Crack Shot

My Dad passed away on January 11, 2001.  He was 87 years old.  

He was an intelligent and super inquisitive individual who thought about things that his peers mostly didn’t/couldn’t and, if they did, he thought about them in a whole different way.  He was a gifted athlete and a guy who could figure out how to do whatever needed to be done, fix whatever needed fixing and provide for his family with limited resources.  Like his Father and brothers, he was a blacksmith and in a town of ~700 people he learned how to get by.  At an early age he learned that “providing” meant bringing home all manner of fish and game and he became a "crack shot".  

What follows is a eulogy that I wrote for his memorial service.

My Lucky Shirt

I have been re-reading “REI: 50 Years of Climbing Together” which was written by Harvey Manning to celebrate REI’s 50^th anniversary and was distributed to employees in 1988.  Lots of cool stuff to revisit and anyone who thinks they know about REI really doesn’t unless they have read this book. 

Anyway, it features many pages from catalogs that exhibit the evolution of the co-op and one of those pages stood out.  It is circa 1977 and displays many products that I owned modeled by people I worked with.

From left to right and top to bottom we have Lynn Campbell, Jerry Desmone, Jim Rosa, John McNulty (the Marlboro Man), Lynn once again, a woman whose name escapes me but went to high school with my niece, Sue Anderson.  John Mueller, a guy who I don’t recall, Jenny who was Todd Frankawitz’s partner, Arleen Hiuga and Bill Egan. 

Article “F” modeled by John Mueller really caught my eye.  It’s a rugby shirt that was available in the store before it debuted in the catalog.  I bought a red and black striped version before ’77 and it was my favorite shirt.  I really liked the way it fit and how sporty I looked in it.  Most of all I liked the fact that good things happened to me when I wore it.  So many good things happened when I was wearing that shirt that I took to wearing it whenever I really wanted things to go my way.  Ultimately, I started depending on it when a desired outcome was a stretch and having things go wrong had serious consequences. 

Evening on the North Side

 

The North Side

 

Every September I think back to a time when I took a hang gliding trip with my buddies to Utah.  It was 1980 when the “Ship of Fools Expeditionary Force” comprised of Jon Boy, Black Weasel, Mr. Natural, Dangerous Dan and Frisbee Scumbag road-tripped to Point of the Mountain south of Salt Lake City, UT.  The “Point” pokes out into the valley from the Wasatch Range and provides north and south-facing soarable aspects.  The South Side would get soarable in the morning while the North Side turned on late in the day.  We were camped at the South Side launch and would fly it in the morning, then drive to a local mountain site, fly, and return to the Point for the late “North Side” show.  A good time was had by all.  Come night time we were entertained by hanging out with other flyers, both local and international, scheming the next day’s antics and listening to music.  Sometimes we went where we couldn’t be heard by others, cranked up the tunes, broke out my blues harps and sang like nobody was watching.