Accidental Aviation

 

In 1980 I met up with some flying friends out at the Sod Farm next to St. Michele Winery to watch one of them fly his Kasperwing.  The “Kasper” was an ultralight aircraft built by another friend, Steve Grossruck, who I had flown hang gliders with for several years.  His gliders were always heavily modified or self-built and usually of his own design.  He took to motorized-gliders like a duck to water and was soon collaborating with other notables on the design that would incorporate the “Kasper Tip” and become the Kasperwing.  It was a beautiful creation and after a bit I was goaded into sitting in it.  

Gerry, the wing’s owner said: “Go ahead, Jon.  Fly the mother”.  

I had no interest in flying an ultralight and absolutely no intention of taking off in this or any other one but I acquiesced by agreeing to taxi around the huge field.  You know, just drive it around on the grass and make everyone happy.  So, after driving it around for 5 minutes or so I came back to the group and Gerry suggested that I go back out and just add a little speed.  “No big deal” he said.  “Just get the front wheel light and then back off on the throttle and it will settle right back down”.  

Pee Pee

  

September 15, 1971

So, this is a picture of me from 1971 riding a bike at the local “pit” down the street from where I grew up.  I had borrowed the bike from my friend, Gary Cook.  Take note of all of the responsible behaviors that I was modeling.  Helmets were not required so I was clearly following the law.  Skin coverings were a good idea but not required by law.  I didn’t care.  I was wearing my favorite jeans, weighing in at 155 pounds dripping wet, skinny as hell with the closest thing I would ever have resembling a “six-pack”.  But, this is where things start to unravel.  

Rock Critic Lester Bangs once said: “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool.”  So, it’s time for me to fess up but you gotta promise not to mock me too much as I'm still scarred and sensitive.  

The Belltown Boys

“When you’re a Jet

You’re a Jet all the way

From your first cigarette

To your last dying day.”

 Conceived in the late ‘40’s “West Side Story” told of conflict between racial groups living in segregated neighborhoods of New York City, and like the Jets and the Sharks, the youth of Belltown and Seattle were at odds based on geographical separation. 

After William Bell’s claim grew to become “Belltown” it was its own entity packed up tight against Denny Hill.  Denny Hill, being enough of a topographic feature as to complicate easy northern expansion from Seattle’s core, fostered a sense of community identity and separation.  Two schools, North School and Denny School, were only ½ mile apart but on opposite sides of the hill.  Word has it that they didn’t get along. 

In her book, “When Seattle Was a Village” Sofie Frye Bass tells us of this conflict between the Belltown Gang and the Mill Street Gang who would meet to fight on the sawdust near Yesler’s Mill after the Belltown Boys rowed down to the Mill Street rendezvous.  Sheriff Lewis Wyckoff would show up to break up the fights, put the Belltown Boys back in their rowboats and send them back north beyond The Hill.

 

Flying in the Great Indoors

6/17/1979 

In June 1979 a bunch of us became the first people in the world to fly indoors.  We flew on three occasions.  The first was to see if anyone would die.  The next time we did it for press coverage and the third time to perform for the Annual Paper Airplane Contest.  Pilot and Instructor, Michael Pringle showed up for the third occasion and wrote an article for “Hang Gliding Magazine” which was published in the August 1979 edition.  Michael and the United States Hang Gliding Association have the copyright on the article.  The magazine is no longer available but the article is by buying the electronic copies of every magazine ever published by USGHA and its subsidiaries.  Mike was my buddy and if he were alive today, he would heartily endorse my reformatting, providing my own photos and publishing it on my blog.

Winter Crucifixion

12/15/74 

Sometime in the early to mid-70’s I was skiing on a pair of 170 cm Kneissl Short Comps with Besser bindings.  It was during the market-driven short ski craze when short skis and freestyle encouraged bad technique.  If you were a type III skier you could either ski correctly (because you had a racing background or were from the East Coast) or you could try to emulate the latest freestyle weirdness.  I’m sure that there were things in-between but I wasn’t interested in them.  I was self-taught and too dumb to not be proud of that fact.  I had never raced and wasn’t good enough to overcome or accommodate the design-imposed limitations of conventional skis.  Consequently, I was drawn to the darkside.  The Siren's call included:

Royal Flying Christy

Back Scratcher

Daffy

Space Walk

Jet Turn

Slow Dog Noodle………..bad technique.  

One night at Ski Acres I came face-to-face with the co-mingling of bad gear and bad technique and lived to tell about it. 

What is a Best Friend?

 

Maybe it changes as you age?  Maybe it is the friend that you spend the most time with?  Maybe it’s the friend who makes you feel the best about yourself?  Maybe it’s the friend who you have the most in common with?  Maybe it’s……..What?  

Mine left on February 1st.  We had been together for 60 years.  We hadn’t spent as much time together as some other friends we but always knew where each other were and got in touch as needed.  Sometimes it was me and sometimes it was him.  He was the guy who I could always count on to help me sort something out or let me know that I was so off base as to be totally fucked and he would say it.  “Dude.  You are so totally wrong.  You are fucked.  Think about it”.  Something that you don’t accept or tolerate from normal friends.  Hopefully, he felt the same. 

Most of us have a few key figures in our lives to grieve when they leave this Earth.  Our Parents.  Our Siblings.  Our Spouses.  Our Children.  Our Friends and Acquaintances and our Best Friends.  

 

 

RIP Mel……..

The Government Stairs

 1/13/2006

In 1930 the city of Seattle put in a waterline that came down from Capitol Hill, through Interlaken Park, ran north under 22^nd Street to East Blaine and then up a steep 65’ ridge to the high point of the Montlake Neighborhood.  From there it continued north to serve communities beyond the ship canal.  Once the waterline was completed one of the city’s charming sets of public stairs was thoughtfully installed on that right-of-way. 

As a kid I had never heard them referred to as anything other than the Government Stairs though I guess their official name is the “Howe Street Stairs”  I still return to them and recall a cycling adventure that took place over a half a century prior. 

Kasie and I were out for a Father/Daughter bike ride sometime back when we found ourselves in the Montlake neighborhood.  She had heard most of my “Glory Days” tales before but this was the first time that we had visited this particular site where I had made my bones as a fairly major cycling stud to be reckoned with.  As we stood over our bikes looking down the Government Stairs I proudly related something that happened there about 60 years ago.