Also, here - podcast currently seems unavailable), in June of 2020. It told of the story of the Tacoma, Washington Carbone crime family who abused local Pierce County law enforcement and government all through the 1970s.

Years later, in 1978 during their San Francisco federal trial of their "Enterprise", they again murdered one of their bouncers who had been subpoenaed. But he was not the first bouncer they had murdered. The first was in 1974, and his name was Danny McCormack.

In the spring of 1974, there is a particular story that is of interest to us here. And that is the story of Gordie. After receiving a phone call from a "friend", he gave a woman who had been staying with the friend, a short ride.

When she got into his car, a 1967 Camaro RS/SS red convertible (two years later this model would be renamed as the Z28 model), she refused to give him an address to where he was taking here.

The first red light, and sign there was something wrong. Instead shea just told him where to turn until they got to her new living space. Her new home was with four people she had just met recently. With no ties at all to her past, or Gordie's friend, or Gordie for that matter.

At this point one might ask, "Why isn't this in theaters yet?" And if you're someone who could see this film produced, surely, say, "Hi!"

Exactly. Even the podcast pointed that out. The Blacklist, indicated that on an evaluation of this film. The Bluecat Screenplay Contest asked that exact question.

The Blacklist: "Since 2005, each December, the Black List releases its annual list, a survey of the most liked unproduced screenplays of that year. The annual lists are aggregated using votes from film executives working in the film industry." From The Blacklist

Bluecat Screenplay Contest: "Founded in 1998 by award-winning writer Gordy Hoffman, BlueCat has remained committed in discovering unknown, gifted screenwriters and showcases their work to a global audience year after year. Through written analysis provided to all entrants, BlueCat has supported thousands of screenwriters with many who have gone on to successful careers in the film and television industry."

Actually, I've been working with Gordie, the protagonist of this story, along with Voyage Media's head of their Originals Department, Robert Mitas. Robert has had screenplays produced himself, and worked producing films with actor and producer, Michael Douglas.
We are currently working to see this screenplay and story produced and into theaters or via another of many viewer platforms. I'd be happy with Netflix or Amazon Prime or others.

Text from Thursday, January 24th, 1974 Tacoma News Tribune article:

Patron kills bouncer at Tiki

The bouncer in a Lakewood night spot was slain early Sunday as he argued with a disgruntled customer in the parking lot.

Danny Derrick McCormick, 25, 3102 S. 47th St., was pronounced dead at Lakewood General Hospital at 2:30a.m.

He was employed by The Tiki, at Villa Plaza.

Sheriff's deputies were told McCormick was shot in the chest by a young white man who earlier had been harrassing a waitress in The Tiki.

After closing at 2AM, the suspect returned to pound on the cabaret door, unsuccessfully demanding to be let in. When McCormick and a friend went to their car, the suspect and a companion drove over and began angrily discussing the Tiki operation.

The suspect pulled a revolver, deputies were told. McCormick's friend grabbed him and told the bouncer to "get the gun."

McCormick was shot as he approached the suspect, who broke away and fled with his companion in their car.

An off-duty school security officer who had left with McCormick but gone to his own car fired a shot at the fleeing car as it sped away.

Mccormick was rushed to the hospital but did not respond to treatment.

It was this murder of a coworker that sparked this whole story. A story that led to a cocktail waitress to go on the run because, as she contended, she was IN that parking lot when Danny was murdered. A murder she said was NOT performed by an anonymous disgruntled patron, but rather by one of the capos of the head of the "Enterprise", John "Handsome Johnny" Carbone himself.

Why isn't this on screen yet somewhere?

Getting a film made is a magical thing. But we continue to work toward seeing this produced so you can see this story for yourself. And maybe, make up your own mind.

Let Me Tell You A Story About Tacoma, WA in 1973

Let me take you back, into my past...to the year 1973. Tacoma, Washington. I was seventeen. Allow me to set the stage...

Myself in Manhattan in 1974

I had graduated at seventeen, got a job, moved out of my parent's house and finally, started my life. Like many teens, I'd been ready to be on my own for years. Though in reality, I wasn't really ready for it. In some ways, I was more ready for it than many adults ever become. In other ways, not so much. I was very adept at problem-solving, at heading toward trouble when necessary, regardless of my personal feelings.

Me on the left fighting in the 1967
Seattle Open International Karate Tournament put on by my Sensei.

I had started martial arts in grade school. I had studied flight ground school. I had studied search and rescue and first responder disaster first aid in an auxiliary of the USAF, the Civil Air Patro. I had been on a private rifle team and then spent three years on my high school rifle team. I had flown small planes.

Me on the left with my high school SCUBA club in 1971

Immediately after high school, I had started sky diving. I already had my SCUBA diving license in tenth grade and performed my first open water, saltwater dive in Puget Sound's waters the same day I took my driver's license written test. In fact, I was sitting in my wet swimming trunks immediately after my open water dive while I took my written exam at my high school, after hours.

I can remember being distracted while taking my driving test by my wet swim trunks under my jeans and if anyone could smell the salt waters of Puget Sound from me while we sat stressing over filling out our test. Still, I passed both tests that day, for SCUBA and for driving.

My 2nd-floor apartment at 17

One day while sitting at my apartment in an old house in Old Town part of Tacoma, a very nice area of manicured lawns and beautiful old houses, I got a phone call that would echo throughout my entire life to today. For purposes of story and filmmaking, we altered things to turn that phone call into a party instead. But it only made the story more interesting and wrapped up several issues quickly and neatly, increasing the tension and decreasing the cost of making the film overall.

That phone call led me to some years ago, to begin writing a new screenplay. I had just been thinking of what story from my past would make an interesting story, one that could be written and filmed and sold and shown in theaters. See, when I left my parent's house in 1973 it was my desire, after a childhood of adventures, to continue on that path to bigger and better adventures, better stories, stories I could one day, as an old man, write and people might want to buy and read, supplementing my retirement.

By this time in about 2013, I had published short horror stories for money. Years before in the 80s I had gotten published in various local computer magazines, those that looked like tiny newspapers or a Nickel want ads format. I'd gotten published in the greater Seattle area and my favorite piece "Cyberspace", about the new internet for people and not just the military and universities, and about workers and managers dealing with the use of the internet at work.

Many managers were freaking out about it...should they fire employees over it? I argued it was little different at the time as over personal use of telephones which once gave managers great concertation and to today, is an issue with employees. Especially considering today the use of cell and smartphones.

So, I reviewed in my mind on that day in 2013, what stories I had that would be best to attempt a biopic of my past life. I reviewed my published stories and my memories. I looked at old photos.  I considered stories from my years in the USAF when I had a secret clearance for working around nuclear weapons. Some interesting stories there and I'm released from talking about my work in the service after twenty-five years had passed. Which they have. I thought about years growing up in the 60s and 70s and even 80s. Lot's of interesting stuff then.

In the 90s and after 2000 I was in IT work, raising my kids and my life had toned down quite a bit. In fact, when my son was about eighteen months old in 1989 I remember driving down the street considering if in now having a child I shouldn't curb my activities and do my best to be there for him growing up. And so that day I truly became a father. Then in 1993 my daughter came about and even more reason to live sane and safe.

Then I remembered something from my past, when I was seventeen. I graduated from high school and moved out of my parents as soon as I could. I got an apartment in an old house and a job where my sister had her first post-high school job, three years prior to me. Then one day I was sitting at home and a friend called me and asked that I give a woman a ride who was staying with him and his roommate. To make a long story short, I gave her a ride and ... the rest of that story seeped back into my mind.

As I ran over that day, that week actually, I realized that may be the story. My most marketable story. A story I had never told anyone. And the more I thought about it the more I couldn't believe I hadn't thought about it sooner.

Because the story was about my staying with a woman for a week until she could leave town. Something about where she had worked, at the Polynesian style Tiki Restaurant in the Tacoma suburb community of Lakewood, Washington. there had been a murder three of the young bouncer there. It was at Tacoma's first topless venue. The bouncer was only twenty-five.

The woman, in about her late twenties, admitted to being where the murder had happened and said that those who committed it believed she saw it. A murder allegedly according to the newspaper and Sheriff's office was by an anonymous patron. But a murder she claimed had been committed by the restaurant owners themselves. Those "owners" were the local mafia. Not like today where you hear about a mafia of a loosely held gang. This was the real mafia.

So I agreed. I would stay with her for that week and keep her out of trouble, away from prying eyes and keep her alive until she could leave town forever for her old home town. It was an interesting week. So I agreed. With myself. That would be the story, the screenplay I would write. One day. Some day. Time passed. Occasionally I would research some on it but never got past that stage.

A few months later I was contacted by an author whom I had written an adaptation of her novel, an espionage romance, to screenplay format. it had been a few years. She said her book been optioned once for a film, but the year had passed and the option expired. Now she had interest from another producer. One in London who wanted to see it. So I contacted him via email.

I ended up sending him a copy of the screenplay. In our emails back and forth he asked me what else i had available. So I sent him a list of my finished screenplays and protected screenplays I was considering writing. I mentioned Gray and Lover The Heart Tales Incident, which had been a semi-finalist in the Circus Road Films screenplay contest. I mentioned a few others: Colorado Lobsters.

And, Popsicle Death, Sarah, and Poor Lord Ritchie the three short stories/screenplays I had included as a part of Gray and Lover and then due to coverage suggesting removing them and let the frame and main part of the screenplay to run free, I  then cut. And to very positive effect in coming close to winning a contest with it. But then I set Gray and Lover aside for this new property.

I included a list of screenplays I was thinking of writing. He latched right onto one and asked to see it first should I ever write it. The name really grabbed him: "The Teenage Bodyguard". I finished writing it in nineteen days and sent it back to him. I never heard back from him on either property. I looked him up later and found he had disappeared from the scene. So I moved on. Continued to research and send out to contests that gave feedback. I honed the screenplay and researched more.

I'll skip the ins and outs of my efforts on this screenplay. However, through my research, I stumbled onto exactly what I had gotten myself into back in 73. The story only continued to get more interesting.

I finally got a producer to work with me just a few months ago and because of that, we have redrafted the screenplay to a smaller and more marketable approach. It's been a learning experience with producer Robert Mitas. A nice guy, interesting and knowledgable guy I've enjoyed working with who is now attached to my project.

Robert has a few irons in the fire, another film in the works similar to mine as it's a true story from a young guy's past and I'm looking forward to seeing it.

I watched his latest film, an adaptation of Shirley Jackson's story, "We Have Always Lived In The Castle". Michael Douglas was an executive producer. I really liked it. Crispin Glover was excellent as always as a quirky character, an uncle.

For my project, our project, we are now looking for a director and have a shortlist we are working off of. I look forward to seeing this project produced because it's an interesting story, a story about a place and time that hasn't received any attention.

Who KNEW there were mafia efforts in Tacoma, Washington in the 1970s? I didn't and I lived through going up against them. I just thought it was a bunch of bad actors at the time. Had I known back then, at seventeen, who they were, would it have made any difference to me at the time? I really don't think so. Here was a frightened and abused woman, who was asking for help and who was I with all the skills at my disposal, to walk away from her. That just wasn't me.

There is much more to this story. You'll be able to watch some of it in "The Teenage Bodyguard" once we get it produced and on screen for people to see. It's a much bigger story than will be on screen and maybe we'll get around to telling more of it in ensuing years. But I believe, as does Robert, that what you'll see when this version, this part of the story gets told, is a very interesting and entertaining film and you won't regret watching it.

Author's Reading at Studio 724 - Port Orchard

Saturday I went to another Author's reading at Studio 724 in Port Orchard. I have written about the Studio 724 Gallery and it's dynamic owner, Louis King before. I've been at a lot of events there this year with more coming.

This time I got to meet a couple of interesting authors and hear them read passages from their works. One I already knew previously (Marshall) but hadn't gotten yet to know his writings. The other was new to me and a very interesting guy with an interesting book, an interesting take on the vampire genre, with more to come.

Today's readings were by Mark Allen and Marshall Miller.

Mark Allen is retired military and has written a vampire book titled Nocturnal. I that book he did not want to follow the trend in vamps being glittery or romantic. Not an easy thing to do now a days to come up with a fresh slant on vamps. His vampire is scary, clinical in his actions and not ever quibbling over his situation, the ethics, the pain of being him.

He knows who he is. He lives how he does. And he's unapologetic about it. He is realistic however and he does cull food with a sense of economy and reality. Some are just not targeted as his food sources, children, the weak, the innocent. But he didn't choose this path out of compassion or ethics. Rather he chooses the dregs of humanity out of a sense of efficiency and his own sense of perfection. not unlike perhaps, a wolf in targeting the easy kill or the choice of what is perhaps inadvertently the best for the herd.

Mark gave an impassioned reading and one felt he truly felt his protagonist deeply. His next book he is already working on will venture into the realm of werewolves, but with, as is Mark's nature, a fresh take on them and their greater endeavors in society. Mark also mentioned that he writes screenplays, has an L.A. agent and has directed an indie film.

Marshall Miller has written a series of books about an alien invasion that is certainly worth a look.I've known Mark for a little while now, through the Studio. He hosts a show on public access with another author, Peter Stockwell, for KLAW (Kitsap Literary Authors and Writers), and Kitsap Publishing based in Poulsbo, WA. They usually air on Saturdays at 6PM PT.

From a description on Writer's in Kitsap County on MeetUp.com:

Kitsap County has a monthly television show filmed at Bremerton public television station by the fairgrounds. Want to get involved? Want to be interviewed? Come by the station every last Tuesday of the month, we take over the station at 2 PM. Come learn how you can help.

Someone coined the phrase for Marshall that his three volume TSCHAAA series (from Kitsap Publishing) as the War and Peace of alien squid invasion novels. Marshall read from his first book, The Gathering Storm. It was a fun and intense section he read of his book.

As his own write up says:

 If you like Sci Fi/Speculative Fiction with Adult Themes that make you THINK; If you like books with exciting and well-developed characters; If you like strong heroes and heroines, unusual but interesting Aliens, and slam bam ACTION that harkens back to the Golden and Silver Age of Pulp Fiction, you’ll LOVE this series.

These were both very interesting authors and we look forward to their next efforts. I also personally look forward to the next author event at Studio 724!


Shameless plug for one of my own books, Death of heaven (video book trailer).

About the production of, The Rapping

We are currently deep into pre-production of Last good Nerve Production's short horror film, The Rapping. Originally intended as a three minute short horror film it is currently around ten minutes and will hopefully be completed under fifteen minutes in length.

Originally we had planned to have as our first narrative horror short film be one titled: The Bremerton Mea Culpa. It is a story I first wrote in college, published in Anthology of Evil and was further expanded in my book, Death of heaven.

I have built a tiny universe of my characters. In reading all of my fiction you at times can find characters from one story popping up elsewhere. So I have decided to build on my written fiction now in my produced films whenever possible. I love when I find characters I like in other places than where I expect to find them. Also some of my stories in books are available as short ebooks or audiobooks.

One example is from my story, Poor Lord Ritchie's Answer to a Question He Knever Knew. And yes I researched it, believe it or not back in that character's era there was indeed a Lord Ritchie. He also pops up in the World of Pirates anthology in a story titled, Breaking on Cave Island. It details a piece of Ritchie's life previous to "Poor Lord Ritchie's Answer..." during a time when he was, of all things, a pirate. I am currently also compiling a sequel, Anthology of Evil II, with some of these stories that were in anthologies. I'm hoping to have that out and available sometime this year.

When the World of Pirates anthology publisher offered to include a story of mine, I decided to use a previous character of mine and Lord Ritchie just seemed an obvious one to expand upon. Odd how these things pop up, altering things, heading you into directions you had never seen coming. Up to that point I had never even considered Ritchie might have been a pirate but it does fill out his background and perhaps explain some of his damage in life (you'd have to read the original to see what I mean). And trust me, his life is pretty damaged. But then, tampering with things one shouldn't bother can affect one in those ways.

Expanding on previous works is pretty much the same with my Mea Culpa Document of London story. That one is about a medieval witch hunter and judge. It too will be added to that overarching compendium of my characters as yet another branch of its own storyline.

So when we finally do get to that project after wrapping up The Rapping, it will already have a rich background to draw from. As the screenplay for Mea Culpa was being written, along with considerations of SFX, it grew, if not out of control, then much larger than we had intended for an initial project. A project that should be selected for its simplicity. But then, I always do tend to go full crazy...regardless.

So it was decided to first film a shorter and easier to shoot production. I've also been practicing writing "smaller" for years now. Consider my first screenplay, Ahriman, involved massive special effects and two planets. Good story though. One I may well update and put back out there to be produced. It has elements of Brainstorm, The 13th Floor and other such films.

Looking around at my writings of what to choose from, as these films were initially going to be drawn from my writings, nothing easy or simple was rising to the surface. As we had easy access to a location, a house with a sizable yard and garage where we can shoot literally any time we want, that was in part how the concept for the first film came up and the Garage Tales series was born.

However while discussing all this with fellow producers Nik and Gordon Hayes, we started to consider the attic in the home. The garage for Garage Tales lent itself to a larger concept. While the attic allowed (in my tiny mind anyway) a much smaller consideration somehow. Even though its square footage might just be greater than the garage. But an attic, well, attics have a built in fear factors. It's the unknown, the seldom gone into. The "what in the hell is that creeping around above us?"

It was right there, in the house. The attic, with its built in spookiness factor. Like basements, but different. Basements tend to be used more after all. So from there we developed a smaller conceit and delivery for our first narrative.

We just needed a story. We came up with the concept of a couple in a living room who hear a sound, seek it out and well, things happen. But what sound? Perhaps just a knocking sound, a tapping, sound a rapping. Why did rapping pop into my head?

Because it was Poe, pure and simple. I've  always been a fan of Edgar Allan Poe, since I was a kid. I was a fan as a child of the Roger Corman films and the British Hammer horror films. I immediately realized I had been thinking about Poe's poem, The Raven. Just the first stanza though:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—

Only this and nothing more.”

And there it was. "The Rapping".

Immediately it was brought up about a conflict with modern Rap music and how it can be confused with that. But that is really just a double entendre. How is that a bad thing, at least in this case? Besides been there before. "JZ" Murdock, right? Not my fault and I'm older than Jay-Z after all.

Originally I was just thinking as executive producer and as screenwriter and editor, of using only the first stanza. But as the project developed I realized I needed to read the entire poem again and consider it in its entirety.

Which made me realize that it is really about grief and a lost love. Not a direction we were headed in. We had built this story with the love, the significant other, right there. The "love" was named Poppet, not Lenore as in the poem. I realized we needed a rewrite. The screenplay had already had some major changes made to it by then but this was much bigger.

I had to rethink that. In fact it stopped me dead in my rewrite. I also had to submit the paperwork to SAG\AFTRA (more about that later). To submit to them as an Indie signatory, I have a few documents to submit. One of which is the screenplay itself. As we now have a SAG\AFTRA actor (more about that later, too), we have to go this route if we wish to use her. The documents we have to initially submit to get the ball rolling are:

-Pre-Production Cast List
-Line-Item Budget
-Copy of the Screenplay (Treatments/Outlines are acceptable for non-scripted projects.)
-Signatory Verification
 Copy of Personal Photo ID (If signing as an Individual)
 Formation Documents (If signing as a Corporation, LLC, etc.)

So I had to have a good version of the screenplay to submit. I already have all the documents signed by the actors. But I was jammed up as there was now a reversal to my (our) original concept. As we have been realizing through this entire project and development, every stoppage like this has led us to a better project.

I took some time off and thought about it over a few days, all the while having it bouncing around in the back of my mind. I took my Harley out for a ride around Port Orchard, which was quite beautiful and a great repast after too many months of cold and rain.

Eventually I got back to it. Sitting down one day with Nik, I told him my problem and we discussed the storyline. It just all started to fall into place. Feeling rejuvenated, I began again to rewrite the screenplay. This time I got it done in one quick sitting. I now have a screenplay I can use to submit all these docs with. As I'm writing this the day before this blog is published, I just need to go over it one more time today and submit it.

Backing up... what have been the issues we've had that kept stopping us? We have brand new equipment, new software for editing the shots, and we've never done a narrative film, just documentary. So we have the experience of building a film, just not a narrative, and one with FX.

The story is of an entity that invades a home and affects the inhabitants. But what kind of an entity is it? Alien, specter (ghost, interdimensional being), demon, military invention, technological horror? What? Is the, are the invaded crazy, on drugs? This is all reflected in the opening establishing shots around Bremerton leading to the home.

Backing up again... Starting on a Friday, I was at the Port Orchard Dragonfly Cinema Film Festival. I had so much fun and got to be in another Kelly Hughes (Leprechaun Productions) horror film. Alison Arngrim (Nellie Oleson in Little House on the Prairie) was also in that film. Last year she had "murdered" me in another Hughes' production. So I knew her a little. I got to hang with Kelly and helped him with Alison over the weekend.

At some point it occurred to me to ask her if she'd like to be involved in our project. But how? She was busy and leaving on Sunday to speak to legislators in Sacramento on Monday. I couldn't let this opportunity pass us by. At the beginning of the film there is a place where the words of the first stanza of The Raven are superimposed on the screen. After a while I'd thought to have someone read those words rather that put them on the screen.

We'd found in a friend of Nik's and mine, Tom Remick, that he used to be a professional announcer. The fix for these words on the screen was obvious. But then Alison came into the scene and this was the obvious and a reasonable possibility of how to get her in the film. As a narrator of the poem I simply couldn't turn down this opportunity. And what actor wouldn't want to be involved in a Poe project?

So I asked her and she was happy to be a part of our project. She said when she was a child she had her mother read Poe to her before bed. Perfect! I spoke with Tom and he was happy to be a team player and understand the importance of having someone like Alison on the project. This led me to consider how to keep Tom on the project. Again it enhanced our project.

Thoughts were that he could do an underlying deeper voice to enhance the oddity of Alison's voice, or have him do some voice work at various places as an audio FX. Or perhaps have Tom read the stanza again at the end of the film. Perhaps having Alison's voice underly his at the end in a reversal of the opening lines. Having text read again at the end as well as the beginning of a film has been done many times before. Reading text at the beginning that when reread at the end, has an enhanced meaning by that point to the audience.

This past weekend I submitted the documents to SAG\AFTRA and have therefore begun the process of becoming a SAG\AFTRA signatory and actually being able to use Alison on this project. It's been a vastly educational project for all of us so far. Not Alison really, as she already has vastly more experience in film than all of us put together do, having started in TV\film back in the late 1960s.

We have now set the official start of the project for early July and need only to submit to SAG\AFTRA. This has already been a rich and rewarding experience.

And I only see more coming. I'll keep you apprised.

Earth Day, April 22, 2015 - My First Earth Day & Bert Thomas, Swimmer and Diver Extraordinaire

Today, is Earth Day! Hurrah Earth!

We really do need to push ourselves and our governments (and other's) to leave things better than when we found them, rather than abusing things for fun and profit. Existence on this planet, IS a profit for us by the way.

We need to do big things as well as the little things to sustain and fix our planet. The biggest thing we can do however is to change our ways of thinking, especially as it relates to big money and governments.

As individuals, we need a paradigm shift in our thoughts about how we live, how our community and country lives and how others live in their countries. The world is a contained unit. It's like we all live in the same room and if someone lights up a cigar, we all suffer for it through their pleasure. If someone does one bad behavior, it does have a ripple effect across the room, or the world.

Like the burning of tropical forests to plant palm trees for palm oil. A hugely destructive and yet, profitable behavior. Insects are dying off, like bees and when they go, they say, we go. Insects after all, do not need us, we need them for survival.

We need to act on climate change whether or not is is affected by our activities as there is great debate among the laymen about that, although there is not among informed people, like scientists. We need to at least think about our planet and our actions. We need at least one day a year to think about it. We need to therefore think about it, at least, on that one day.

Wednesday April 22nd, 2015 - Earth Day

Earth Day is an annual event, celebrated on April 22, on which day events worldwide are held to demonstrate support for environmental protection. It was first celebrated in 1970, and is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network, and celebrated in more than 192 countries each year. - Wikiipedia

It's a day of respect for the planet we live on. I reflect on how we have and are treating it, and to feel gratitude it would deserve just as if it were a person. It's what we humans have to do sometimes, to anthropomorphise things in order to see the degree of respect that we should attribute toward them, for our own benefit.

Here's an interesting web site for today, EarthDay.org, the Earth Day Network. Also, there is BTNW to take a different slant on things..

I first because aware of Earth Day when it was started. I took a NAUI certified SCUBA class that year in 10th grade at and through the Tacoma, Washington Lincoln high school that I was attending, eventually to graduate from in 1973.

I started this blog only about Earth Day but then in the writing of it something became obvious to me and that was that my famous diving instructor, Bert Thomas, seems to have disappeared in history.

Allow me to say that I'm a better person for having known and learned from Mr. Thomas, as is much of the world. As a SCUBA diver and one trained by Bert Thomas, as well as having been a life long resident of such a special place as the Pacific Northwest with it's many waterways, diversity of population and life, and its amazing places to visit on land, I could only grew up with an innate sense of ecology. I also took two quarters of Oceanography in college.

So I'm going to tell you a little story and give you some background. Allow me to explain....

Bill's Boathouse 2013

When I was just starting high school, a local dive shop called Bill's Boathouse located on American Lake in Steilacoom, Washington, wanted to run a trial to train and certify local high school students toward their SCUBA certifications. This would increase awareness of SCUBA diving overall as the infant recreation diving sport that it was, as well as increase sales for the products the dive shop was selling.

Lead by Bert Thomas, world famous for a variety of things such as attempting to be the first to swim the English Channel, and successfully swimming Seattle to Tacoma as well as helping Jacques Cousteau in the development of the aqualung or S.C.U.B.A. system (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) back when Bert was a Navy hard hat deep sea diver.

Bert also swam non-stop from Port Angeles, Washington to Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada and there is now a plaque on Ediz Hook indicating the location he swam away from at Port Angeles..He swam the 18.3 mile distance in 11 hours on his fifth attempt on July 8, 1955, almost two months before I was even born. 1,500 people where there to meet him when he arrived in Victoria, BC.

Port Angeles, WA

Although he had failed in his attempt to be the first person to swim the English Channel, he then not only crossed the channel from Cape Griz Nez, France to Dover, England, he was then "pulled from the water after reaching about midway on the return trip."

May 15, 1956. 

Bert was born in Durango, CO, but called the PNW and Tacoma, Washington his home.He was a Marine drill instructor in San Diego and a platoon sergeant in a demolition unit. Later he was a Navy frogman instructor at Pearl Harbor.

Odd. My first Ishinryu Karate Sensei the also great bear of a man, the great Steve Armstrong was also a Marine DI only in Okinawa. I don't use "great" lightly with either of these men, either. Bert has been described as a "human polar bear" and a "professional cork".

"Description: Tacoma distance swimmer Bert Thomas is embraced by his wife Mary at the end of his swim from West Seattle to Old Tacoma on May 15, 1956. Thomas swam the 18.5 miles in 15 hours, 23 minutes in 40 degree water battered by high winds and the tide. His feet touched the bottom for the first time at 3:05 a.m., 15 feet out from the shore. Visibly exhausted, he staggered in to shore and collapsed in his wife's arms. He appeared ghostly white with blue lips. His wife struggled to get him into his bathrobe to warm up. When he could speak, the ex-frogman's first words were "Man, it was quite a haul." Mrs. Thomas had supported him on the swim, aboard the "Sharon Two." She fed him through a tube every hour and lit the cigarette that he smoked, continuing the swim on his back. Also aboard the craft was his 12 year old daughter Sharon and Erling Bergerson. The other support craft was the "Memories," skippered by George Peterson. (TNT 5-15-1956, p.1) ALBUM 9". - Historylink.org

Oddly, coincidentally enough (considering this blog today), Bert ended his 15.5 hour swim from Faultleroy, Seattle, 18.5 miles on May 14, 1956, at the Tacoma Old Town dock (I'll get back to that in a minute) where there were 5,000 people to meet him.

Having known him personally, he and his wife also got to be friends with my mother and sister, both of whom who were motivated by my achieving my own SCUBA certification in getting their certifications. I can honestly say that Bert was a truly great man to know and be trained by. My NAUI certified SCUBA card was signed by the great Bert Thomas himself. It indicates that I had 41 hours of training and I received my certification in May 1971.

In writing this blog, I found very little record of Bert online (there are however these interesting photos and descriptions I did find). So, I thought I'd go into a little more about him out of respect so at least he will be slightly memorialized in more detail, somewhere.

My SCUBA card signed by Bert Thomas and dated 1970

Bert was a great bear of a guy and a pleasure to be around. When they opened their second dive shop, Philippe Cousteau sent a bouquet of flowers to the shop. The dive instructors were a great bunch of guys and Bert was a real character. As was old Bill, who owned Bill's Boathouse, though he was old even back then when I knew him.

Bert Thomas Obituary, 

Bert's fatal event, as it was explained to me, was in attempting to stop a student surfacing too fast during an open salt water certification dive. A new diver thing to do which can be potentially lethal, as it was for Bert. As one of his students was rushing to the surface, Bert raced up after him to stop him from getting the "bends", also known as decompression sickness, divers' disease, or caisson disease.

Officially, Bert died on Thursday, June 8, 1972, having suffered a heart attack at Tacoma General Hospital. It's been conjectured however by one of his dive instructors, that it was that event with the student that led to his passing. 

The student came to his senses and stopped on his own, but by then Bert had too much momentum and couldn't stop himself from surfacing too quickly himself. He was rushed to the hospital but didn't make it which isn't unusual in this kind of thing.

However, he died doing what he loved, diving and teaching.

Before all this happened, we had started a SCUBA club at my high school.

Lincoln High School Newspaper Oct. 22, 1971

Those teachers in my high school SCUBA class also included Mr. Vincent, my biology teacher who initially didn't want me in his class, kept throwing me out of his class (usually for good reason) and just didn't much like me. But after we had to do ditch and don in he school pool where you have to dive to the pool bottom and ditch your gear, surface, breathe, then dive and don your gear, his attitude about me from that day forward dramatically changed for the better.

Mr. Vincent, Biology Teacher May 1971

He nearly drowned (he thought so anyway, though he was fine aside from a little sputtering) and I was there to help him. Being the fish in water I had always been, I gave him some support and advice and did not make fun of him, but showed him compassion.

The Author (right) on open (saltwater) certification dive May 1971

I had several years of search and rescue experience, being a commander of others in Civil Air Patrol and before that in Karate. Yes, I was a pain in class for a teacher sometimes. But in a real life situation, especially a dangerous one, I was very effective both as a leader and a companion in arms, so to speak.

Diving in 1978 in Hawaii at a vacant Hanauma Bay on O'ahau Island.

Once he saw that side of me, everything changed between us. We never became best buds, but he did have a respect for me from then on that equaled the one I had always had for him, from the beginning.

Over that next year or so the now officially certified students of the first 1970 Lincoln High school graduating SCUBA class, all kept talking. At first we joked that our next effort would have to be sky diving and for some of us, that happened (for me nearly two years later when I was 17, then ended up a parachute rigger in the USAF years later, among other things like working on the B-52 nuclear bomber\weapons platform).

We started the Lincoln High SCUBA Club. One day someone brought up that we needed to do something to raise people's awareness of SCUBA diving and concerns about our planet, conservation, and clean up. Someone mentioned the new Earth Day.

If you lived in Puget Sound, you'd know many of us who grew up here are highly concerned about our environment.

It's like living on a microcosm of an ocean at your front door. We are seafood lovers, nature lovers, mountain climbers and hiker.

Washington state has just about everything here other than tropical environments, though we do have rain forests (I live in one), but we also have deserts, mountains, waterways and so on. You can go to where there is snow, and that same day to a desert, any time of the year.

We kicked around ideas of what kind of event to plan, where, why. We finally decided on cleaning up under the Tacoma Old Town Dock.

Tacoma Old Town Dock History
"Old Town Dock was first built in 1873 and served the shipping industry until trade operations moved to the Tideflats. After that it quickly transitioned into a popular public space. It was closed in 2008 after an engineering study found it to be too weak for pedestrians. After five years and $2.3 million in renovations, it reopened May 15, 2013."

Our thinking was that this dock had been around "forever" and had to have a lot  of junk under it that didn't need to be there. We knew we couldn't even make a dent in it, but it was a statement and figured, wasn't that was Earth Day was all about? To bring things to people's attention and in the course of that, do even a little good?

It was agreed and decided to go forward with it. It occurred to me that without people knowing we were doing it, it wasn't much of a statement. So I mentioned that if we were going to do this, someone needed to get the attention of the media, so people would hear about it in a timely fashion, or at all.

I was designated to find the attention. I wasn't exactly thrilled with that as it seemed a bit daunting for an 11th grader, but I brought it up, so...I got it. I followed through. I called TV stations. No one would bite. I'm still not sure why they found it uninteresting but concepts like Earth Day back there were still thought of by many as just "more hippy crap".

It seemed like an obvious video event to shoot and a good news piece as a human interest story, though admittedly, someone contacting the media wasn't thought about until the last minute and so I was calling mere days before the event.

One TV station suggested newspapers and so I called around from bigger to smaller. Finally I got one to bite who said they''d send a photographer. Success! They were a small publication called the "Tacoma Review (Combined with Tacoma Buyer's Guide)". As they were a weekly newspaper, the publish date is different than the day we were actually diving.

Sure enough, the Tacoma Review photographer showed up.

1972 Tacoma Earth Day Old Tacoma Dock SCUBA clean up

Under the docks we found trash, lots of it but I also found a few antique bottles I kept, some medicine some alcohol but all small at around six inches high. Within a year, I donated them to an older friend of the family, to her husband who had a bottle collection and was old and very ill. He died within a year or so but the bottles had cheered him up. Although I'd love to have those bottles now, I simply cannot feel any  regret in my actions.

LHS SCUBA Club Diver extracting garbage under doc

We also found several bicycles, and more than a few fishing poles. We assumed that people biked to the dock to fish and wind or accident found their transportation and fishing poles in the deep water, lost to them forever.

It was eerie diving under that dock, among the wood pilings encrusted with sea life, barnacles, mussels, sea anemones. That previous Christmas, I had gotten some SCUBA tanks from my parents. Duel 72 cu. in. US Divers brand, black, steel tanks. I could stay down for about an hour around 30-40' with proper and controlled breathing, which takes a little practice (first rule of SCUBA diving: "Stay Calm!" always, breathe slow and easy).

Your humble narrator diving under the  Old Tacoma Dock 1972

When the newspaper came out and I saw the diver with the dual tanks, being the only one in the club with duals, I knew it was me and that I had made the front page! Pretty cool, especially since I called them to come shoot photos of us. I got ride of the gear over the years as it got older but I still have those French, Flotante fins as well as my US Divers Turbo fins (which didn't float) and my wrap around mask, though I haven't been diving in some years.

In the end, this was the end of this event. The few who read the edition of the Tacoma Review with us on the front cover knew about it, but no one called, and I didn't pursue more media attention even though we had made it into a local newspaper. Now I know, I should have followed up, but I was sixteen. The event was Saturday, the newspaper came out on that next Wednesday. And that was the end of it.

After high school graduation the SCUBA club fell apart, or at least, I wasn't around anymore. We had done the Earth Day event. We had done several group dives. And that was it. I'm not even sure if there were other dive classes, but I believe there were until I graduated and I know they had moved into other area high schools to teach, but I don't' know how that all turned out. I know they had expanded to another dive shop and were doing well last I heard around that time.

All of this led to my producing a wood block print (linoleum block actually) of a free diver. Not great but for a 10th grader with no talent for art, not too shabby either. This is the only surviving print of the eight print run in Mr. Thomas' Creative Crafts class.

"Skin Diver" print 8 of 8, May 1971

Now, getting back to the original point of this little jaunt into history back to the beginning of the advent of Earth Day....

We all need to help our most favorite planet, to consider how we relate to it, and how we should act toward it.

It doesn't have to be a large effort, some international committee you set up, or even a small Earth Day SCUBA diving clean up under a dock type of event. It doesn't in fact have to be any kind of event at all as it is more about how we act on a daily basis that most counts. It can merely be in the way you talk to others about the earth and how we treat it. Or in your posting about it, or simply in your altering your habits even a little bit toward the better.

The earth is not unlike having a car when we were teenagers. It may get messy inside that car, after all its yours and you don't have to keep it as clean as your parents car, but eventually and hopefully, we mature to the point that we realize our environment indicates a big part of who we are and how we want to live.

If not taking care of that car leads to a lack of care about more important parts of the car than just the interior, things like the engine or the brakes, then eventually things will start to break down and one day, probably when we most need it, it will simply stop working.

When I think about Earth Day, I can't help but think about my first foray into environmental activism. or about Bert Thomas. Or the waters he swam in to break those records back even before I was born. I think about our Puget Sound waters and how there are places where there is so little oxygen in the waters now that there is nothing living there. I think about the huge ball of plastic the size of Texas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

I think about Japan's failed nuclear plant due not really to a tsunami but due to it's poor design and maintenance of their Fukushima plant, its radioactive materiel still floating around in the Pacific Ocean. I think about coal burning, carbon issues, war zone pollution, the killing off of the Amazon basin's forests. I wonder why we are so bent on killing ourselves, just for more money.

Take a moment this Earth Day to consider your environment, think about our truly amazing world and make a change. Or, two.

It's really not that hard to do and it's really the least we can do.

Not to mention it's really only in our benefit to do so.