I'm not really sure why I'm writing this other than I promised myself that this blog would be about memories I had that were vivid enough to remember in detail.
Most of us, who have lived a long time and were subject to lots of travel or who put themselves at risk probably have stories on how (except for the grace of God) they could have easily taken themselves out of the gene pool. I realize that people in the military or people who have super hazardous jobs face death every day, but us civilians who lead normal lives and don't put themselves in harms way, don't really expect to experience something that might kill us.
I received an e-mail the other day, stating all the things we did as kids and survived...you all have seen those types of e-mails and it got me thinking of the times that if circumstances has gone in a different direction...things could have been totally different for me.
The first episode that I remember happened in Florida. In the mid to late 50's my dad was a partner in the ownership of the Ocean Grand Hotel in Hollywood Florida. Since he was a minority owner, we, as a family, would drive down to Hollywood for one of our yearly vacations. This was a hotel but it also had 8 apartments attached. My dad would reserve one of those apartments for about two weeks for our vacation in November...usually around the Thanksgiving holiday. My dad would play golf and my mom, sister and I would hang around the apartment and just play or relax on the beach. I remember one day climbing into a little blow up plastic boat and going out into the surf. Playing on the beach without supervision was a big no no but hey, it was in my nature to disobey. Our apartment was right on the beach...the surf was maybe no more that 100 feet from the apartment's deck. Here I was in this little toy boat and the surf started taking me out to sea. I could swim but not that well and I really didn't realize how far I was getting away from shore. I kept drifting out and out and out. My mother noticed that I was getting farther out in the surf and she was getting uncomfortable. She ran out into the surf and tried calling me to come back in but there was no way I could paddle myself against that surf. My mom went out into the surf until the water was up to her neck and she realized that there was no way she could reach me. Fortunately, there were life guards on the beach and we had a tower not far from the hotel. I guess the lifeguards noticed me getting farther and farther out about the same time my mother did. The lifeguard had a "longboat" or rescue boat next to his tower. He and another lifeguard paddled out to me and pulled me and my little blow up boat into the longboat. They brought me back to shore and to safety. They told my mother that the surf had taken me almost a quarter mile out. If fate had gone in a different direction....I would have been gone.
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| Actual picture of boat |
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| Just before the incident |
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| me playing in the surf |
My second close call was in Wilmington Delaware. I was playing sandlot baseball in the field behind my house. All the neighborhood kids played baseball and we played all the time. We built a baseball diamond right behind our house in a huge field. My best friend at the time was Michael C. We all chipped in to keep that field nice and clean and mowed. We used it almost everyday in the summer time. Even some of the dad's built us a backstop...that's how cool this field was. We couldn't afford to buy real bases so we used big rocks to designate first, second and third base. One day we were playing and Michael was batting. Michael was bigger than me and weighed more. Michael hit a ball to the pitcher, I was playing 1st base. Michael ran full speed into me while I was trying to catch the ball. I caught the ball at the exact same time as Michael reached first base. Our heads hit with a thud and that's all I remember until I woke up a while later. Someone ran to my house to tell my mother and she and another neighbor ran out to see if I was OK. I was out cold but this is what I was told. When Michael ran into me, his head hit mine and knocked me out cold. When I fell, my head hit the rock that was first base and cut my head wide open. By the time my mother showed up, there was me on the ground, eyes rolled back in my head and blood everywhere. My mother and the neighbor got me back to my house and mom called the ambulance. They got there, woke me up, checked me out and sent me to the hospital. The doctors told my mom that I was very lucky because the jagged part of that rock just barely missed my temple. If it had hit me just right....my days would have been over. The silver lining was that our parents bought us real bases for our ball field!!
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| not us but could have been |
Let's see, incident number 3 happened when my dad took me sailing with a friend of his who had a sailboat. This friend had a home on the Severn River...just north of the Annapolis Navel Academy. We sailed from the marina just north of where the Severn River empties into the Chesapeake Bay. The day was a bit overcast but not that bad and my dad loved to sail whenever he could so he wasn't going to cancel out. This was not a large sail boat but it was a nice one. The guy my dad sailed with was a purest, meaning that there were no engines on this boat. You did what you had to do by sails, rudder and wind only. We headed out into the Chesapeake Bay and of course we were at the winds mercy. We heard on the radio that there was a fast storm approaching and it looked like we were going to get caught in the middle of the bay when the storm hit and sure enough, that's what happened. The storm was upon us instantly and the wind really picked up. It tossed the sail boat all over the place. My dad and his friend were afraid that I was going to get washed over the side of the boat. Both my dad and his friend took off their belts and lashed me to the main mast (yes, I was wearing a life preserver!!). That way if the boat tipped over or a big wave hit us, I wouldn't get washed overboard. Finally the storm passed and a patrol boat from the academy came out to see if we needed any help. We said no, they unbuckled me and that was that. I'm sure my memory of this makes it much worse than it really was but it's one of those memories that is burned into my brain. I have always wondered if lashing me to the mast was the smartest idea but since I made it through...it's just water under the bridge.
My next near death experience was with my other best friend Jim C. I met Jim at Trinity University. Jim was an only child from a very wealthy family. Jim is the one whose grandparents owned a 25,000 acre ranch north of San Antonio in Comfort Texas. When I met Jim, he was finishing up getting his pilots license. As a graduation gift for passing his solo flight test, his grandparents bought him a small plane. A Piper Cub or something like that. He had his solo license and asked me if I wanted to be his first solo passenger he took up. I said sure, why not!! He kept the plane at his grandparents ranch so on a Friday afternoon...we drove up to Comfort and hopped in the plane. His grandfather had a small runway built so that Jim could take off and land easier than trying to land on the dirt road leading to the farmhouse. Anyway, we both had been drinking (just a little, mind you) and off we went. We took off and headed east toward Canyon Lake. Canyon Lake was just in the middle of being filled so Jim liked to fly over it just to see what it was like, seeing a new lake being filled up. So off we went. I made the mistake of eating just before we took off and along with the alcohol, my stomach was not in the best of shape. Jim got over the lake and decided he was going to scare me by diving this little plane towards the lake surface. If his intent was to scare the bejesus out of me, he accomplished it. I also made a contribution to the floor of the plane as payback. He did not have any barf bags available. I didn't think about it at the time but later on, I started thinking...what if the engine had quit or some other mechanical mishap had occurred. I would have just ended up a memory. It scared me at the time but not enough not to fly with Jim in the future. I must admit, we had a great time flying around in his plane. I have other stories about Jim and his plane but I'll save those for next time.
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| This is almost identical to Jim's plane |
I also remember another incident with Jim and his grandparents ranch. Sometimes on weekends Jim would invite a few friends up to his grandparents ranch just to mess around and do some hunting. Now, I'm not a hunter but I did like to drink and play poker so I usually went up at the first sign of an invitation. I remember one night, after some drinking, Jim and a couple of the other guys thought it would be fun to get into one of his granddad's old farm trucks, take a couple shotguns and head out into the fields to chase jack rabbits. Jim would drive with the headlights on and when he spotted a rabbit, he would try to chase it with the truck. There would be two guys in the bed of the truck, leaning over the cab, trying to shoot the rabbit when it appeared in the headlights. Believe me, the rabbits were never in any real danger!! On those weekends, we were NOT the sharpest tools in the shed!!. I was riding in the passenger seat, holding a loaded shotgun straight up with the safety off and my finger the trigger. It didn't even enter my mind that my finger was resting on the trigger. We were bouncing from furrow to furrow chasing this stupid rabbit when we hit a bigger bump than normal. My finger squeezed the trigger, firing the shotgun inside the cab of this truck. Talk about something that really sobered us up in a hurry. None of us were hit...the main part of the blast went into the roof of the cab but later, thinking about it....scared the hell out of all of us!!
I will continue this in part two of this blog. It will include a fatal car crash where I should have been a passenger (this is the one I think about most often)...two incidents on airplanes while working for OTASCO and the weekend of my son's wedding.
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