Like my father, I have held many jobs in my life. The military was Dad's career, and flying was one of his jobs in that career. He was also an administrator, an instructor, a strategist, and a student. I don't think he ever stopped learning. He learned, like a lot of us, from teachers and peers. And, like all of us, he probably learned a lot from mistakes, both his and those of others. I know that he believed in being careful, and in taking care of what was his: his family, his car, the plane he was to fly, his tools, and his boat.
Dad bought two boats that I know of. He bought us a small fishing boat and motor from Sears. It was eight feet long, and four feet wide at the beam, and would hold two thousand pounds. It was made of molded fiberglass or PVC, and was filled with foam. It was impossible to sink. I used to take it out during the summer, and go to visit a friend that lived on the water. We would take the motor off, and moor it out in the cove. Then we would see how many people we could get crammed onto it, just to see if it would go under. Just about the time we would get the gunwales under the surface, someone would fall out, and the boat would pop back to the surface. There were many times that I went fishing in the rain, and would have three or four inches of water in the bottom. I never worried about sinking. I would just head for shore, pull up onto the beach, get out, and dump the water out. Then I would head back out. As a result, the boat was known as "The Cork".
The other boat that he bought was a ski/fishing boat. It was an 18 1/2 foot "Seabreeze" bowrider with a cathedral hull, and a (for the time) big outboard motor. Dad couldn't decide which motor to put on it: a 120 H.P. Chrysler, or the 135 Racing Motor. I wanted the 135 and, of course, we got the 120. I remember our first boating trips around the bayous and bay. Dad was careful to not go faster than "half-throttle" most of the time, with occasional short runs at full throttle. I was really disappointed with our boat. It would hardly get up on a plane. I told myself that maybe six people in the boat was hampering the performance, and that with fewer people it might go a little faster. But, it was a good fishing boat, because with the open bow, everybody could fish. And, it did go (barely) fast enough to ski behind. We noticed that although it didn't go as fast as we thought it should, it had plenty of power. We could pull two skiers at once with no noticable reduction in speed. After the motor had been "broken in", we did a lot of skiing. I remember one day, my sister Kathy and I were to have "our turn" to ski. We both jumped in the water, found our ropes, and hollered "HIT IT!!". To our surprise, we were jerked from the water so fast that she lost her rope. I was already up on my ski, and we hadn't even reached the "bubble trail" from the motor yet. I dropped the rope so that I wouldn't leave Kathy behind. Dad, of course, turned the boat around and pulled up next to us in the water. Bryan or Sandy was already pulling the ropes in. "We'll be right back," Dad said. Then our slug/snail boat screamed away like it was jet-powered. They went about a quarter of a mile, turned around, and came to pick us up. We got in the boat, and Dad took off. This boat was fast. Really fast. Of course, I asked what had happened. Evidently, there was a "stiff" spot in the throttle that offered enough resistance that it felt like a stop. Dad, probably also exasperated by the tortoise-like performance, had slammed the throttle hard when we hollered "HIT IT". He had pushed the throttle past the stiff spot and found that we had been running somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 throttle when we thought we were running at "full". That boat was a lot more fun after that. There were many times that, while skiing with friends, we had eight people in the boat and pulling three slalom skiers and still not running at full throttle. I have always wondered how that boat would have performed with the 135 on it, although it didn't need it. That boat could do an honest 60 mph with three or four people in it. One time, my friend Randy, his girlfriend, another acquaintance, and I found out that Dad had the boat out and decided to see if we could maybe make a ski run or two. We went down to the place that we always went skiing, and found Dad and the boat. After a little pleading, we took off in the boat for a little while so we might do a little skiing. I wanted to ski also, so Randy was driving the boat and I was skiing when we ran down the bayou. Randy turned around at the end of the bayou and opened it up. When we got to the other end, he decided to run down the bayou again and cranked the boat into a hard turn. The water was like glass, and I went to the outside of the turn. I was going so fast that the fin on my ski was vibrating and I could actually hear a high pitched buzzing. I realized that I was going way too fast right about the time I fell. I remember hitting the water three times before I stopped. The people in the boat told me that I did a flip each time I touched the water. When I came back to the surface after my "fall", I noticed that my ski was about 75 feet away. I started swimming toward my ski, and noticed that my toe felt funny. I raised my foot out of the water to investigate, and saw that blood was streaming from my big toe. Somehow, I had split it open. We gathered the ski and me, pulled in the rope, and hightailed it back to where we had parked, and where Dad was. Rather, where Dad was supposed to be. I guess we had been gone so long that he had headed back to the marina or something. We finally got the boat secured, and we piled into the car to go to the emergency room on base. We got there, only to find that they could not stitch me up unless I had a parent/guardian there, since I was still technically a minor. I spent lots of time on the phone trying to get hold of Mom or Dad. Finally, somebody came to the hospital and they put stitches in my toe. Those were the first stitches I had ever gotten. I only wish that they were the only ones that I would get during my life.
If Dad hadn't been so careful while breaking in the boat motor, would it have run as good as it did? Maybe, but probably not for as long. He was pretty good about taking care of his cars, too. I remember being in third grade and asking him what "power steering" did. We happened to have just pulled into our garage at the time. He tried to explain that the power of the engine helped make it easier to steer, but I didn't understand. So, while sitting in the garage with the engine running, he turned the steering wheel with one finger, first one way, then the other. He expressed worry about wearing the tires, but for the sake of my education, he did it anyway. Then he turned the engine off and showed me how difficult it was to turn the steering wheel, even with both hands. That seemed to satisfy me for the time being, but I do remember his concern about the tires.
When he would take me flying, he would stress the importance of a pre-flight inspection of the aircraft. I found it boring and repetitive, but later in my life I saw the importance of it. I was working for a company that built gyroplanes. Actually, we built a kit for other people to build their own aircraft. I wondered about the importance of inspecting the aircraft between flights, especially if it had only been on the ground for a few minutes. One of our aircraft had been out flying in the pattern, giving demo rides to a prospective customer, as well as to some of the employees who had "never been up". After one flight, the pilot made yet another inspection. He found that a support strut for the rotor head was failing. Gyroplanes are one of the safest types of aircraft, but the safety depends upon the rotor head. The entire weight of the aircraft hangs from it. If it fails, or control to it is lost, it can result in an uncontrolled landing (crash). Dad used to tell me that a landing was a "controlled crash", and that a crash was an "uncontrolled landing". There are any number of things that can go wrong (fail) on an aircraft, as well as a car, or even a power tool. Luckily, Dad always knew to take care of, and care about, these things.
Like I said, Dad was a man of many jobs. During his life he was: a truck driver, a fighter pilot and instructor, a "company pilot" flying a salesman around the region, a flying salesman (they got rid of the other guy), a janitorial supplies salesman, a used car salesman, an airplane salesman, a "paperboy", the owner of a paint store, a "soda-jerk", a short-order cook, a grandfather, a GREAT father, and a missionary. Seems like in most of those, he was trying to sell something! At times, he was even trying to "sell" ME! (Let me explain that one.) When I was living in South Florida (West Palm Beach area), Dad, who was living in Logan, Utah at the time, would frequently call me to tell me about all the welding jobs available in Utah. Many of the jobs were in areas that I had little experience in. I would politely listen, and never do anything about it. After many of these calls, I sent him a copy of my resume so that he would know just exactly what my qualifications were, and to "get him off my back", so to speak. Soon, I started getting calls from companies in Utah and Wyoming. Dad had copied my resume and distributed it to any company that had an ad posted. I took down a lot of information from a lot of companies, and told them all that unless they wanted to fly me out for an interview/test and return flight, they would have to wait until I had a bunch of "leads". To my surprise, I actually got enough prospects to warrant a flight to Utah. One interview/test was in Wyoming, so Dad let me borrow a car to drive there. I took the test, but didn't have good feelings about the job. It was out in the middle of nowhere, and I had a wife and soon-to-be-one year old son to think about. Dad offered to chauffeur me down to Salt Lake City and the surrounding area. One company (I remember their phone call: "Yes,. . .I have your resume in my hand and have no idea how I came to have it ") offered to help with relocation expenses if I would hire on with them. Done deal! Now I have been in Utah for 28 years, and I never would have ended up here if my Dad hadn't tried to "sell me". I guess Dad thought (or hoped) that I was like him. . .the best at what I chose to do. . .whatever that might be.
Dad bought two boats that I know of. He bought us a small fishing boat and motor from Sears. It was eight feet long, and four feet wide at the beam, and would hold two thousand pounds. It was made of molded fiberglass or PVC, and was filled with foam. It was impossible to sink. I used to take it out during the summer, and go to visit a friend that lived on the water. We would take the motor off, and moor it out in the cove. Then we would see how many people we could get crammed onto it, just to see if it would go under. Just about the time we would get the gunwales under the surface, someone would fall out, and the boat would pop back to the surface. There were many times that I went fishing in the rain, and would have three or four inches of water in the bottom. I never worried about sinking. I would just head for shore, pull up onto the beach, get out, and dump the water out. Then I would head back out. As a result, the boat was known as "The Cork".
The other boat that he bought was a ski/fishing boat. It was an 18 1/2 foot "Seabreeze" bowrider with a cathedral hull, and a (for the time) big outboard motor. Dad couldn't decide which motor to put on it: a 120 H.P. Chrysler, or the 135 Racing Motor. I wanted the 135 and, of course, we got the 120. I remember our first boating trips around the bayous and bay. Dad was careful to not go faster than "half-throttle" most of the time, with occasional short runs at full throttle. I was really disappointed with our boat. It would hardly get up on a plane. I told myself that maybe six people in the boat was hampering the performance, and that with fewer people it might go a little faster. But, it was a good fishing boat, because with the open bow, everybody could fish. And, it did go (barely) fast enough to ski behind. We noticed that although it didn't go as fast as we thought it should, it had plenty of power. We could pull two skiers at once with no noticable reduction in speed. After the motor had been "broken in", we did a lot of skiing. I remember one day, my sister Kathy and I were to have "our turn" to ski. We both jumped in the water, found our ropes, and hollered "HIT IT!!". To our surprise, we were jerked from the water so fast that she lost her rope. I was already up on my ski, and we hadn't even reached the "bubble trail" from the motor yet. I dropped the rope so that I wouldn't leave Kathy behind. Dad, of course, turned the boat around and pulled up next to us in the water. Bryan or Sandy was already pulling the ropes in. "We'll be right back," Dad said. Then our slug/snail boat screamed away like it was jet-powered. They went about a quarter of a mile, turned around, and came to pick us up. We got in the boat, and Dad took off. This boat was fast. Really fast. Of course, I asked what had happened. Evidently, there was a "stiff" spot in the throttle that offered enough resistance that it felt like a stop. Dad, probably also exasperated by the tortoise-like performance, had slammed the throttle hard when we hollered "HIT IT". He had pushed the throttle past the stiff spot and found that we had been running somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 throttle when we thought we were running at "full". That boat was a lot more fun after that. There were many times that, while skiing with friends, we had eight people in the boat and pulling three slalom skiers and still not running at full throttle. I have always wondered how that boat would have performed with the 135 on it, although it didn't need it. That boat could do an honest 60 mph with three or four people in it. One time, my friend Randy, his girlfriend, another acquaintance, and I found out that Dad had the boat out and decided to see if we could maybe make a ski run or two. We went down to the place that we always went skiing, and found Dad and the boat. After a little pleading, we took off in the boat for a little while so we might do a little skiing. I wanted to ski also, so Randy was driving the boat and I was skiing when we ran down the bayou. Randy turned around at the end of the bayou and opened it up. When we got to the other end, he decided to run down the bayou again and cranked the boat into a hard turn. The water was like glass, and I went to the outside of the turn. I was going so fast that the fin on my ski was vibrating and I could actually hear a high pitched buzzing. I realized that I was going way too fast right about the time I fell. I remember hitting the water three times before I stopped. The people in the boat told me that I did a flip each time I touched the water. When I came back to the surface after my "fall", I noticed that my ski was about 75 feet away. I started swimming toward my ski, and noticed that my toe felt funny. I raised my foot out of the water to investigate, and saw that blood was streaming from my big toe. Somehow, I had split it open. We gathered the ski and me, pulled in the rope, and hightailed it back to where we had parked, and where Dad was. Rather, where Dad was supposed to be. I guess we had been gone so long that he had headed back to the marina or something. We finally got the boat secured, and we piled into the car to go to the emergency room on base. We got there, only to find that they could not stitch me up unless I had a parent/guardian there, since I was still technically a minor. I spent lots of time on the phone trying to get hold of Mom or Dad. Finally, somebody came to the hospital and they put stitches in my toe. Those were the first stitches I had ever gotten. I only wish that they were the only ones that I would get during my life.
If Dad hadn't been so careful while breaking in the boat motor, would it have run as good as it did? Maybe, but probably not for as long. He was pretty good about taking care of his cars, too. I remember being in third grade and asking him what "power steering" did. We happened to have just pulled into our garage at the time. He tried to explain that the power of the engine helped make it easier to steer, but I didn't understand. So, while sitting in the garage with the engine running, he turned the steering wheel with one finger, first one way, then the other. He expressed worry about wearing the tires, but for the sake of my education, he did it anyway. Then he turned the engine off and showed me how difficult it was to turn the steering wheel, even with both hands. That seemed to satisfy me for the time being, but I do remember his concern about the tires.
When he would take me flying, he would stress the importance of a pre-flight inspection of the aircraft. I found it boring and repetitive, but later in my life I saw the importance of it. I was working for a company that built gyroplanes. Actually, we built a kit for other people to build their own aircraft. I wondered about the importance of inspecting the aircraft between flights, especially if it had only been on the ground for a few minutes. One of our aircraft had been out flying in the pattern, giving demo rides to a prospective customer, as well as to some of the employees who had "never been up". After one flight, the pilot made yet another inspection. He found that a support strut for the rotor head was failing. Gyroplanes are one of the safest types of aircraft, but the safety depends upon the rotor head. The entire weight of the aircraft hangs from it. If it fails, or control to it is lost, it can result in an uncontrolled landing (crash). Dad used to tell me that a landing was a "controlled crash", and that a crash was an "uncontrolled landing". There are any number of things that can go wrong (fail) on an aircraft, as well as a car, or even a power tool. Luckily, Dad always knew to take care of, and care about, these things.
Like I said, Dad was a man of many jobs. During his life he was: a truck driver, a fighter pilot and instructor, a "company pilot" flying a salesman around the region, a flying salesman (they got rid of the other guy), a janitorial supplies salesman, a used car salesman, an airplane salesman, a "paperboy", the owner of a paint store, a "soda-jerk", a short-order cook, a grandfather, a GREAT father, and a missionary. Seems like in most of those, he was trying to sell something! At times, he was even trying to "sell" ME! (Let me explain that one.) When I was living in South Florida (West Palm Beach area), Dad, who was living in Logan, Utah at the time, would frequently call me to tell me about all the welding jobs available in Utah. Many of the jobs were in areas that I had little experience in. I would politely listen, and never do anything about it. After many of these calls, I sent him a copy of my resume so that he would know just exactly what my qualifications were, and to "get him off my back", so to speak. Soon, I started getting calls from companies in Utah and Wyoming. Dad had copied my resume and distributed it to any company that had an ad posted. I took down a lot of information from a lot of companies, and told them all that unless they wanted to fly me out for an interview/test and return flight, they would have to wait until I had a bunch of "leads". To my surprise, I actually got enough prospects to warrant a flight to Utah. One interview/test was in Wyoming, so Dad let me borrow a car to drive there. I took the test, but didn't have good feelings about the job. It was out in the middle of nowhere, and I had a wife and soon-to-be-one year old son to think about. Dad offered to chauffeur me down to Salt Lake City and the surrounding area. One company (I remember their phone call: "Yes,. . .I have your resume in my hand and have no idea how I came to have it ") offered to help with relocation expenses if I would hire on with them. Done deal! Now I have been in Utah for 28 years, and I never would have ended up here if my Dad hadn't tried to "sell me". I guess Dad thought (or hoped) that I was like him. . .the best at what I chose to do. . .whatever that might be.
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