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Who The Hell Is Snowbum?
© Copyright 2024, R. FleischerWhen I lived at South Lake Tahoe (1972-2019) I'd been known to ponder upon life (or, most anything, perhaps including an upcoming trip or an article I was working on), whilst sitting on a granite rock outcropping or downed log in the nearby forest. I might bring my Malamute with me (she lived to be a bit over 10, before cancer got her) ....and always a writing pad. I've always set aside time to just think, and jot down thoughts and ideas, since I was barely a teen. I started out to be nerdy rather early! OK, ...so this is an out-of-place paragraph.
By the time you finish reading this rambling jumping-around piece, you will be ready for a beer (or two). For me...well, make mine Russian Imperial Stout ....or single malt Scotch Whisky. Hopefully you will not be too bored.
I was not yet 15 when I started out on my own. This was the result of numerous 'disagreements' with my parents. Disagreements over everything from time spent excessively (at their 'prompting') piano practicing ....to squabbling with my brother ...and my problems with neighbors. I was, as it is said, 'a handful'. My neighborhood reputation was "THAT kid". Is there something like an responsibly-irresponsible teen? This likely started long before I was a teenager. Maybe I should blame circumstances.... I was first-born, had a 7 years younger brother, no sisters, and I probably was a bit spoiled. My parents probably read too many 'how to raise a child' books. On the other hand, I should only blame myself. Looking back, I think I was "THAT kid" only (or mostly) in my folk's neighborhood.
Some called me a genius. I was not. I simply had a very intense curiosity about everything from as far back as I can remember anything, and I'm sure some of that came about from having a 'weak' left eye, ....yes, really. My left eye from birth caused me a lot of problems. It was mostly fixed (at age 70) when developing cataracts began bothering me more and more; however, I wore glasses since ~age 4. Why did my left eye have such an effect on me from young child age? I've thought about that and reached some simple conclusions. My distance perception was poor. I could not play ball games competently, and I surely wanted to. Identifying distance and speed of any ball was very frustrating. That led to not trying to do many things I could not be good at, so I compensated for my poor ball-playing by getting into other things. It was not 100% bad, ...as I did find ...by consciously refocusing (which was quite tiring when done constantly),...that I could see "OK". Slightly better was looking a bit sideways...but that method was VERY tiring. Trying to play baseball or football, even volley-ball, was just plain unpleasant. From an early age with a little red wagon (that I motorized), and in place of most sports .... I tended to substitute mechanical things, including fast bicycling ...which began long before I could legally drive a car. I also drove my parents car, sometimes long distances.....all this was long before it was legal for me...and my parents often asked me to drive on our vacations. I did concentrated-looking-exercises to compensate for the weak left eye. In my mid-teens, longer distance bicycling, hiking, backpacking and motor sports filled much of whatever leisure time I managed to obtain. I had intense study habits/attributes, so I managed to pass school tests fairly easily; and, with very few school-based after-hours events that I was going to participate in, I filled-in blank areas with nerdy-ness, high curiosity, and a rather decent ability to do almost anything with my hands. It is
questionable whether or not, at times, my brain was
in-synch with some of my 'doings'. My long bio explains all sorts of
things...including how I dealt with that left eye, ...and
how I became a commercial-rated pilot, ...and had two other associated careers as well.
At a relatively early age, not quite 15, and just after I became an Emancipated Juvenile (Judge Leo Freund signed my paperwork)... I suddenly found out that my somewhat hated piano lessons could pay off for me. I found that I could get gigs playing for parties (I usually could eat at these gigs, the food access was included), get-togethers, etc. These paying jobs increased in frequency, as I learned how to get them, and could work them in between school-work, and, later, when in college. I found gigs, underage or not, in bars, etc....with no need to be an employee....I'd usually just have a very large Tip Jar. As I got a bit of reputation, the money came in relatively well. I usually did not have to tip a bartender, as his/her tips INcreased, when I was there. The one big problem with bars is the late hours, leaving barely enough time to sleep, and then study for school/college, etc. I managed to work around the various problems. It did not take very long to figure out that the best piano-playing-income came from middle-class and higher establishments. I tried to get gigs even when I traveled. For most gigs I would usually play Friday and Saturday late-afternoon and evenings, sometimes, if rarely, until closing hour. If I found a good place for higher class lunch gigs, I usually made out rather well. It hardly took any time to figure out that places that served hard liquor had patrons with fistfuls of tipping cash. I certainly learned a lot about people when doing these gigs. I continued, now and then, doing this sort of playing-for-tips until close to my forties. These days, with arthritis in my fingers, I hardly ever play in public.
Over-all, I had a strong tendency to jump into most anything, and I generally dealt with whatever those things were ...as serious projects. The deeper longer projects were such as Classical Philosophy, history, lots of mathematics, electricity, engines ....and sports cars .....and motorcycles. Especially, in my late teens, Harley's, Vincent's, a BSA, a Triumph or two and even a BSA...and, of course, some Honda bikes...and.....some dirt bikes..... and, finally, I got around to BMW motorcycles from the fifties and sixties...but, especially, a bit later, Airhead's, which conveniently happened when they started being built in late 1969.
It is quite fair to say that 'things' were substituted ...for a rather considerable lack of social graces. Some substitutions were occasionally notable ....because I had a tendency to speak my mind, ....no matter the effects from such. These last two sentences explain a whole lot about me.
A study of woman-kind was not at all that fruitful, ...at least for some time. Although more than occasionally pleasurable, I never came close to mastery, although I got better at it. Spending time with my male friends was usually more rewarding, at least for long term friendships. My friends generally appreciated my mechanical and electrical abilities, which did not injure my ego; and, helped my income at times.
This section is the shortest version of my bio:
Purchased first bike .....a '51 BSA 500; repaired electronics items since early teenager; purchased brand-new Triumph TR-6 in 1956 (I was 19); first brand-new BMW also in 1956; Chief Technician & Head Of The Shop for a BMW dealership during /5 & /6 era; Pilot, with Commercial, Private, & military pilot/instructor ratings. Electronics specialist for two Government Agencies (no, do NOT ask). Long military & government Agencies career; electronics design engineer for several companies. Last direct employment (except for The Government) was as Chief Engineer of Linear Corp. Owned BMW motorcycle repair service and several other businesses. Taught at UCLA for awhile.
I lived mostly in the greater Los Angeles area until late 1972. Grew tired of the Los Angeles rat race, and moved to South Lake Tahoe, California.... where I more or less settled-down for nearly 48 years. I enjoyed life at Lake Tahoe. I took long hikes, long rides, and very seldom traveled to Los Angeles to visit my brother or other relatives or old friends. I had my BMW shop and my electronics shop, and eventually retired from all Government assignments and 'services';. I moved to Carson City, Nevada in 2019, where I rebuilt my electronics service shop into my garage...and, I am still repairing plenty of electronics & doing a bit of engineering, even though I am now in my later eighties.
I was still riding BMW motorcycles & driving BMW sidecar rigs into 2019. ~800,000 miles on motorcycles, ~650,000 of which were on BMW's. Taught or otherwise helped at various Tech Seminars including TechDays, 49er Rally, BeemerBash, MOA, etc.; jointly did a Wheel Bearing Seminar at a BMW MOA National Rally. Plenty of other instances of such. Was an Instructor ...and also the Saturday evening Banquet Keynote Speaker ....at BMW SuperTech in 2011 and same in 2019.
I pretty much stopped riding in late 2019. With the move to Carson City, I decided to sell everything BMW, that included my RT, and my K-sidecar rig, tools, etc. I kept tools to work on my car, and, of course, everything I needed for my electronics repair shop. My decision was made deliberately. While my reflexes were still good (still are, I always check things regularly).....the checks I feel are necessary due to the anti-cancer drug and heart meds I take....I check for things like ever having the experience of 'where the heck did THAT car come from....I think I am NOT going to fool myself, by continuing to ride (on the street, mountain passes, etc.). I have been blessed, so far, with very good reflexes...but, the cancer, etc., has had its effects on me, besides normal aging, and I am simply not going to easily handle a downed dirt bike, let alone a touring bike that is down....luckily I have never dropped a bike during street riding, and I have OVER 650,000 street miles on BMW bikes. So, I stopped street riding. It was getting a bit onerous anyway, with all the car drivers that pay attention to their smart phones, or are otherwise clueless about the rest of the world around them.
I designed this website & hand-wrote the code beginning in late 1998, ....and still do some updating/editing,
writing, and hand coding. I continue to write for magazines under pen names. Until around 2010, I had a prodigious memory, and could recall hundreds of full BMW part numbers and could remember untold pages of factory manuals, factory sketches, methods of doing things, etc. I had large notebooks full of technical ramblings, etc. Eventually, I began to consolidate these notebooks information into digital format for the website....that continued for a long time.
Fearing eventual memory fading, I had written down most of my BMW knowledge, and begun this website, long before there was any serious deterioration. Still, faded some...or not, ...my memory is large. I still have a strong ability to visualize things, particularly parts sketches as in BMW literature and on-line sources. This includes parts numbers, and factory service information.
These days I have serious medical issues, and the drugs and treatment I take for those issues are not helping my memory, and the side-effects of the drugs are unpleasant. I may live until 90, ....or not. As I type this, it is July 2024, and I am 86, have advanced prostate cancer, have had a couple of surgeries for such, and have some heart issues I take drugs for. The cancer drug I take is obnoxious, very expensive ($$$$$$$).
For those whose attention span is somewhat better, you can read this section, ...and then go do something useful or more pleasurable! Heck, why not go do something else anyway?
Many love talking about themselves, ...so, if you are not yet bored, go ahead, ...you could even read beyond the black line ending this section!
My real name is Robert Fleischer. I'm often called Bob, or 'bum or 'The Bum' or Snowbum. A few people use Snobum, without the w, but I did not, except on my vehicle's license plates, where 7 characters are not allowable. When I moved in late 2019 from So. Lake Tahoe, California, to Carson City, Nevada, I decided to not continue with the prior license plates for my vehicles. Instead of using the same license plates, SNOBUM or SNOBUM 1 ...or 2 or ...3 or XMARINE, I decided to see what it was like to be more anonymous. Searching for me on the Internet with no W may not give you what you want. When hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, my Handle was Flash. I finished that long hike in 1979.
I had my first street-address-store-front-business (called a 'brick and mortar business' these days) repairing electronics, and selling some too, when only 15. I was in high school. I still had that small store while in college. I had little time to get into after-school activities. I missed most of the entire school part of 'growing up', from grammar school through college. Needing a very cheap to operate car, I purchased a brand-new BMW, a model 600 car, in late 1955 or early 1956, don't remember which year, & way too lazy to go find my records. It was a fun little car. A photo + description is near the bottom of this link: https://bmwmotorcycletech.info/photogallery.htm I always had at least one motorcycle.
In most of my motorcycle & sports car racing days, my track name was FLASH. As noted above, Flash was also my trail name when I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. A few have called me Blinky or Blinkie, due to my habit of riding bikes with modulating headlights. I designed, built, & installed my own version, many decades ago, after which I decided the new-fangled small commercial units would do OK. To this day I regret not patenting, or copyrighting, and selling my design to the world.
It could be ...and was... said that I was very nerdy as a kid ...long before I was a know-everything teenager. In actuality, I never was a know-everything. But, I did apprentice myself for short periods in various areas, explained in my long version bio. I was a math-physics major in school. I worked for Douglas Aircraft Company (Metrology lab) for a while in 1956. I then worked for Hughes Aviation (Metrology lab & later as Staff Engineer). I transferred to the Hughes Research Labs in Malibu, working on 'various projects'. I was an electronics design engineer for Stoddart Aircraft Radio Company (RFI receivers & secret Government projects, NOTHING for aircraft, despite the name) and received my first Patent when I worked for them. I worked for Telemeter Magnetics (designing driver circuitry for magnetic core computer memories, this was circa 1959), & for a company making medical electronics items. I ended my salaried engineering career as the Chief Engineer of Linear Corporation. As their Chief Engineer I had unusually broad responsibilities, and I was, besides being the head of the engineering department, their hands-on circuits & product designer. I eventually burned-out on Los Angeles ...I was tired of the vehicle traffic ...& tired of some people ...so, I quit Linear Corp., a GREAT company to work for. I did some electronics consulting work for a period of time while wrapping-up my life.
I then moved to Lake Tahoe at the end of 1972, first divesting myself of my Corvette race car ...and, a few other vehicles ...except for my R75/5 ...and some basket-case antique bikes (I had been a collector for some time).
I retired from the military & unmentionable government agencies, after 30 years, 3 months, and two days (as they say, "...but, who's counting"). Explaining slightly differently: while in the military, I eventually was re-assigned to one or another Government three-letter Agencies, where I was responsible for 'certain technical things'. Seems like our government had need, or thought it did, of some of my strange talents. Some old friends still call me Colonel. I never made full bird. ...why should possibly be a campfire story.
College time (a year of medical school, dad paid; but rest of college was all electrical and electronics engineering ...with a curiosity in math & physics; I paid for tuition) aside, ... secondary training, education & experience was really my thing ...I began flying in 1959, and even managed, later, to be a professional pilot & flight instructor. I also had, since my teen years, the previously mentioned repair/sales business (consumer electronics, later adding musicians electronics and industrial electronics). I still have that business, now much shrunk-down to strictly part-time repairs & light engineering. I am retired from commercial flying, including flight instruction. Yes, I had more than one 'career' at roughly the same time & I traveled a considerable amount. My careers had a strong tendency to mesh together in strange ways.
I'm going to backtrack here;...at times, I will be skipping around and do some backtracking in this article.
Older friends were getting drafted at age 21-1/2. All 18 year-olds had to sign up for Selective Service (that means The Military) at age 18. The Marine Corps was my selected option, ....with a deferment until I had finished college with a BSEE; this was extended after "Basic"... while I got my MSEE, ...after which I had to actually go into the Service. I left my job at Hughes but the Government found THAT job interesting. Another story, sometime. With 'prompting & promises' by the Military, I became an engineering employee of a civilian company doing "special projects" funded by The Government. I also had military deployments. Due to my classified Agency work my parents and even my own brother knew nothing about what I was doing. I found Special Projects very interesting. Financially, things were also interesting ....because ....as both a military 'employee' and civilian employee, of whatever company the military or Agency wanted me at ......I got paid by both ....while my Government association was hidden from all but the owner and maybe chief engineer of whatever company I was involved with. I saved or invested a minimum of 10%, and usually closer to nearly half of my income, for many years. (I also gave away my military pension permanently to a group of charities, when I fully retired). I had not quite reached middle Class but had enough money to enjoy 'things'. If I'd kept the pension, we'd now be well-off. I had a high degree of patriotism, and with some involvements, I guess I felt I've paid back my share, and then some. Many of my 'jobs', or 'employments', or 'deployments', came with considerable perks, but some were damned dangerous.
I re-enlisted numerous times, and retired from Agency Work more than a few times ....but went back again and again, ...even in my sixties and once barely into my seventies, sometimes for projects where I had been previously involved. Except for my own businesses, the special projects work varied from intense to very quiet, ...leaving me ...often ...with a LOT of time for whatever fun and games came up. Thus, I did a lot of backpacking, racing, playing with motorcycles and sports cars, etc. I also did a lot of modifications to my homes. I had a rather busy life at times, and at other times I probably got bored, but I managed to incorporate a lot of various activities to ' fill-in'.
As previously noted, I moved to Lake Tahoe in 1972. I began to get involved with the local community. I worked with the Special Olympics kids, with a disabled adults group, cancer survivors, and later with AIDS patients, & as an unpaid 'helper' for the El Dorado County Health Department. From 1992 to 1996 I was the Chairman of the Ryan White Consortium for two California County's (ElDorado and Alpine) at the same time. Back then, there were very few willing to do any kind of helping, as AIDS was the nasty disease going around, and it was frightening to many folks, some of whom thought you could get that then-fatal disease by even being in the same neighborhood as someone with the disease. As the Chairman, I got a lot of experience dealing with State and some County bureaucrats. Learning how to deal with them added to my repertoire of useful knowledge. Ah, politics! I had two friends who were gay, both got AIDS. I learned how to play nurse.
My wife (Penny) & I lived at South Lake Tahoe, California, USA, which is about 100 road miles from Sacramento, California & about 60 road miles from Reno, Nevada, until the period of June 2019 to November 2019; during which we slowly moved to Carson City, Nevada, which is about 30 miles from my old South Lake Tahoe home. That is, I lived at Tahoe in our house, preparing it for listing and sale, and Penny moved to our new house in Carson City, Nevada, while I made dozens of trips with my SUV packed to the ceiling with our 'stuff'. https://bmwmotorcycletech.info/laketahoefacts.htm
I owned several businesses during the time BEFORE, and during when, I lived at Lake Tahoe, including a BMW motorcycle troubleshooting-traveling-know-it-all under contract to the USA BMW importer. Mostly later, when the USA BMW motorcycle distributorship changed to BMWNA, I had a shop devoted to custom work on BMW motorcycles. Other businesses at various times included a machine shop, an aircraft charter service, & an auto stereo sales/installation store. I still have (only) the original (from when I was 15 y.o.) business ... electronics repairs and engineering services. I also occasionally did some instructing for beginners and intermediates on how to use & maintain and deal with security on Windows computers. Up until early 2014 I sometimes repaired computers. Up until Spring of 2019 I was still maintaining computers and a network for the Senior Center; but, with the move to Carson City, I'm now only maintaining our own computers, and that of two friend's.
For the last 15 years or so I have been working in my garage-shop as part-time, "nearly retired", ...and, although I'd like to sell & really retire, it would be difficult to sell a garage-based business, even cheaply (got $10K to $18K ?). Sometimes I repair or otherwise work on some really odd items. The garage-shop keeps me busy enough to avoid being in Penny's hair too much. With my failing health, I was pretty sure I would finally retire in late 2022. That did not happen...I'm still at the workbench most days for an hour or two. My health goes up and down, but, over-all, not too bad....so far. I am, however, running out of treatment options, and don't expect to live to be 90, but may be wrong about that.
If you are getting the idea that I was intensely busy ...and nerdy ...and led a sometimes fun, sometimes dangerous life ....for a lot of years since a teenager, ...you would be correct. But, as old age crept up on me, & with the coming-about of health problems, I slowed down. A lot. But, I was smart enough to stop doing some things.
Some motorcycle stuff:
I have been riding and racing sports cars and motorcycles since the mid 1950's. I road-raced (paved tracks) Norton Manx's & Vincent's & BSA's; and some sidecar rigs. I did my share of off-road dirt riding & racing. I set a World Record, in Class A-C-1000, in 1971, at the Bonneville Salt Flats, on my Norton-Vincent. Photos of me racing at Bonneville are in the Photo Galleries on this website. I owned a large number of various motorcycles, nearly all were antiques. I collected basket-cases and restored many of these bikes. Under a couple of pen names, I wrote for some popular motorcycling/motorcycles magazines, and had access-to and test-rode many of their test bikes. I was, variously, a Wrench, Driver, and Monkey for sidecar racing. I was the chief technician for a BMW Motorcycle dealership back when the /5 and early /6 were still being sold new & I free-lanced as a trouble-shooter for other BMW dealerships; and, had a special arrangement with the BMW motorcycle importer (well, mostly the West coast distributor) ...but also with the later BMW (BMW-NA) folks even offering me a new Oilhead police version bike at a very favorable price. Around 1999 I decided to get back into sidecars, after being away from racing them for a long time. This time it was for personal street driving, not racing. My prior sidecar experience had been only on paved & dirt racetracks, & some off-road racing.
I am a recognized authority ...whatever that means ...on BMW Airhead motorcycles that were manufactured from the end of 1969 to 1995. Yes, I worked on earlier BMW bikes, but I don't consider myself any sort of guru on them, and my memory of the work has faded. I have a website, this verbose piece is on it, devoted to maintaining & repairing BMW motorcycles, ~85% of the site is devoted to BMW Airheads. I also included some information and links for Oilheads, Classic K bikes (K1, K100, K75, K1100), and Sidecar rigs. I have mostly stopped adding articles and information on models other than the Airheads. I do try to keep the website up-to-date, but it is an ever-lasting chore.
I built a BMW R100RT-Ural sidecar rig in 2000; later sold it, and then had a K1100LT-EML GT2 rig I purchased (that I then considerably modified to my particular tastes). I've built sidecar rigs for others, and I have built rigs for track racing. I have owned a fair number of Airheads; the last of which was a 1995 R100RT...which I am sorry I sold. I have around 850,000 miles on street bikes (I never kept track of racing & dirt riding miles) & have passed the 650,000 mark on BMW motorcycles. I had the BMW factory roundel badges for 100K, 200K, 300K, 400K, 500K and 600K ....I left most of them on the sidecar rig when I sold it, and think the 600K was left on the RT; keeping only my memories...and photos. I'm not putting on recorded miles at all since mid-2019. I am now a super-senior with flabby muscles and insufficient muscle mass over-all; and, dealing with a heavy (to me) motorcycle is not a lot of fun ...until under way. I used to do some very spirited tire sliding riding, mostly for my tire testing article (in this website, ....an earlier version was printed in a magazine). I gave up rididng eventually, even gave up (well, mostly, ) dirt riding.
I have been a pilot since 1959 (presently rated Commercial; Instruments; Instructor; Single and Multi-engine; Seaplanes; plus various "Type" ratings). Some of my flying as pilot-in-command was when I was in Government employment.
What might be confusing to you is how I managed to pack so many things into my life. Besides being on my own at age 14-1/2; and my many short term apprenticing, the biggest reason is that I had a huge amount of time-off; or, better said, time between my portions of projects. Such might be weeks here and there. Generally I was being paid all the time I was assigned to some project or other. I spent most of my spare money on 'things' ....and at great restaurants ...but I mostly cooked for myself at home, or for my wife and I. I was able to save and invest a fair % of my income, even though my pay scale was not all that great at times.
I occasionally get 'inquiries', usually from fellow Airhead riders, about who I am ...or, some comments about my having 'done everything'. Now that you know some of how I did so much....here is something from my files ....a bit of nonsense. Just so that you can read it, it is the first thing below:
< I am new to the Airheads LIST, who is "Snowbum"? Is he kind of like "Bigfoot"? Has anyone ever seen him or is he just folklore? >
"""The reports of Snowbum being an imagined character might be true, as a female friend often referred to him as Yeti. Both imagination, & existence, are not necessarily in conflict! BUT ...he really exists, ...at least part-time! There are seemingly creditable witness reports of his being seen at TechDays. Reports of sightings have been received from airheads (small a) at gatherings of various strange folk; bike & sidecar rallies, various technical seminars, & motorcycle races. Rumors are that he uses pen names for articles seen in magazines, and has been seen at unclothed social gatherings, definitely a frightening thought."
Purported images of Snowbum, even using his real given name, can be found as far back as the 1950's, in several motorcycling magazines; in some electronics magazines with articles supposedly written by him; in old articles in BMW Motorcycle Owners News magazines; in Instrument and Control Systems Magazine, & in some government publications ...a few of them marked Secret, or, some-such. As far as certain Government Agencies, and, for most military inquiries concerned, he has never existed. There are some countries where he is not welcome. There is a country where his photograph and made-up report of why he was there, is in a publication. Hopefully long forgotten, as surrounding Country's governments, at the time, maybe even now, would have liked to have dealt unpleasantly with him.
An image can be found in the October 1999 issue of "AIRMAIL", a publication of the Airheads Beemer Club, perhaps airbrushed into the middle of a photograph of Bob Clement & Matt Parkhouse, who really do exist. A likeness was also published on the cover of an issue of AIRMAIL in 2001, obviously an ethereal appearance, as even the motorcycle he was next-to seems not to be a /6 model as was described ...perhaps the Editor was confused (not impossible nor improbable). Rumors of an ACTUAL picture of Snowbum being in the June 2003 issue of AIRMAIL, wearing some sort of furred animal on his head, seems outlandish to contemplate. Perhaps the picture, supposedly taken at a BMW motorcycle TechDay was doctored (Photoshopped?), but it appears on page 7.
You can also check AIRMAIL, for a photo purported to be Snowbum with Matt Parkhouse in the July 2008 issue & in BMW MOA in 2008 as well. There are supposedly images of Snowbum in some Calendars (that were likely thrown away after a few months of disgust).
Occasional, always out-of-focus photographs (Snowbum admits to being out of focus occasionally in some of his younger years) are to be found in existentialistic publications & it is said one may find his byline in science fiction publications from many years ago.
Mention of "The Bum", or using his real name, & sometimes just Flash or The Flash, are to be found in texts, tabloids, car & motorcycle race books, etc., from the 1950's, 1960's; and 1970's ....and many ...in more modern publications. Before he coined the name Snowbum for himself in the late 1990's while already a long time resident of Lake Tahoe, he sometimes used his real name. Quite a few motorcycling magazines in late 1971, & some in 1972, have pictures & comments by others about his exploits on his Norton-Vincent while racing at the Bonneville Salt Flats ...and other places. There are even earlier magazine articles about dirt bike racing, sidecar track racing, & closed course paved track racing (Willow Springs, etc.). Snowbum's BMW website, which you are probably reading this Bio on, https://bmwmotorcycletech.info, contains a number of Photo Gallery Pages.
Snowbum is said to use two pen names when authoring articles in various magazines. In the BMW club's magazines, & some other publications, he used his real name; or, just Snowbum. Photos of Snowbum in his white leather racing suit, sitting aboard or standing next to his Vincent race bike at the Bonneville Salt Flats, are found in his website, the one you are reading this on, in the Photo Galleries, as well as some magazines.
In my alter-ego third person mode:
Snowbum has been trying to phase out his past, and go to his future by experiencing new things. This pleases many, and annoys many, ...at the very same time.
Snowbum sold many of his Airhead and other motorcycle parts and tools ...and, finally decided to stop racing, the slow beginnings of all this happening at a garage sale in August 2017. Also sold was his white leather racing suit (actually, his wife, Penny sold it while his back was turned ...another wee story). The white leather racing suit will probably be nailed to a wall in someone's man-cave (with a dart board target in the center?). Years later, Snowbum found out where that suit ended up. Selling it signified the end of an era for Snowbum ('twas like Samson and his hair) ....and; pleased Penny, who had long pushed him to sell it, amongst other things not or seldom used. Minimalist Penny made the sale to some unknown street walker (actually, a young neighbor who was probably thrilled to even touch the garment). This was likely Penny's way of prompting Snowbum to sell things, retire, and spend more time being socially more acceptable (to her, with her, for her, etc). It only partially worked ...that took almost 3 more years; and, he's still not 100% retired...still averaging an hour or three in his shop, most days.
There was what appeared to be an authentic image of Snowbum from an earlier time, in a framed photograph on the wall of the Hughes Aircraft Company in Culver City, & then it "somehow" was moved to a wall at the Hughes Laboratories in Malibu, California. Perhaps fellow employees needed a dart board. The photo seems to be showing a frazzled overworked underpaid junior engineer type (see the tousl'd hair & the pencil protector in my ...ooops ...HIS ...shirt pocket) standing next to a Purported Mr. Hughes & a Twin-Beech aircraft .....it has been said that they both vomited immediately before AND AFTER the flying experience ..... Hughes from the association implied, Snowbum from the 'flight'. Rolling in Hell .....was how Snowbum described that day. Snowbum has said that he never asked Mr. Purported about his design of a special Bra, or was it a Bra-Cup?.... for a certain well-known actress, Jane Russell. Suffice it to say that the experience of the flight, let alone the project, made Snowbum's own cup runneth over, and he did not need another, unless nicely filled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Russell
For a certain company, Snowbum's engineering group always had 'projects' for "The Government" (you may guess who was the junior engineer AND the primary tester) ...one such project ended in a final test in the waters off one of the Channel Islands ...Snowbum won't say much more ...other than he learned to pilot & navigate a rented boat ...& learned how to scuba-dive to pretty good depths using Navy-provided diving equipment.
Miss-using a statement by Mark Twain: Reports of Snowbum's existence(s) were greatly exaggerated. Various "sightings" as YETI are also questionable.
Verbose postings ascribed as being from Da Bum ...or Snowbum ...to the Airheads LIST or Kbmw or SCT Groups, etc., Facebook, etc., should always be taken with exhausting skepticism; or, at least some salts ...which may have the same results.
Snowbum's mottos/sayings/other nonsense, are:
To HELL with whether the glass is half empty ...or half full ...refill my glass! Which is pretty crazy, considering that he drinks very little alcohol ...never did much, contrary to many who think otherwise. All excepting one 'interesting' experience the day after he received a certain emblem/insignia (an exceptional, but long, story).
The 'bum has promoted that he likes good booze ...maybe to better get freebies of cask strength Scotch? ....and a good Cuban cigar?...examples of either being a good thing.
Student of secret arcane disciplines.
Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.
Most folks look intelligent.....& then they say something.
Laissez les bons temps rouler.
Assume a virtue, if you have it not (Hamlet).
Amor vincit omnia (love conquers all.....see Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales).
Meum Dictum Pactum [my word is my bond] (except if I am lying).
Mater Artium Necessitas (necessity is the mother of invention).
Docendo Discimus (we learn by teaching).
Die knowing something, you are not here long.
A large number of good tests and inspections/measurements, are more valuable than most opinions based on personal reports. Personal Reports are always suspect ...except Snowbum's, where Reports are always sub-titled "Verbose Essays, the novel".
A fountain of smart may, at times, be better than a fountain of youth.
Snowbum may not have The Answer, but he has an Opinion.
A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful, than a life spent in doing nothing.
Dark Porter and Stouts, single malt Scotch, Cuban cigars, and micro-mini-bikini-clad girls ...are proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Old age & treachery combined with well-honed experienced skills will always overcome youth & exuberance.
Anecdotal Reports are like candy ....sweet, engaging, the seller always wants you to absorb more .....but may rot something or other.
Brevity is the Soul of someone else's wit.
I care not a whit.
Snowbum has a great hesitancy about engaging in any battle of wits with un-armed opponents.
Words to live by: Snowbum's brother sent him this paragraph .....maybe he was fed up with his brother's verbosity:
""Promulgate esoteric cogitations ...articulating superficial sentimentalities and amicable, philosophical, or psychological observations,,, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous propensity, psittaceous vacuity, ventriloquial verbosity and vaniloquent vapidity. Let communications demonstrate clarified conciseness, compact comprehensibleness, without coalescent conglomerations of preciose garrulity, jejune bafflement, and asinine affectations. Let our extemporaneous verbal evaporations & expatiations have lucidity, intelligibility, and veracious vivacity, without rodomontade or Thespian bombast. Shun double-entendre, obnoxious jocosity & pestiferous profanity, observable or apparent.Your brief/short computer's dictionary may not understand some of those words. Maybe my brother is MORE nerdy than me (I? me?).
At this point, you are probably on the verge of doing something or other, so you may want to stop here. On the other hand, if you prefer more torture, read on .....but, you've been warned...
Snowbum's full (?) Bio (not overly full, I'm not dead yet):
What follows is NOT always in chronological order, in fact it flits back & forth with dates ....& rambles considerably. This goes right along with my method of thinking ...& how it rolled back into memory. I am too lazy to fix all of this rambling and chronological stuff at one time, although I do look at it once in a while and do a few clarifications. Some few facts/details have been warped & twisted some, maybe to my benefit, maybe not; but mostly for reasons of protecting some living folks; and, who knows, maybe to massage my memories and/or ego ...OR ....keep me out of trouble with various Authorities. There are a number of different photo galleries available from the HomePage on this website, scan way down that homepage to the tables area listing the presently seven photo galleries. I invite you to look at them. They may give you some ideas about who I am/was/knew/ and ...folks and things ...I played with. You may find these photos interesting, or at least thought-provoking. I have had a very strange life, jam-packed with various adventures; and I started EARLY in this regards.
I grew up in Los Angeles with greasy hands from a quite early age playing with most anything mechanical & electrical. I had 'Black' friends from an early age; even though my own childhood neighborhood was lily-white. I had one of those Little Red Wagons that many young kids had. I put a model airplane engine on it, dangerously. My dad made me put a chicken-wire fence around the engine; the engine's propeller could have taken off my finger. I hurt my finger more than once when starting that engine, which had two speeds, OFF & Wide-Open-Throttle. Later, some nick-named me WOT.....usually following WHAT/WHO was THAT!?
From about age four I wore eyeglasses. Weak left eye & far-sighted in both. Wearing glasses does not help with social interactions with other youngsters. I struck back, sometimes with enough anger to be considered vicious. They deserved it. It did not make them friends, but they 'got-the-message'. In one instance, the police were called.
My parents, wanting me to be a well-rounded child ...maybe it was their reading of books about how to raise children (I was their firstborn), ....forced me take piano lessons ....and attempted to enroll me in religious training. They selected Jewish. I hated religious training & took every opportunity to either visit a nearby Christian Church & attempt to repair their ancient pipe organ (a complete story in itself) ...or, I was just blocks away from there, making great friends with a 'Negro man', who had a wonderful philosophy of life, many experiences, & who owned & ran a junkyard & lived with his family in a house in front of that fenced junkyard. The junkyard happened to be FULL of VERY interesting mechanical & electrical things. He was a Jack-Of-All-Trades, a man to learn from. I cherished the friendship. I ate lunch with his family on many Saturdays when I should have been down the street getting religion-ized. His family included a stunningly attractive black daughter. My crush on his daughter ended when she found someone much more interesting than I was. ....maybe it was the fact that he was older, a school jock ....and I was just barely into being a teenager, shy and also scrawny at that time. The experience coincided with my voice deepening, funny inner feelings, ....and I joined an old-fashioned 'gym', and began to bulk-up. Later I grew-up faster ....and, met Eartha. I was ever and always, meddling/shocking folks. I hated bigots and racists, and dealt with them "in-your-face". https://bmwmotorcycletech.info/photogallery5.htm
In my later teens I had nicknames besides Bob; was sometimes called Flash ...or The Flash, coming from my last name early-on ....& later, from my racing (cars, bikes, sidecar rigs, sports cars, etc....). Four-eyes occasionally was also my name, usually behind my back.
At an early age I was fascinated by mathematics & all things scientific ...this included reading and trying to write science fiction. This made up somewhat for my lack of social graces; well, it really didn't. But, I certainly was exceptionally precocious up until my college years, when my failure to study hard enough (from previous lazy habits gained because I easily got away with it) finally caught up with me. Perhaps it had something to do with there being quite a few 'smart kids' in college, and I found myself one of the faceless crowd, except for the bushy mustache I had most of the time.
It was still California, ....still the Left Coast ...at least in a some ways. A few said that staying in California would certainly bring calamities upon me. A friend from my younger days, Dee Jay Sadler, was convinced by his mother & her friends, that California would slide into the sea upon the next earthquake. They moved out of California. My house never slid anyplace. Not the house I eventually purchased in Mar Vista (West side of L.A., towards Venice, closer to Winklemann's BMW), nor, much later, my house at Lake Tahoe. I usually inform folks (that tell me about California Earthquakes) that my house has not fallen into itself from any earthquake, war, hurricane or tornado. Drive-by shoot-m-ups were hardly memorable, in fact I don't remember any such. I admit to riding my motorcycle to work carrying a large revolver prominently displayed on my hip, during and immediately after the 1965 Watts Riots .....I then worked at Stoddart Electro Systems in Gardena, California, and passed through the Watts area regularly on my motorcycle. I had started working for that company when it was located at its original site in Hollywood, when it was known as Stoddart Aircraft Radio Company. When I eventually left the company I was a Staff Electronics Design Engineer. BTW ...Hollywood wasn't mostly all gay then either. I had some close gay friends though; still do.
Here is basic information on that company: http://online.sfsu.edu/hl/src.html Notice in that article: VLF spy radio, Model 289-1. On that page, scan way down to the very bottom, & the first References item has MY name in it. For the magazine referenced and the patent, I did all the work, including engineering, all the testing & sketches & writing, on most 'projects' ........unfortunately, the do-not-do-much bosses got credits too. While most of that particular Stoddart article is about radio items before my time with them, I was with them for many years, with two periods of employment. So, yes, I was involved with the 'spy' radio in the article, the 289-1, although that was not my personal project for which I am known in some circles. That 'spy radio', the 289-1, was for use by/for submarines for communications from deep water, and operated at low (sonic) frequencies. Yes, you can transmit and receive frequencies that, if presented into a loudspeaker, you would hear; otherwise, things were silent, the signal being electromagnetic. Just how that handheld 'radio' operated at sonic frequencies without a sound, is still classified. It was during my long employment times with this company that I started doing ever more serious Agency Work. That I was with an Agency was usually known only to two top level people within any Company I worked for in a certain capacity. I worked at the Hollywood location (driving either one of my motorcycles or my Porsche 550RS1500 to work daily); and, later, when the company moved to Gardena, I worked there, as a full Project Engineer.Ah, California, land of Sunshine, City Traffic, Freeways, Leftists, Hippies, Beatniks, smart folks, not so smart folks, and everything from poverty and poor migrants to the wealthy. Thousands of miles of 'motorcyclists roads'. Beaches. Well-tanned and toned bodies. Forget Hollywood, it was nearly all fake, including the people. There WERE some REAL folks in the Hollywood-ers though. I knew, and rode-with, a few. I also did electronics work for some rather well-known musician's. Most of these guys were just real down-to-earth folks, rather than being advertising department hyped characters. One of these groups was The Monkeys. Sold one of them a new Honda 750, worked on their Moog equipment, etc. I fit right in.
I was living in an increasingly nasty sewer called Los Angeles ...but, then, after 35 years, something triggered an epiphany. I suddenly got smart enough (??) to give up a terrific job .....it had been good paying, had really good perks, and the owners were REALLY NICE .....and ...I had reached the position I always dreamed-of since maybe age 14: Chief Engineer. That company was Linear Corp. I could have had a multi-decade career with them, I guess. But, I was restless, and ready for new adventures....and, it did not include big rusty smoggy cities.
...SO....I gave up Los Angeles (and sold my 72 Corvette) & moved to God's Country, Lake Tahoe, where one has mountains, streams, lakes, ... & several seasons (the seasons are Winter-time, Summer Construction time, less visitors time, then Winter-time again). At Tahoe, we had squawking Stellar Jays, who appreciated the morning peanuts I provided. Many types of birds visited my yard. In 2007 I trained one particular Jay to eat peanuts out of my hand; could do it again if I still had the patience; but birds are discouraged where I live now. No raccoons to be seen now where I live in Carson City ....perhaps they have 'passed the word' about my liking for 'raccoon hats'. (update: A racoon is living in my 55+ compound's area someplace, July 2024). There were sometimes Song-Dogs roaming the streets and yards when I lived at Tahoe. I would hear them howling ....before they got someone's cat (they got one of mine) or small dog ...for their dinner. I saw a large California black bear (they are usually cinnamon brown in color) in the street in front of my house in October 2005 ....and a smaller one climbed over my shed and fence in late 2006 ....and there was a monstrous-sized one in mid-2007 outside my driveway. In late 2014 one approaching 600 pounds was captured on camera literally steps from my home. Simply unusually HUGE. It was shown in the local newspaper. Bear sightings near my house happened several times every year. They eat trash from folks who fail to keep their trash away from the bears ...thus, the bears are extremely large, & some don't even hibernate any more. A few misguided folks deliberately feed the bears. That promotes bear break-ins. I never fed or allowed my trash to feed bears, but some bears were seen and captured by my camera. They were in my yard, eating cherries from my one and only cherry tree.
I could not see nor hear any freeways from anyplace near my Tahoe home. We did not, and almost assuredly never will, have freeways there. The Lake Tahoe region does have, sometimes, heavy traffic ...such as at New Years, MLK, or Presidents weekends. The 4th of July traffic is abominable. Most of the car traffic was from visiting hordes of juveniles, ......the majority of which are in adult form. Here's a little cartoon/sign...I'll bet you get emotional from looking at it.
We had little fog, not much rain, very little smog. We had snow, typically with long stretches of sunshine between Winter storms. Tahoe has become vastly more touristy, less 'local', less 'personal', but is still a wonderful place to live, God's Country ... in particular when not in maximum Tourist Season. The Tourists are necessary, they are what supports the community, but are often overwhelming...and leave messes on the beaches. I loved Tahoe, but wifey wanted to live in less snowy country (and where her aging husband would no longer be climbing onto our second-story roof for cleaning, gutters work, etc.....more on all that, later, herein).
OK, backtracking to my before-Tahoe time:
One of my mother's two brothers (an uncle, for those of you who are relationships-challenged), was a trumpeter with the Stan Kenton band. I received some advice from him on how to meet & play (piano) with jazz greats, not-so-greats & more importantly (?) ... meet some of the women...and men ... hanging around them. I actually did play piano with some of them (the musician's, not the women, we had other things for them and us to play with). I early-on dropped any pretense at trying to play clarinet or trumpet, finding them lousy at chords. I spent a lot of underage time in jazz joints (the California-style milder version of honky-tonks & RedNeck Bars), & also occasionally hung out with Chuck Yeager type folks in the Edwards Airbase (Muroc) area. Interestingly, at that time I WAS NOT MUCH INTERESTED in airplanes. For an idea of what those days of Flo (Pancho) Barnes were like, do a SEARCH on Bing, DuckDuck or Google for "Pancho Barnes". There are a number of articles, & the URL's tend to change rather often for Edwards, so a fresh search is better than me listing a URL here. Most bio information on Pancho covers more of the era before I hung out with those Edwards folks. I sure had a strange life for someone in his early teen years ....and later.
My Jr. High School (do you remember when Middle School+ had that name?) had a real honest-to-gosh metal-working shop class, with a lathe, mill, welding equipment, etc. I LOVED THAT CLASS, ...and successfully became the teacher's pet. As the only such pet, I received privileges, such as being able to use the more dangerous machinery. I loved SHOP! By the time I entered High School I could reasonably competently use a lathe, a mill, oxy-acet torch, etc. I had a car at 14-1/2, that I hot-rodded, so that shop class background came in handy.
I went to University High School located in West Los Angeles, known as an innovative teacher's training school. NO shop classes. I managed to get included in a experimental program that allowed sophomore's & seniors to attend UCLA, part-time. I took every possible advantage of this; really pushing the limits of what the test-program was supposed to allow. This program was for 'gifted students'. HAH! I am not at all sure I was truly gifted ...I probably just knew much more, especially technical things, at an early age. I also was part-time dating an older woman who had connections at UCLA and put in a few words here and there for me. Few students, nor anyone else, knew about this program. The program enabled me to greatly speed-up the road to a BSEE, and eventually a MSEE.
...About that 'older woman'....
I was barely into high school when I met a nearly middle-aged ...married, but separated from her doctor-husband, ...lady astrologer at Muscle Beach, located at Venice, a small city west of Los Angeles. I was the bleached-blond long-haired part-time LifeGuard one or two part days most weeks. She taught Astrology (yes, really!) at UCLA, & was a help to me in my obtaining and misusing of the gifted-high-schooler's-attending-UCLA-programs (my words). She put in a good word for me; and pulled some strings. On the other hand, she extracted her price, at least for awhile. She made it clear that she wanted me for a 'housepet'; which I managed to continually put off, but eventually succumbed (and, I guess, reasonably happily-so ...for awhile). I met some very strange folks through her, and when Astrology was the subject I kept my mouth shut, as I had absolutely zero belief in that and was not at all interested. I have mixed memories for that time. One memory in particular, was when, together, I ran into her ex-husband at a party, and I got even more of an 'education' .....he certainly filled me in about her, and he and I became rather decent friends. I think he was secretly rather happy that I was keeping her happy, and thereby she was much less a bother to him. I learned a lot from him, over lunches.
Well....jumping ahead a LOT of years (60 ?):
Here is a photo taken in August of 2011, I am nearly 74 years old & wearing one of my old letter jackets from High School. It still fits and I still have it. Yes, those are strawberry plants behind my left arm, this is in front of my house at Tahoe. That front fence is now gone.
Before I graduated from High School, I had a number of college courses already completed, and attending more at UCLA. BUT...to my chagrin ...(& a few other things)...I found that I was surely NOT the ONLY precocious High Schooler at UCLA. I also found out that College Girls 'do not date high school boys'. SO ...I mostly dated girls from Beverly Hills High School, once even dating sisters who both lived at home with their parents. One of these sisters was older, in college. I soon found out why it was insanely stupid to date two sisters, especially and particularly when they were living in the same house; and double-insanity as they lived with their parents. I still wonder what became of Harriet, the younger sister. Probably long married & with 3 grown kids, several grandkids, & a large mortgage with some lawyer-husband. I once showed off my motorcycling skills at Harriet's parent's home, by sliding into a pile of maple leaves at the curb, on my thumb, on my BSA B-33. OUCH! My thumb bled some for several days and hurt for a couple of MONTHS. I 'suspect' my "display" did not help my status with that family.
Backtracking slightly more: I starting working part time before my teen years....mostly neighborhood things; but, in my EARLY teens I managed to get paid reasonably decent money for working for others. I saved money I earned from mostly manual labor (including toting all sorts of things in an uncle's wholesale paper business after school hours). In my mid-teens I bought a small retail sales & repairs electronics store. I sold little in the beginning, but did a lot of repairs, in a ~400 square foot repair center, at the corner of a mostly residential district, corner of Bentley Ave., that abutted a major street, Pico Blvd, this was a block away from Sepulveda Blvd, in West Los Angeles, for those of you that know West Los Angeles. As the repair business grew enough so that I almost couldn't do it all myself early in the mornings & after school hours & on weekends, especially considering my school work, ......RCA advertised that they would soon have a mass-produced color TV for sale. I lied my way into receiving a small shipment, & thus was likely the first dealer in L.A. I sold a fair number of TV's over a period of time. I also hired a part time go-fer & helper, so I learned, the hard way, about wages, taxes, ...and bookeeping.
These unreliable (compared to modern TV's) 21 inch color sets sold for $800, a HUGE amount of money in the fifties. I became quite a good TV technician (even going to RCA's color TV repair school). I learned a lot at that short 'school', and it was hardly all about TV's and other electronics. I was also much younger than everyone else there, which bothered the older students for one or another reasons.
Eventually, Motorola announced a honest-to-gosh transistor portable radio. I purchased many dozens and sold them quickly. With the TV & radio sales; my thinking changed. I began to think more and more about RETAIL PROFITS. I think that The Prophets had some things to say about Profits, or was it the reverse? I managed to save most of the profits and invested them. AH...PROFITS! My viewpoint on life changed a bit. I learned about banking, stock market, investing, etc. In truth, my high school time working for a buck-fifty in my after-hours job for my very knowledgeable about 'business' uncle, had been a fast way to learn about such things....with many a discussion about such esoteric-to-teenager's things.
Up until the RCA and Muntz TV's and transistor radio sales time, my real interest in my wee little store was doing repairs. Repairing things has been a lifelong thing ...still is. But, my imagination grew considerably. My brain may have swelled a tad; or I was just thinking ahead; probably both. It was also around that time that I began to look again into other things, and delved into philosophy (particularly classical liberalism, libertarianism, and conservatism....isms, isms, isms). I went far beyond what had been, or would be, taught in college ...although I fondly remember a History of Civilizations course. I think a lifelong interest in Buddhism and my deep thinking grew considerably during this time.
MUNTZ?? Needing an inexpensive black & white TV product line to sell, I took on Muntz TV's, after playing with my parents Muntz Black & White TV (& trying to build a CBS-type motorized color wheel for it). Mad Man Muntz. 4 Track Players, 8 Track Players. Muntz Ranch with homemade apple hooch by the gallon in the mountains near L.A. ...Muntz Lake, near Hughes Lake. SHEEESH ...the memories ...my friend Ed and I once drove up there, his 51 Ford ...(or was it my 49 Ford??) ...and bought two gallons. Finished one on the way home. Got sick.
There was a small older house next-to and attached to my store. My neighbor, the owner, made me an offer I could not refuse, and I purchased that property....which included the property my little store sat on. I cleverly managed to register the properties for mixed-use, including light commercial. I expanded into the attached house which I quickly remodeled as an extension to my store. I fixed the kitchen portion and another portion of that house ...so it was sort-of walled-off from the business, and I could live there! I used my learn-on-the-job talents to do most all of the work myself. How I found time still astonishes me. The property value went rather up up up, due to the commercial use approval, which The City finding out much later that such a thing had happened under their noses. Probably is still the same.
Within a few years, after having made my wallet bulge a bit more than its usual thinness, I sold that business, residence, and other attached property. I had developed other interests & there was the strong possibility of military service. I invested some of the profits into stock of the Zenith company, a very well-known name back then .....later, absorbed/purchased into LG Electronics...and I lost all the investment...very educational. I also invested in commercial real estate ...yes, at that early age. In truth, I invested with the help/collaboration/advice/part ownership, etc., of wee investment groups (varied over the years) of family members.....headed by the same uncle (my father's brother) for whom I worked and learned much about people and business, in my high school years, after hours, at his wholesale paper products business. I became more and more conservative about money and investments, and more and more liberal about social things.
My uncle (my father's brother), of wholesale paper company & Pacific Ocean Park Amusement Pier fame (he was general manager besides having his paper business). Guess I won't say too much about the Santa Monica Amusement Park and Pier ....well, l guess maybe to just mention that I had after-hours keys when in High School. He gave me instructions on investing in real estate. We eventually did this together, & sometimes with other family members. By the time I was hardly out of high school I owned a modest part of a small 4 unit apartment building at 327 South Union Street in Los Angeles, not all that far from City Hall. Well, I owned the "paper" part that ascribed co-ownership of the property ...but was really Government owned via the HUD loan to us. Until it was paid off. This was my first experience with intricate financing of real-estate, mortgages, etc. I studied some about how banks made money providing loans, & how slow & steady interest payments to them could make bankers rich, over time, not that I ever became even slightly rich. I learned about spreads between banking depositors and folks borrowing. In fact, I studied such things as how money was actually created out of thin air by banks making loans ...even today I am amused (and more) by the FED, etc. I planned to beat them (or, use their methods ABP) at their own game, but at a very low and safe level. I learned about HUD properties & Government financing. I learned a lot. My uncle was a no-nonsense guy, who was only too happy to tell me anything & everything I had questions about, regarding business, taxes, government, etc. It was real practical learning from someone who had more than a bit of experience, loads of cynicism ......and, passed-on sufficient attitude to make me want to continue to learn. When I had been working for this uncle while in High School I was
gaining knowledge & cynicism at an early age. I learned how to deal with politicos/bureaucrats, even clerks, in a way that made them do things that I wanted them to do. Later in life I became fairly adept in 'allowing' such folks to think THEY made the decisions on things. The learning did NOT make me wiser ...or, did it? Smarter, maybe, which is not necessarily wiser?
I found that with enough pondering about any given problem or situation, I could control it. There is also nothing like the occasional failure at these sort of things to make one have second (and third) thoughts about getting better at it. Humbling thoughts.
As I graduated from high school I was already nearly through my 2nd year of college. In high school I was hardly a campus socialite, & especially not some sort of Jock, although I did force myself to get two school letters. I lived in a wonderful big old house in Los Angeles at 1740 South Rimpau Street, with two roommates, Marion Allen & Dee Jay Sadler. I was about to enter college full time. Strange trio we were. This rambling old house, with its tiny garage and large backyard of ancient fruiting trees, was in a previously upscale WASP (White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant) neighborhood of L.A., that was, when we lived there, occupied by what we now call Blacks, or, African-Americans. I had a past history of black friends, and even had a black girlfriend once upon a time; ...., and with ease I became a 'member' of their neighborhood, making a point of socializing with them, going to & playing piano, in one of their clubs, the Black Orchid (aka, The Orchid Room). I even dated a couple of the local girls & danced with them when not playing the piano, at that & another Club. I also later frequented Redd Foxx's Foxhole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redd_Foxx, but there is not much about his Club in that article.
It was, in nearly every white circle, scandalous to date a black girl. For me, it was not the first time (refer back to the Negro family and junkyard owners daughter, much earlier in this verbose piece). However, interracial dating and marriage has been going on for a very long time, and those folks had their own tight circles. This was particularly so on the West Coast; although pretty well hidden from the general white population. In every way, well almost, this was NOT like it would have been in the Deep South. I was having loads of fun, & did not much care, still don't, about what people think, or one supposed they thought (I have found that in most instances people do NOT think nor have rational thinking, well, not all that much, about many subjects). I also, perhaps, loved to startle people. Sometimes I think I had more than a trace of 'look at me' ...or .....'UP YOURS, and IN YOUR FACE'!
I generally had made it a point to be highly restrictive in who I dated. I kept to this for a very long period of time; until I 'learned'. But, in those early days, there were strict requirements that I followed: I only dated female humans with two legs, prominent perky boobs, ...& 'an attitude'. I broadened & modified these seriously detailed requirements later in life to include intelligence, Class A-minor personalities, and sometimes worldliness. I was less restrictive in my choice of male friends. Yes, as you just guessed, I had a number of hard-learned lessons thrust upon me at times.
As I had a fair amount of experience with some parts of black west coast society early-on ...starting when I was so friendly with my junkyard-owner friend & his daughter when I was an teenager, I managed to greatly enjoy my life at the Rimpau house & I still have nothing but the best memories of that time. I managed to play piano, often jazz; and even dance now & then at The Orchid. I was almost always the only white guy in there, .....I was still under-age; but got my beer anyway. I 'was accepted', and knew everyone in the place eventually on a first name basis. I cannot over-emphasize what a wonderful life I had then & I look back very fondly on those times.
My lifestyle and experiences have greatly influenced me, & I have always had an interest in other cultures/races; all over the world; ...especially foods ...some of which I have tried to duplicate in my own kitchen.
I have especially fond memories of one weekend when living at the Rimpau house, when I asked the local police for a favor. They obliged. They closed off my street except for residents .....& I roasted a huge pig (hog?...what's the difference??) in a huge barbecue that I had welded together. The barbecue was held in the middle of the street, on a couple of pickup truck loads of sand on top of a monster City-Services steel plate ...which friends who worked for the City delivered. The Party was for our 1 long block neighborhood (and a wee bit surrounding). The neighbors, who had been notified weeks ahead of time, brought 'fixins' ...and beer. Things went great, & even greater (after the keg was nearly finished) ....helped along by one friend who provided a rather large quantity of Pot for all to smoke. I had a stereo system plugged into the house, speakers in the street, and only the best jazz and dance music was played. Later that afternoon, and well into late evening, I turned off the speakers, and some jazz musicians I knew played. The Street Party went on for quite awhile. That Party cemented a lot of friendships for me. BTW, I pretty much had the same party, but with a theme, but, still the bar-b-cue pig, at my home on Washington Ave., in the Tahoe Keys area, at Lake Tahoe, many years later....with, yep, police-closed street.
Well into the fifties I spent a considerable period of time riding motorcycles with what was then ...heck, maybe still, now, ...called an 'outlaw' motorcycle club ....ours was the Satan's Boys. We were hardly as nasty as the name implies; although we did, rarely though, have joint rides with the Galloping Gooses; who were, or could be, unpleasant for unpleasantness' sake. One of my last events with the Satan's Boys was at the 1957 Catalina Grand Prix Race. Decades later I found out that some of the guys I knew from those m/c years were still hanging out at a formerly disreputable place in L.A. .....I have thought of visiting some time, but never have, mostly because I dislike being in Los Angeles. I doubt I will, even if visiting my brother in Los Angeles. ....I've dropped all of them ...& 'that scene'. They've also dropped me. Except for one guy, Phil Pszenny, who found me and contacted me in early 2011 and furnished the mentioned information. Phil and I still stay in touch. Old time remembrances aplenty! Way back in the fifties, I had a roommate, a member of my Club, nick-named "Rooster". My gal-friend "Corky" lived in the tree house 'apartment' at the front of our apartment complex. A photo of my jacket/colors is in the photo gallery on this website ...and below. I hung out at the Coffee House Positano (playing piano for tips). Many of my Club, including our president, Tom Young, went to Catalina for that second-to-last-ever Grand Prix. I did not win, but I finished well ahead of the rear of the pack. For those who lived in Los Angeles during this time (are any of you still alive???), you may remember names & places such as Bucky's, Hunter's Lodge, Dopey's Restaurant, A & W on Sepulveda, Johnny O's, the Saucy Dog, Sam & Rocky of the G. Gooses, Pardo Beach, etc.
I had three old Harley's at various times. One was a 1949 Knucklehead (NOT a Panhead, yes I know I said 1949) that I put an enormous amount of mileage on, then stored it for some years, & later got a lot of money for that dead-stock totally worn-out bike. I later had one of the first Sportster's, an XLCH. It had ONE white saddlebag. I also had a hopped-up '80'. I have not owned a Harley in MANY decades. I am simply no longer (for decades now!) a Harley type guy, & today too many HD riders are poseurs & groupies (well, truthfully ...there STILL ARE some of the old time guys & gals around ...I think).
Since I did all the mechanical work on just about every vehicle I have ever owned, I managed to get a lot of experience.
Yes...this was MY JACKET, decades old in the photo. This was a custom-made jacket of exceptionally heavy cowhide, lined with three thin layers of wool fabric, one layer in the arms, nice and warm in Winter. I kept it for decades, although did not wear it after the armpits rotted out. I gave it to a teen, long after I moved to Tahoe ....he had lusted mightily after it.
How does a person with a weak left eye pass Civilian, Military, & Agency flying tests? >>>>One memorizes five eye charts! Actually, I compensated during actual flying quite successfully. The eyes were eventually fixed, but that was after the major portion of my flying career had ended.
....but, let me backtrack some here first:
My left eye from toddler time had been considerably weaker than my right eye. I wore glasses from age 4. I had poor depth perception & very poor ability to quickly change focus to estimate distance; hence, I was always lousy at baseball & football, even volley-ball. SO lousy that I never bothered to even memorize the game rules, this is still the situation. I had reasonably usable vision with eyeglasses (considerably less on my left eye) when younger, but my ability to focus quickly as things moved (like balls, coming towards me) was not good & got worse as I got into my senior years, & my eyesight got a bit worse in focusing & handling glare, & eyeglasses did not compensate enough. But, back in my 'formative' years, having something moving towards me & trying to catch it was not my forte & never has been. It was devilish when I tried boxing. On the other hand, wrestling, while I was in school, was a breeze. Even though my eyesight is now very good, my brain, which I have been told cannot easily be further 'retrained', insists that my 3D perception will remain, forever, only fair. Back at the time, however, I compensated, a lot, by doing a considerable amount of active scanning.
Big horned-rim glasses also made me look like THE NERD I WAS. I changed to Airman's frames. I had a few problems, as I was not very big; mostly weighed about 128 early-on in High School. It was years before I truly beefed up, and more years before I entered the Mr. Natural contest at So. Lake Tahoe. BUT.... In my early pre-teen & teen years, the Beat Generation years, I hung out at Venice Beach, and I was often in the nearby Ocean Park beach area, where my father & his cousin had an upholstery shop & I was a barely part-time lifeguard. I met lots of the poets, philosophers, artists, ....& some assorted low-life's of the day .....in that area ...Venice Beach to Ocean Park Beach mostly. Later on, I met a lot of the muscle-men who more & more frequented Venice Beach. Try as I did, I never bulked up enough, THEN, to emulate any of them ...except my calves & biceps. I remember one of them telling me something like this: "you gotta funn-ee body, big legs, big arms ...you-been-work'n-out 'N chasing-the gals! ... ". This was undoubtedly a statement, not a question.
I was still in high school when I became friends with some older guys who 'worked out seriously'. I still have my original Membership card, a low number too, in the original West Coast Vic Tanny's Gym that I joined. Vic gave it to me personally. Gym's, THEN, were usually places with smelly locker-rooms, frequented by big hairy muscular guys with smelly feet, & at the center of the always single room gym was always a boxing ring. I loved it! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_Tanny. Although that Wikipedia page is accurate-enough, the gym I worked out at was his first on the West Coast, it was located in genteel Santa Monica, and had no fancy mirrored walls, no fancy chairs and carpets, etc. It was not coed, and was mostly populated by serious bodybuilders 'from downtown (L.A., not Santa Monica)'.
There was a totally UNdeserved bad reputation for these early "gyms". They seemed to have a reputation similar to a Pool hall with a beer bar attached. Probably the mainstream culture thought that these folks were beneath them ...or, perhaps, were also secretly afraid of muscular men. I do think the public lumped gyms with pool halls (SOME of those pool halls WERE bad places back then). I think some of the public were actually afraid of men in good physical condition, & hardly understood that these guys were extremely sweet, gentle & kind; yes, a few were very rough looking. No false Machismo here. While they were not afraid of anyone, they also did not have to show off, & most had a very satisfying family life ...wife, kids, house, the usual. They also did NOT take steroids; .... and, thus did NOT fly off the handle suddenly getting aggressive, angry and possibly violent. We did NOT have million dollar a month sports players in those days. Not all that much was known about diet, vitamins, protein foods, etc., let alone the steroids many now use, so the men were generally not as hugely muscular as today's bodybuilders. Their bodies tended to be less fleshy but more lean and defined, particularly compared to modern steroid-consuming types. Some of us hung around Muscle Beach, in Venice, CA (south of Santa Monica beach area), showing off. Typical Southern California sun & fun. Did not matter, much (??), that "my" lifeguard shack was right at that area. What a coincidence ...my lifeguard shack, lots of scantily-clad girls, ...body builders....hanger's-on guys.....
....and I had an after-hours key to the Pacific Ocean Park Amusement Pier ....which I had used when still in high school, after it closed at night ....& I was bulking up too ....
There was a sort-of-hidden subculture of Gay (then called Queer) body builders back then. I had become friendly with a few, and that led to me playing piano now and then (I LOVED the tip jars) at a "queer" bar/club in Santa Monica Canyon, very near the ocean. Several guys became good friends, and I also got introduced to a wider range of the Bohemian lifestyle that was becoming more prominent, and that led into the societal changes of the 60's.
At this point in my Bio, you may be getting the impression that, since an early teenager, I had been associating with various fringe areas of society, and having a lot of fun at it. You'd be correct.
Many years later....in the early 1970's, after moving to Lake Tahoe, I finally got back into the gym scene, this time as a full participant. Gyms were now well-lighted, had no boxing rings, but had interesting machines that would allow exercising separate muscle groups. I worked out fairly seriously for quite some time. As noted, I even entered a 'Mr. Natural' (no steroids) body building contest held at one of Tahoe's casinos.
Until about May 2003 I was an almost daily gym rat. In 2003, my PSA rose rather fast, and I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, early stage, lightly aggressive, needing treatment. I chose surgery to remove my prostate. I was cancer free for 15 years after that.
Since my teen years I had a tendency, per the family doctor ...to eventually get double inguinal hernias ....I did not want to get that condition to worsen, which would require surgery, so I had always avoided maximum heavy lifting; ....but, the hernia surgery happened anyway, in November 2003. I lived half of the time in Palm Springs back then. The hernias surgery followed my May 2003 prostatectomy which greatly weakened the area, caused the two hernias, so I had to get it fixed. The hernia repair surgeon was a long-time Navy Doctor, who I had known from USMC Camp Pendleton, ...then moved to private practice, ....& he did an outstanding job on me. I am now blessed with internal bionic plastic mesh gauze with Gore-Tex backing in two places, & should never have any hernia problems again, no matter how much weight I might want to lift (BUT....my present back problems and weakness from my cancer drugs preclude any heavy lifting). Way back then, the 'doc' said 'better than new'. NOW, I look in the mirror & I see a thinish guy in his eighties, in reasonable shape. The muscles I worked so hard to obtain, are all gone. Legs 'ain't half bad though.
My discs have degenerated. I am 3-1/2 inches shorter than I was in my teens. I have back pain and stiffness problems. It does not help that I have arthritis creeping in, here & there, and in my hands it is affecting my piano playing.
The prostate cancer returned in November 2018. I have had to take nasty drugs ever since, various side-effects have given me a crappy fleshy body, lack of appetite, etc. The drugs began with Lupron and Casodex (for awhile). The Lupron just barely started to fail in mid-2021, and I exchanged Casodex/Lupron for God-Awful Priced Xtandi (retail $12,634.00 per MONTH, but I managed to get this paid-for by insurance and a Grant). I also have heart and blood pressure problems I took drugs for. The mix of the drugs changed every few months as they stop working well. As I type this in 2024, I have a pacemaker that was added in February 2023; due to passing out at home, twice, due to a too-low heart rate (and pressure, I suppose). I am back on Xtandi again. I am nearing the end of my life. Doc says I may live to be 90. Seems about right to me.
The Lupron, to reduce my testosterone, which feeds prostate cancer, was not cheap, typically $1700 every 3 months, and I disliked the mixed side-effects. Luckily, insurance and Medicare paid for the drug. Taking a chance that Lupron did more than just reduce my Testosterone, in 2022 I had my two testicles removed, and the Lupron could then be stopped. Some side effects are still with me, such as hot flashes, inability to gain muscle, etc.....and will stay with me. I'm back on Xtandi as I type this in 2024.
Before the cancer recurrence of Nov. 2018, I had started aging noticeably. The problem with one's body ...& getting older ...is that it takes more & more gym time, & a more & more restrictive diet, to maintain a good-looking and healthy body. Now, the drugs I take and my missing testosterone, all make it impossible to remain trim and muscular. There is a mini gym in the Clubhouse of the 55+ community where I live......and I used the very few machines there until March 2020, when the Covid pandemic had its effects on even being able to use any gym. The gym time & other exercise not only made me look better, but, more importantly, I felt better mentally & physically, & my cholesterol, blood pressure, etc., was a lot better. I was previously a part-time member of two local gyms at Tahoe & I used to be a member of the 24 Hour gym chain for when I traveled. Where I live now, we have that mentioned tiny mini gym...but, it was closed to us residents until the Governor, Sisolak, of Nevada, allowed it to reopen in June of 2021. I presently do not feel good much of the time, so I, less often than would be best for me, do still manage to get exercise by using those few Clubhouse machines, or by walking, riding my bicycle. I had used facilities at the local cardiology building next to our large hospital...etc. I do not get nearly enough exercise, and have vowed to get more, even if feeling lousy. It's been like a New Years Resolution, though.
I received my first Covid vaccination, Moderna brand, in January of 2021. I get another shot every 6 months or so.
How I got into flying is another long story; it will be shortened here. I did not become a pilot until the end of the fifties. My eyesight was OK for flying as a civilian pilot, but restricted to having to wear corrective eyeglasses. Later I flew for the Government in various capacities, unmentionable, with rules that said NO corrective lenses. I memorized all 5 of the eye charts for my military flying tests. I wore military-style dark glasses when on duty ....no one asked if they were Rx ....and they helped me to pass the eye exams. The Agencies never asked for me to be tested. I did have to be very careful in my flying, due to my limited depth perception. I overcame that by training. I really did become quite a good pilot; good enough to get advanced instructor's ratings (....& continued my collecting of civilian licenses & certifications, NONE of which were EVER, upon private advice, disclosed to the military). Early-on I found out that the military dislikes their potential pilots knowing anything about flying. I tackled flying the same way I usually tackled new skills, perfection was always a goal.
Many decades later ...Summer of 2007 ...I found that my left eyesight had deteriorated enough over the years & now was just barely good enough to pass the Civilian FAA Commercial Pilot physical examination ....so I had my left eye's lens removed & an artificial one installed. My vision improved VERY markedly. The same surgery was done soon after on my right eye, also for the same cataracts reason. I still need eyeglasses for close-up work (I had my implanted lenses focused for distance vision). I still wear eyeglasses all the time, having them optimized for most all distances. Eyeglasses keep atmospheric dust & dirt mostly out of my sensitive eyeballs.
I did not handle swimming very well. I eventually managed to do OK in a swimming pool. Surfed some too. Was even a lifeguard at Santa Monica/Venice beaches in those previously mentioned Muscle Beach days, a long story in itself. I did not do great, just adequate, at the diving lessons I took. I took diving courses twice. Once was at a time I did some secret underwater engineering tests (hinted at in my description of work at Hughes & Stoddart), & the other time was for fun after I moved to Lake Tahoe. I am PADI Certified. Water & I just do not mix well, overall anyway. How did THAT go with being a Marine? Damned if I know. My answer ....if
there is one, ...is that one can do anything, if motivated enough ("listen, you asshole ...you wannabee Marine fuckup/screwup ...you either swim or you drown, & I don't give a damn if you are carrying 70# of gear and you weigh 170"...so, JUMP, dammit, NOW! ") .....>>>some got kicked/shoved.....
A mimento....
Below is a photo of what was disparagingly called a Poopette. Read-on, and you will see why POOPette is/was also well-named by me. This is a French-made Mobylette. One version of which was somehow left at Camp Pendleton & was handed-down, Class to Class, for 'someone' to use ...to sneak off base & get to town. I repaired it to reliable condition, & thus it 'became mine'. I returned late one night, ran it into a Honey Pot (don't ask if you don't know!), ...managed to remove and clean it up ....and I recovered after a long shower and a lot of scrubbing. I passed it on to the next guy that felt he could keep it running. Later, the Mobylette name was distorted in the USA to MOPED ...yes, maybe the first ones here. Very slow, reasonably reliable, very good on fuel. It did not have pedals to get the engine going that you could pedal like a bicycle ....those were on a lighter, lesser, models.
Speaking of The Service:
I was just out of boot camp. My fellow fun-loving-practical-joke-playing-closest-buddies had also ‘just graduated’, & I (who was also one of those fun-loving-practical-joke-playing-closest buddy types), headed for San Diego for a long day & evening (and weekend?) of carousing of every sort. I drank too much, something VERY unusual for me .....& might have been slipped something too, not sure. Lots of stuff happened, but simple short version; not much mentioning the tattoo they tried & did not succeed in getting on a certain body part; is that I woke up in what was obviously a motel or hotel room, but there was no bedding, no towels, no soap, NO NOTHING, including no clothes. I was stark-assed-totally naked. I had on only my dog tags. I woke up to a terrrrrrrible hangover. I looked out the door ...yep, hotel-type self-locking, better stay inside for now (I had NO key) ....and....the sun was overly-brilliantly (for my headache) shining in the windows. I looked outside through the windows. Some stories down was a nice and pretty beach. It took me a while to realize that the sun did NOT rise (only set) over beaches in San Diego. I got home by confessing on the room phone to the lobby desk clerk, who arranged for some clothing & a few free phone calls. He got a big tip from me for his help, after I got my parents to wire some money for food, etc, ....then I got on an Air Force plane back to the mainland. It was a bit of fun convincing certain Officers that my story was true. Lots of laughing for awhile...
I got used to the laughing, and finally made-up some of a story, which added to the real story......it got published!
I never could prove who all were behind my 'adventure'; I suspect they all swore secrecy, but I knew who, of course. I never managed to pay them back, so-to-speak. As I updated this short section in July of 2024, two are still alive & I still have contact with them. Just how they pulled it off is still a good question, but I have some ideas. There is just no way I could 'top' what they did to me, so never tried ...much.
I had a lot of fun as a member of the Rifle Team in High School, for which I received my second school letter. My first letter was for Track (the 220) & I was on my way to a third, for wrestling. The letters honestly meant little to me, I was NOT the type that was really 'heavily into sports & school spirit'. I almost never attended school extracurricular activities. I just never had time to do these things ...I was way too busy with academics & work ....& certainly, later, I never attended any school reunions. I was un-involved & had a good dose of nerdy-ness & shyness. That I managed to devote enough time to get the Letters always surprised me. As I have noted, I went to college WHILE in High School; which took an enormous amount of my time ...not to mention that I owned a small electronics sales & service business. BUT, the school letters effect on some peers was quite nice. I would have loved to have had the letters in football or baseball. It was comical when I tried out for the football team in my first year ...light weight, small stature, couldn't focus on balls coming or going due to left eye problems...and, I got knocked-around some.
There are particular reasons I forced myself to do what it took to get the High School letters.
(1) Girls particularly, at least back then, liked guys with letter-jackets.
(2) Advice given to me by a close friend's Colonel father, regarding my certain-to-come military service. Some things just look good in a resumé.
I suppose there was a third reason, probably part of reason (1). I got my hands on a letter jacket similar to one of my own, but it had a badly stained & damaged sleeve/arm. I cut both sleeves off & laboriously made the sleeve holes look very short; this was the first time I ever used various sewing needles & thread. I wore that jacket at two high school events and just hanging around, and also when at UCLA, ....my way-over-developed-biceps always bulging nicely. It helped a bit with my girl problems ....particularly with the 'more-desirable' buxom ones (you can look up that word).
I particularly liked the High School rifle team, as we had days at OTHER schools, for 'contests' (called "Meets"). I managed to attend, and leave early, to study (yep, really was a nerd). I think that I was the only person who joined the rifle team that was not a member of the ROTC. The only reason they allowed me in was likely that I was already tied to some REAL military friends ....&; ...in particular; ...I was an excellent shot with a rifle. I did not like most of those ROTC guys one little bit, something about the type of personality that most had. I felt it was perfectly OK that they become cannon fodder. They returned the feeling, or worse. I used a custom-made rifle for those Meets, & earned a few medals. The guys on our team may not have liked me, but they WANTED me on the team (during Team Events ONLY...well, maybe I imagined that). For me, I simply wanted the use of the underground Shooting Range; & the privileges of being on the Traveling Team. Our instructor/leader/coach/ found me at my high school's underground Shooting Range one day, plinking-away with my .45 Colt M1911. That created a bit of a problem ...hand guns were not allowed. We compromised, by closing the range to only us two, and our various pistols, revolvers, etc. He made a pass at me. .....I was getting far more educated.
I generally hung out with a slightly older crowd ...typically 3 years older. We all had to sign up for Selective Service when 18. Some of my friends were being drafted into the Army at 21-1/2. I did not like the 'ARMY' idea. I had advice, from a close friend's father, a full colonel in the USMC ....that stood me well for my 'career's'. For once in my entire life I followed advice (HIS) rather precisely. I fell right into military training after I joined the Service ...with no problems. Well, not exactly. Marines' training was not so nice, nor proper, nor genteel in the late 1950's & early 1960's. My parents hadn't the foggiest idea where & what I was doing ...or even being at Camp Pendleton ...they thought I was staying at my friend's house, perhaps chasing after his sister (BTDT). We slangly called the base Marguerita-ville (Santa Marguerita river goes through there...and...strangely enough, I liked the drink, too, although it is spelled a bit differently).
.... backtracking again:
As an early teenager, I played piano some evenings at The Lighthouse ...a jazz joint in Hermosa Beach ....Howard Rumsey's was the house band. I also played at a couple of coffee houses, Café Paisano (as I remembered the name in my old age here, but must really have been POSITANO), & sat in now & then at Shelly's Mannhole, owned by Shelly Mann. I was comfortable in coffee houses, even those filled with cheap Mexican smoke, which cost about $12 a kilogram at the Mexican side of the border. It came in honest to gosh pressed-kilo-bricks. It was NOT the high powered pot of today. I did my share for a a while ...but found it GREATLY interfered with my studies & hobbies so I quit. Considerably later, I once, purposely, went up in a small airplane, with a check pilot along, to find out what the effects would be from just two puffs of that low-quality Mexican pot. That cured me of ever again thinking about smoking weed & flying. I have not smoked pot since. If my cancer gets too bad, I may have to try it again.
I was not just 'the kid' at those jazz places. I was also playing piano at an infamous 'queer' bar ('queers' are now called 'gays') in Santa Monica Canyon, near where it joins the Pacific Coast Highway. I developed some gay friendships back then, later had some strong gay friendships that endure to this day ...both male & female. I am comfortable at their social events. Decades later I was, for several years, the Chairman for the Ryan White Consortium at Tahoe, for both ElDorado & Alpine Counties. I've been a care-giver for those with full-blown AIDS & end-stage cancer. I just don't have major uneasiness in certain 'strange' social situations ...sexual, racial, political, religious ...that many folks seem to have.
I learned how to get what I wanted in life. I can be gentle and quiet, introspective and contemplative, learned, philosophical, etc. I can also be awful. I do try to be helpful most of the time. It is easier, it is nicer, and it is appreciated.
I tend to LIKE off-beat & unusual situations; and, sometimes, I exhibit a very perverse sense of humor; a way of dealing with those things & dealing with the folks that have prejudiced ...let's say, IMO, UN-informed ...ideas. I've lost a friend or two, or potential friend, due to being outspoken. But, I am mellower these days.
When still a teenager, I learned a whole bunch about what is now called "alternative" life-styles. I became relatively comfortable around every sort of Bohemian. The earliest period I remember was when supposedly folks like Jack Keroac & Ezra Pound (or imposters) were "occasionally around" Venice Beach. Venice was a place I knew well ....it was the Beat Generation. With my piano-playing & interest in the serious side of jazz, I integrated these people & events into my life (and vice versa). I hung out a bit with an artist, no other word for him, who made leather luggage that was rather exotic, & quickly learned his trade. I had fairly close friendships with some folks in the publishing business, as well as with some fairly well-known off-beat (pun intended) types...and even some cartoonists. I had some writing talent, which I occasionally misused & sometimes I got things published, this being before I became an engineer who got technical articles published. I had a zero regarding cartooning. I generally regard myself as not having much of an artistic side (my wife disagrees). If I do, I cannot find it easily (except that I CAN be very artistic in my cooking). What I mean is that I THINK I am not good at creating original art. Penny thinks that it is because I do not try. She may be right. I am very good at seeing the artistry of Mother Nature, in our Great Outdoors. When I lived at Tahoe, Nature was all around me, and yet I did notice, but not always audibly to others. Here at Carson City, where I now live, it is high desert, which has its own, but different, beauty. Being in very close proximity to two mountain ranges (3 miles or so apart), my valley is very interesting, and has spectacularly changing cloud formations, and interesting weather patterns, much of it is spill-over from Lake Tahoe.
I admit to having some talent for placing wit & satire onto paper (remember paper?), sometimes in a cynically and/or curmudgeonly way. I have become somewhat even more cynical; or at the least I have taken a somewhat comical view of life in general as time passed. I suspect this began with my early wide-ranging experiences.
I really have done a lot in my lifetime. I even managed to live in a couple of commune's ...... Victor Barranco's "Morehouses". I taught weekend courses there, on such as "Money, Jealousy, Possessions"; AND....." Basic Sexuality". I KNEW some of the Kinsey's crew; & studied with them. .......(I had to live SOMEPLACE!) :-)
I decided to explain about the previously barely mentioned Lifeguarding:
I managed to became a part time temporary lifeguard at the beach when in High School. Real babe-magnets we lifeguards. I had 2 homemade surfboards, which I transported to the beach in my somewhat rare Mercury 'wood-sided' station wagon, which we called "A Woody". Seldom were the board(s) in the car anyway during the sunny days I was at the beach for ANY reason; ...no, they were leaning up against 'my' lifeguard shack, the one on tall stilts, located between the 'City' of Santa Monica, & the 'City' of Venice, California. I think neither City knew where their border was. I had applied to both for the lifeguard job, and got meager but adequate paychecks from both. The shack was right next to Muscle Beach. My long hair started out getting longer & longer over several years. Long hair was 'out', short hair was 'in', as far as school was concerned. Make what you will, of THAT. My brown hair was bleached and eventually long enough that went down my back QUITE a bit. I had built my two surfboards (one of Balsa), including a motorized (mini-jet) one. I designed & machined the jet on a lathe & mill, at my old JUNIOR high school, they had such machines in their Shop Class & the shop instructor remembered me from being in his classes & allowed me access. I would occasionally help that shop teacher in return, even though, at that time, I had no teaching certificates. That lathe was a 12" LeBlond Regal, made in 1937 or 1938. That model and year LeBlond was the lathe I learned on when I had actually attended that school, and I used it occasionally when I was in High School. Lots of years later, I purchased a same model of lathe ...mine was made in April, 1937. Below is a photo of mine. With the upcoming house move in late 2019, I sold it to a friend. I MISS IT, A LOT.
Years later, my friend Dave Furst, who also built strange mechanical contraptions things with me ...and I ...got into Vincent motorcycles in a BIG way; & I personally then expanded all over the Vincent world; Dave was responsible for a fair amount of the work on the NORVIN (Norton Frame, Vincent Engine) that I used in August of 1971 to set a Class World Record, at the Bonneville Salt Flats. At that time I was already the Chief Engineer of Linear Corporation. By Summer of 1972, I suddenly realized that I had reached THE prominent goal in my life, Chief Engineer, and, was a Bonneville Record Holder. It was time to completely change my life. I planned-well, it took time, but I moved to Lake Tahoe. I was approximately 35 years old. I was still multiple-employed when I moved. That lasted for a LONG time.
Earlier, into my twenties, I was into BMW sidecar racing & all sorts of engines work for others; & trying to get sponsored for racing my Alfa (that never worked out). René Pellandini finally HIRED me to drive his Morgan Dealership race-car. For my own cars, I got some sponsorship from Ed Iskendarian, Joe Hunt, Vic Edelbrock, and a few others. I KNEW these folks personally. Those names from the past included Donny Vesco, Phil Hill, Skip Van Leuwen, Al Mark, Art Gerrick, Dick Mann, Doug Bingham....etc. ....All were some of the people I knew, some of them very well. The guys I knew back then are dead, all of them. I think. I am not .....YET. Once in awhile I rode bikes with some of the movie names of the time, some of who lived in Cheviot Hills & Bel Air. Most, if not all of those folks, are also dead. I have noticed that if I know people long enough, they die. I am not taking any extraordinary credit for that, but feel I should warn you.
My cousin Jon, & maybe another cousin or two, looked up to me .....the black sheep of the family ....but I never saw that, nor understood why, at that time. My own brother & I got along like estranged acquaintances. My parents would tell me years later how much he looked up to me. I never saw nor felt that ...as well as a lot of other things I probably was oblivious to. I was FAR too busy very selfishly being ME.
I suspect that my outdoors activities, gym time, outlook on life, & often good eating habits (especially in mid & later life), contributed to why I was ...supposedly ....in good condition for my age up at least to my late sixties, & I always ...and constantly ...re-intended to stay sort-of that way. It is akin to making New Year's Resolutions many times during a year. GOD (so fickle at times; black women are like that, EH?) grants us only so much time. In truth, I have no real depth of belief in a God, a being, or non-being. I probably am closer to a Taoist, a Buddhist; which is a way of life, NOT a 'religion' (no formal deity as in others) ...but even those labels do not fit. I do not practice, nor believe-in, any sort of ORGANIZED ...or UNorganized ...religion. So....what happens to my body when I die? I have signed the papers to have it picked-up by a nearby mortuary, and they will deliver it to the University of Northern Nevada, for their medical classes, to cut apart.
The last few years before I moved to Lake Tahoe in 1972 (yes, the very year following my Bonneville Salt Flats racing) were filled with my involvement working as Chief Engineer for Linear Corporation, working for a Government Agency occasionally, and spending most every spare moment being involved with everything motorcycle. Earl Flanders became a sponsor & kept that status, including being my official timer for the A.M.A.... into 1971+ when I raced at the Bonneville Salt Flats, setting the records I previously mentioned ....the main one of which lasted 6 years until a FACTORY Harley team broke it. Flanders had become a West Coast BMW and BMW motorcycle parts supplier. The Flanders Company still exists. Butler & Smith 'WAS' BMW in Eastern USA. Here are some photos I scanned from motorcycle magazines.
From here, I am going to backtrack quite a few years, at least for awhile, in this long saga. I've been too lazy to fix this longish section, so it still jumps-around, date-wise.
I also raced two Manx Nortons (I had a rare 350, & also a 500).
I got into dirt biking & had a pair of 400 Husqvarna's ....those were state of the art then. Today they would be curiosity items, being overweight, & with lousy suspensions by TODAY's standards.
I tried to get my hands on the BMW R69S that Penton rode across the U.S. in a bit over 2 days, that must have been around 1960. I thought the BMW R69S was THE bike to ride. This was REALLY strange, since "everyone knew" that BMW's were NOT the 'cool wheels' of that time.
In 1956 I purchased a brand-new Triumph TR6. I was 19. My first NEW bike. I purchased mine after seeing what my friend Ed Nelsen's would do. He never became a real rider. I did, & began putting on tens of thousands of miles, then hundreds of thousands. I have vastly more miles on bikes than in cars.
I dabbled in Ham Radio for a considerable period of time. W6LMN. My exploits in Ham radio would make for an article of its own. I had a Ham Radio station at my home & later on one of my BMW bikes, two tall antennas, dynamotors for power, car battery.
I became a fair wrench on bikes & cars/trucks rather early-on. I had always had a knack for fixing mechanical and electrical things, .....having spent a lot of my pre-teens & teens years 'analyzing what it took to break things.'
It was not long before I started getting more & more involved with BMW motorcycles. I sold the BMW pre-Airheads, and got into Airheads in a big way. I owned a succession of BMW Airheads, putting some big mileage's on them. I initially owned the /2 bikes and the Airhead BMW bikes for these primary reasons:
Extremely reliable compared to others; easy to maintain, were 'different'; were very comfortable on long trips; were QUIET; parts did not vibrate off & deposit themselves alongside the road. Later, I loved them so much that I could not give them up; and, as a roving tech guy for BMW, it was THE bike to ride. I was also collecting rare bikes mostly from the thirties, none were BMW's.
Early-on, I initially worked part-time at a BMW dealership. Old gray-haired (or no hair) guys reading this may remember me from Winklemann's BMW and at other dealerships, mostly in Southern California, although I did help some more northern dealerships. Although I was part-time due to my still being in school, I eventually became the chief technician, and then head-of-the-shop at Winklemann's. Not long after, I was doing part time advisory things for other dealerships (often being 'paid under the counter' by someone who was in deeeep trouble). In various capacities I was especially seen around Browns BMW & Marty's BMW. I never arranged it so that I could attend Butler & Smiths (or, later, BMW's own) schools, so I never met Tom Cutter, at BMW tech training schools. It was in this era that I first met & became friends with OAK (Orlando Okleshen). It was decades later that I met Tom Cutter at the Spokane BMW National Rally in 2004, when we were all teaching Seminars. I know maybe a couple of dozen really good BMW mechanics. That group includes Tom Cutter, Ted Porter, Bob Clement, Matt Parkhouse. I have met Anton Largiader, but have not worked with him; ....have not met Bud Provin yet. I think, from reputation and writings, that they are all top quality Wrench's. There are others I know only by reputation.
Over my lifetime I have found myself in need of certain skills and knowledge. Gaining such can, by normal or usual methods, take a long time, with much effort. There was insufficient time in my lifetime to do learn as many things as I wished...by formal lengthy and often wasteful-of-time "schooling to the slowest brain ...in industry or... in class". My answer to this problem was to apprentice myself for a day to a week, to whomever had the information and/or skills ....and, especially, a history ...so as to know hints, shortcuts, inside knowledge, etc., that I wanted. My method of learning was VASTLY faster than going to some sort of trades' school classes (although I certainly did that for some things). I would do almost anything, including the most menial of jobs, in order to gain access to those who had the information or skills I wanted. The apprenticing idea continued for decades, as I was never too proud to do so. I learned much, VERY FAST. YMMV!
From an early age, right up to the present, I have been a voracious reader ....and was reading classic literature and also reading much of the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, page by page, all by the 9th grade; not much later I was reading vast quantities of technical books. Foreign languages I struggled with, never did become fluent in any. I used to practice my High School Spanish when I would travel to Baja or Mexico. Today, any Spanish is a few words now & then. I may take some actual Spanish courses and culture programs in the future & also study my old materials, if I live long enough. I wouldn't mind learning a bit of Japanese. I seldom read novels, mostly read the so-called Classics (yes, a few were novels). I did like Science Fiction. Nowadays I read a lot on the Internet, where News and even foreign TV programs are available. Sometimes news is blocked, so I use a round-a-bout way of seeing things, defeating censorship. Mostly this consists of watching foreign TV. I read technical magazines ....and local newspapers. I always kept up with local, regional, & national politics. Now and then I re-read another Classic or add one I had not read before. I wrote some SF articles/stories. Some got published. At least one may be on this website ...might be more in the near future. I may have removed them, too lazy to go look.
Most of my twenty-ish friends were budding Democrats or Socialists. Always wanting to side with the weird, I registered as a Republican, & mostly kept that, although I have been an Independent & a Democrat & am back to Independent again. My voting usually has little to do with Party & labels. I still think politics, as life, is laughable...AND much is deplorable. I have always voted since legally able-to. On local issues, my tendencies are to vote conservatively on fiscal matters, & liberally on social matters. I think the far Right, & the far Left, BOTH generally worth their ridicule. I am probably somewhat of a Libertarian.
I grew up generally having an intense curiosity about everything. The 1960's was a time for every type of weird 'Left-Bank' type person. L.A. was into self-actualization 'fix me' (& folks who fixed those folks problems, for $ or?). I joined a commune (was in three overall, eventually, for short periods) & lived & taught Courses in "money, jealousy, sex", & other courses on controlling folks, to a succession of rubes, who needed to part with their money in order to be able to 'hear the truth' about anything. "Truth" to ME was, and still is, jazz terminology.
A boyhood friend & I, were friends of Ed Kolpin & helped his business by purchasing tobacco & briar smoking pipes. We liked good tobacco. Never hardly ever inhaled the stuff, but liked the taste/smell. We helped Ed run Tinder Box #1 & then we helped Ed open Tinder Box #2, which turned into a chain that his sons took over years later. I attained a life-long appreciation of good tobacco & good cigars. Up until early 2019 I would still have a rare pipe or cigar. I don't smoke hardly at all anymore, and my humidor and premium cigars was sold awhile back. BTW, I never ever smoked inside the house. I am only too well aware that no one, including ME, likes to be near a smoker who reeks of stale tobacco. I won't let anyone, including myself, smoke inside my house. When I purchased my Tahoe house the prior owners were VERY heavy cigarette smokers. They smoked in the living room, which has a massive beam-supported ceiling and the ceiling is all wood. Using a Coolee-hat, I spent 6 months +-, cleaning every square inch of that ceiling with rags, hot water, detergent, & brushes, inch by inch. Where did I ever get such energy?
I took piano lessons before & during my teens, pumped iron at the gym I've mentioned from long ago, & continued to do some wrestling, gave up any thoughts of boxing & quit wrestling. For a long time, I played 'kid' with budding musclemen boxers at that old, sweaty, smelly, dirty, original, Vic Tanny's basement Gym in Santa Monica & also the Westwood gym near UCLA. I hated it when those gyms closed. Vic himself gave me a life membership. My Official Membership was D23. 1957. I can't find the one that Vic gave me, about two weeks before his Manager gave me the one shown here.
I hated the closings for two reasons, the first because of the inconvenience of traveling to the new foo-foo gym I now had to attend (foo foos came into being just prior to Vic's places closing). Secondly, I now had to spend MY money for my gym time, or whatever the place was, & most of the guys, who had long been friends at Vic's basement boxing gyms, did not go to modern gyms, nor BSA nor YMCA places. UCLA had a fledgling gym though. I remained friends with a few of the guys for many decades.
In 1998-1999 I worked-out very hard for quite some time; & restricted my diet. The idea was to enter the Mr. Natural (no steroids, etc.) body building contest that was coming to Lake Tahoe. Haven't done anything so restrictive since that contest. I wish, however, that I'd had gotten some photos of myself on stage! ..although the Tahoe Daily (daily, then) Tribune published one. I should have gotten a copy and put it in this article. ah, well, I do have SOME class :-)
In a way, I miss the guys & those old gyms ...but, in truth, today's gyms are FAR better, in most every way, except, maybe, the friendships. Gym's now have carpets ...& showers that are clean & actually work (usually). That was primarily done to grab the businessmen & WOMEN. These gyms are often considerably filled with older graying folks trying to maintain ...or attain ...some sort of shape ....or other. Some of the girls (& young men) look very good; they SEEM ...to me ....to be GETTING VASTLY YOUNGER. Maybe it is more that I am getting vastly OLDER! I spent time every visit, seeing if any trend with the gals has begun or continued ....one should keep up with trends, trying as that may be! At one time two well-known local plastic surgeons frequented my gym regularly ....I made a point of seeing which women seemed, somehow, to know them, & if their appearance changed during that 'knowing-time'. Especially certain prominent forward parts of their appearance.
Watching others of all types in the gym sometimes gave me a bit of a push towards watching my own diet & exercise program. I have not yet reached the point of giving up to total sloth. But.... in 2017, looking into a mirror, naked, it was hard for me to identify my body, with the body I inhabited so long ago. Since starting Lupron in November 2018, things were considerably worse...and have not gotten better with the medicines and other changes since then.
OK ...time to backtrack to a very important time for me ....in my later teen years...and, onwards for a bit:
There was one particular person who meant a lot to me (besides Art Gerrick, my auto mechanics guy and instructor/teacher/coach, and my business and life information person...my father's brother). This very important person was the father of 'Bucky', a close buddy of mine. Bucky's father was a Marine Colonel. He was direct, honest, a stand-up kind of guy. I looked up to him. A lot. I thought his manly qualities were to be emulated. He knew instinctively, or more likely from lots of practice and experiences, about mistakes, life, whatever. He knew exactly when to be soft & vulnerable; when to be hard as nails; when to be 'understanding'; when to reveal if he was smart or not; & he was a very loving husband & father. He knew what it meant to be a man, & he knew when vulnerability, softness & loving kindness was appropriate. He was also a true gentleman. Perhaps in some other life I will be able to come close to what he was, but I very much doubt it. BTW: I particularly liked the movie "An Officer and a Gentleman", & sometimes imagined myself in the leading role.
My friend's father, The Colonel, had a BIG influence on me; and I tended to follow his advice, which I sometimes even asked-for. It was he, who encouraged me to join the Marines, and it was he who advised me afterwards, for many years.
The Vietnam war/situation was a very unpleasant time. End Vietnam commentary.
I always hoped to find the right woman for me that I would love greatly, & with whom I could play the lead role in that mentioned movie, in real life. Hopeless Romantic in some ways (which may surprise you!). However much as I have failed to meet my own standards, at times, I have won mightily in some areas of life ....Penny has been a big BIG part of my life. Suffice to say I love her deeply.
I studied a lot on my own at various times; this continued throughout my life. In particular one of those times was during the late 1980's to about 1991 (I had a new fresh 'government' situation, in which I had a LOT of free time). It was not necessarily a pleasant time. I studied law for awhile, for curiosity & a modicum of knowledge. I also studied, intensely ...world religions. I found them fascinating. Well, I found the HISTORY fascinating. The book-learning did NOT make me religious. I learned WAY too much about the Greeks & Egyptians ....Horus, Osiris, etc. Makes for problems with Christian's relationships sometimes, ....with those who ARE BELIEVERS ....and who refuse to recognize that many of their beliefs in 'historical' happenings, actually came from hundreds & even thousands of years earlier. I have learned that it is best to keep my mouth shut. Especially with those believing in the Trinity.
WAY backtracking: My parents originally wanted me to be a Doctor. A year of medical school at UCLA was a mini-disaster, as I wanted to be an engineer. My parents said they would settle for my being a concert pianist headliner. I wanted to be an engineer. They offered to pay for advanced piano lessons, as they had helped pay for medical school. I said I wanted to be an engineer. Things got more intense, tending to culminate when I did the second of two piano playing adventures; the first was in 1952 I think. The last one was another public piano recital at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium ...in June 1955 I think it was. The program was 100% classical music and featured three pianists, of which I was the 'final course and "Wanna-Be" Star'. Amidst clapping, and at the request of my front row seated Teacher, I did an encore ....of a personal jazz composition (yes, I composed it) that was something like 'Turned-On Bach, a-la Dave Brubeck'. My piano teacher, very traditional & strict and having no idea of what I was going to play, went nuts; never saw me, nor spoke to me, ever again.
I should explain a bit about me and my parents 'desires'. To try to appease (?) my parents at the end of my 'paid-for' year of medical school, I told them I would be OK for basic living expenses & paid education & piano instruction at Julliard. With the enormous cost of that in their minds, we compromised (??) by me more fully using my previously granted status of "Emancipated Juvenile", in Kalifornica, thanks to Leo Freund, a judge (in 1952, I think it was). I became an electrical engineering student at UCLA. I moved out of my parents home (more than once), in my teens.
I had been a fairly rebellious kid ...that was NOT common in those days; at least not in lower middle-class family circles. By the time I was in high school I was enjoying quite a split personality ...one part was getting into every type of kids' troubles, the other part was the oh-so-serious student of everything ...and I mean EVERYthing. I would jump into something, try to master it ...at least to the PRACTICAL usage point, then try something new. Great substitute for not catching balls. Never a dull moment.
The final split came about after my dad, who almost never opened his garage, found 7 motorcycles inside. To make matters more intense, 'the finding' was at about the same time he found out something else. His eldest son, that's me, had violated his personal space ....I used his and Mom's bed with a girlfriend of mine; this was while they were on a well-deserved 'vacation' (most likely to be away FROM ME). My dad HATED motorcycles. He was also afraid of flying. Funny ...everything my father hated, disliked, or was somehow against ....well, nearly ....I managed to enjoy ...hmmm. Maybe some day I will ponder upon that more. Likely not.
I did become an engineer. Electrical & Electronics Engineer. I was admitted to Membership in the Institute of Radio Engineers in 1961 ...it was the IRE then, & later called the IEEE. The Agency (I eventually worked for two), via the military, offered to pay for an advanced degree, MSEE. I accepted (Thank you, Colonel Turner, R.I.P., for advising me for so many years!). Later came some very specialized 'education' at a government institution located on the East side of the USA. But, these folks also wanted me to keep hidden who I was, and so on ...and ON. My own family & friends knew zilch about all this. I was Mr. X at college. I once tried to get a copy of my own records. What a hassle! ...had to go through two departments of the government!
Over these many years I went to a lot of short term 'schools'; even took extra courses at City Colleges, even two at Trade Tech; numerous seminars & such. All this time I still had that electronics repair business of mine (since a teenager, & still have it), my mechanical interests, & wanted to keep up with things. Can you say 'burning the candles at both ends'? How about a box of candles all burning at every end of each one?
The particular Agency I ended up being associated with for the most time, was very interested in someone with a really big & varied background in many things. So, I became not only an engineer & a Military & Commercial Pilot; but, an Agency troubleshooter specialist ....of sorts. We won't get into what types of troubleshooting and what 'troubleshooting' can mean. Some of my fellow Agency types said, somewhat paraphrasing here, that I was not a trouble-shooter, but a shooter looking for trouble; or? No, I have NO intention of saying anything more about Agency work, or my time with USMC. Do you know Latin? Non Timebo Mala.
My electronics repair business had originally started as an early teen, in my parents garage. Later, I had I continued the brick and mortar located electronics business I purchased and expanded, and still have that business, although much shrunken, and not located on the highway in many years. I had that business even when in the Service, even when working as an engineer for others. Today that business is down to quite part-time & is located, again, as it started, in my garage. It was a Warranty Repair Station for a few major brands, mostly musician's electronics, until late 2019....I don't want to do warranty work ever again. I've always used the business income to pay for utilities, some frills, & occasionally some thrills. I have not advertised the business in many years, although I made a website and pass out the rare business card; and have a presence on YELP and GOOGLE, etc. I have pretty much let the business slow down ...preferring my remaining hobbies & time with Penny. I had the business up for sale for $10000 to $18,000 but have not done any serious advertising. I reopened the biz, now located in Carson City, early in 2020. It is and remains, part time.
Way back when, I obtained HAM licenses, Radiotelephone licenses & endorsements, all sorts of licensing & certifications. I even got Coast Guard type training. I had Competitor's licenses. I could cover walls with these pieces of paper. Some I treasure, some I don't much care about. Some I can't even display nor discuss.
I managed to get a few patents, worthy for talk, not money. I wrote & was published for electronics things, as well as some forms of instrumentation ...heck, even some things on motorcycles. I treasure the off-beat articles I managed to get into some strange publications .....Chick Young illustrated with his cartoons one of my off-the-wall articles. I wrote... under pen-names for some magazines. I wrote for several BMW publications, and you are reading this on my website, which is well-known.
I've mentioned, early in this long piece, about my getting civilian flying certificates ...here is some background on that:
Somewhat before the 'Bay of Pigs' time, a friend who taught helicopter flying at Ft. Wolters, took me up in his T-28. It took me bare seconds to get hooked. Horsepower and aerobatics! Airplanes!! I started flight lessons immediately (NEXT DAY!!) at Santa Monica Airport. BUT;....it soon became apparent that this time it was NOT going to be any short-term study nor apprenticeship. I dove into the learning process with both hands & feet (sometimes my head followed those). I ended up with a whole bunch of flying certifications, such as Commercial Pilot, Multi-engine, Instruments, Instructor, Seaplane ....etc. I actually went all the way & became a truly quite good & competent pilot. I was a Member of the original Baja Bush Pilots International, & have owned a few airplanes over the years. In the Service, & for an Agency, I flew some interesting aircraft & situations. These day I don't want the responsibilities and costs to own a plane. I no longer have flight privileges with the military. I am sure they are happy about that. I am not. I had some fun with the Blue Angels one weekend, ....another fine story to tell some time; photo on this website in one of my Photo Gallery's.
In my travels, most always by motorcycle, I often used to visit small out of the way airports before I got married to Penny. I would beg a flight or rent an airplane. It is a LOT of fun to play 'wistful' at a small country airport, tongue hanging over the fence.... while touring on one of my bikes; maybe getting a free airplane ride. My military flying is mostly unmentionable.
Now & then I used-to 'rent myself out' as a pilot ....or, Second in Command.
I bought a brand-new 1968 VW Squareback ...it had the first electronic fuel injection that was available on any popular vehicle. I found interesting ways of defeating or modifying things in its system computer box. I found the electronics interesting, but not overwhelming. I used my knowledge of its F.I. to add such to a R75/5, with a hidden supercharger. There is a description about that heavily modified R75/5 on this website, here is a direct full link: https://bmwmotorcycletech.info/sleeperr75.htm
I had owned & tinkered with a long list of interesting vehicles by the time I moved to Lake Tahoe. While at Tahoe, in the early 1980's, I purchased a beat up 1968 Dodge Power Wagon. I restored it, with extensive modifications, such as a gas guzzling hopped-up 440 engine. I sold it .....too much constant tinkering with it; and, it was time to get more reliability & a conventional vehicle (a Miata sports car!!). When I started on that Dodge project, always being the practical person (?), I bought into a gas station. That is, I loaned the owner a lot of money, for which he paid me monthly interest at a high rate ...when I could catch him. He ran a Ponzi scheme, then killed himself, I think he was murdered actually. I lost the principal amount of the money. So much for my excellent good business sense & for any hope of early retirement. That owner also had a used car business .....he paid me to handle the registration & other paperwork. I got good enough at that; there are plenty of complications, particularly with not-allowed-to-be-imported sports cars; .....& familiar enough with all the folks at the DMV office; ......that I got a reputation ...& started doing that same sort of paperwork, for a price, for other dealerships. I quit that, long ago.
I had several logbooks full of flight hours (flying most mornings before work for some years will do that) ...& my dad had died (he of motorcycles-hate and flying-hate) .... before my mother felt it was OK to go flying with me. I still cherish that flight with her. At Tahoe. Over the Sierras. She had a grin from one ear to the other, until she fell asleep from the altitude she was not used to. She was in her seventies. My brother was along. He was white as a sheet. Maybe he wasn't. I offered to take him up in the Pitts aerobatic plane after we landed (we were in my Cessna 182). He wisely declined. I hated cleaning-up vomit anyway; and I surely would have done aerobatics, just because I can be perverse; and, he was my brother.
When I was very young, just a few years old (maybe up to 4 or 5? I don't remember), I lived over a bakery. The bakery, which specialized in premium pastries for the best restaurants & hotels, was owned & operated by my grandparents on my father's side. At that young age, I learned some things about premium pastries. I also learned about EATING them! I actually became a fairly good cook/chef later on in life. Back in those early years I learned about fresh baked goods, minutes old, every morning with breakfast. Strange then, that my father would go to work for a baking company ...that made, generally, products of only fair to good quality for the masses. My father was some sort of executive at the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco now)...& gave me, when I was perhaps not yet a teenager, inadvertently, quite unknown to him, an education on money, power, & corporate policy-making. He also brought home "samplers" that Nabisco made for its executives. These premium items were not available in stores. They were not like my grandparents pastries from my early years, but very acceptable to kids ...including my friends. The 'education' mentioned here was not the more intensive and useful one I got from my father's brother, later, when I worked for him, afternoons, my first years of High School.
I grew up living in West Los Angeles. I still remember 'the red cars' ...the passenger train ...a high speed trolley ...that traveled at a goodly speed, from the 'station' nearest our home ...Exposition Blvd at Sepulveda Blvd, south of Pico Blvd ...to 'Downtown'. In the mornings Dad would walk two blocks to get on it ...& it sped to near 7th & Mateo, downtown L.A ....where he worked at the National Biscuit Company. It was just about the last train-type transportation in that area ...the tracks being torn up elsewhere's, except for freight tracks. Rumors had it that Texaco & Standard Oil (Chevron now) were the culprits. Later on, in a fit of pique over some nothingness (I think), my father quit Nabisco, weeks short of a 20 year retirement, & opened an upholstery shop in Venice, with a distant cousin. What I remember most about distant cousin Sol were TWO things. FIRST, he had spent a lifetime cutting upholstery materials ....& in shaking hands with him, his hands were so muscular that he could crush your bones. Second, I had my own crush problem ....a simply terrible crush on his daughter, Miriam. THAT did not work out, although we did go out some. Eventually my father went to work as General Manager at the Lindy Pen Co. Ballpoint pens were then a big time super-popular novelty. Lindy was #2 in Ball Point Pens. Lindy's brother (Lindenbaum was the actual family name) owned a jewelry store. I learned something about jewelry. I also learned about Swiss machinery used in making ball-point pens. I learned that no matter how tiny it was, the Swiss could figure out a way to make it smaller, more precise, better.
I mentioned earlier that over many years, after my Junior High School shop days, l apprenticed myself for very short periods with a fair number of folks that did things like machining, welding, metal working, generally various types of repairing. I had a fascination with the old-world idea of apprenticeship, but I was in a terrific hurry. I certainly did NOT want to spend YEARS studying JUST ONE trade. I wanted immediate, fast BASIC knowledge; in many trades. I never got into woodworking though ....I sure wish I had! I LOVE what is called wood-turning. Some of these apprenticeships were not only quickie, but quirky. I found ways of getting those short apprenticeships & sometimes getting paid a little bit. During this time I had various competition licenses approvals, which I exercised. I LOVED motorcycle racing of every type. I liked weekend hill climbs on Lankershim, the track in Gardena, road racing at Riverside, Pomona, Willow Springs, etc. I also developed a real liking for cross country riding, such as the Baja races, & the Barstow-Baker-Vegas (we had OTHER names for THAT). I purchased a new BMW 600, the cheaply priced & larger version of the BMW Isetta teeny-car. Cheaper than a VW bug. Front opening door. Going to work one day, someone ran a stop sign, totaled the car, broke two of my ribs. Car got repaired, insurance company insisted. Traded car for BMW R75/5 motorcycle with 560 miles on it! ....AND he gave me some cash too! ...outrageous deal! I REALLY got into BMW bikes after that. A photo & description of the BMW 600 is here: https://bmwmotorcycletech.info/photogallery.htm
I always had a car from an early age, sometimes a sports car. I found that girls LIKED guys, ....or at least liked to be SEEN with them, ....even those with dirty, greasy hands & fingernails, ....who had a sports car, top down. To have a SPORTS CAR was, well, obviously you had rich parents. I did NOT have rich parents. I did not need rich parents. I could purchase a new sports car with the profits from my sales of RCA color TV's and Muntz TV's. etc. I loved owning a convertible sports car, having the top down ...& resting my left bicep on the top of the door, in such a fashion that my already oversized biceps looked even more huge. I had a perverse sense of humor, & would watch girls eyes, and guys eyes, as they looked, and tried not to show they looked. I did not weigh much, but I had massive arms. ME BAD! Those muscles have sure faded now.
I purchased a brand-new Jeep using my 'wages' at the after-school warehouse job (around $1.20 an hour!) This was when I was an early Emancipated Juvenile. I financed the balance after my down payment, to gain a credit rating ...lots of fun with the bank, me being WAY underage. Later I purchased a well-used 49 Ford Business Coupe. I built the flathead V-8 engine to the max., getting nearly 300 hp out of its supercharged engine. The car went nicely after being grossly stripped to reduce weight. I took hundreds of pounds of weight out of that already light car. Navarro custom-made me the heads, Joe Hunt gave me the magneto, & some other names of the day, Ed Iskendarian, Vic Edelbrock, ETC.... gave me some other race parts. Yep, GAVE me. It was fun to drive ...but there was no seat for a passenger. The only seat was an 18 pound magnesium seat from, if I remember correctly, an F86. I got tired of that car, sold it, built up a 52 MG-TD with that same engine & had lots more fun. Having 300 hp in a light weight MG was REALLY exciting. I well remember the effects my Morgan, MG, Triumph, or my Porsche 550RS1500 (yes, the same as the James Dean car) had on some of my 'friends'. Photos of that Porsche, some with me and my first wife, Johnny (Jonnie) (Mary Ellen) in it ....are in my photo galleries on this site. Years later, much better read and wiser (?), I understood more about friends, and about MYSELF for having those THINGS. There are photos of SOME of my various vehicles, even some motorcycles, in my various photo gallery articles on this website. For access, go to the homepage, and scan way down for the box with the links to the 7 photo galleries. Homepage: https://bmwmotorcycletech.info Once looking at the first gallery, at the bottom of each page, you can click a place for the next one inline.
My Alfa Sprint Specialé, only a few were ever made, was a particular favorite ....a real Ferrari-look, & performed well. My wife & I looked terrific in that car. We looked even better, to certain Motor-Heads, in the 550RS1500. Photos of those cars are in the photo galleries on this website. Start with Photo Gallery #1: https://bmwmotorcycletech.info/photogallery.htm
As I mentioned......You can see all the galleries by starting there, and then clicking at the bottom for the next gallery....no need to go back to the HomePage time after time.
One of my closest as-teen acquaintances was a middle-aged man named Art Gerrick. Art lived about a mile from my parents home, taught me a lot, & I hung out often with him at his home-shop for many hours at a time. It was Art who taught me about fine mechanical craftsmanship. Art had a 28 Essex-frame with a Ford model T engine that was Rajo equipped, had a very high CR, alcohol burning (rumor is that he was the first to use it), what we called a Lakes Car (for top speed runs on dry lakes, such as Muroc). He was a TRUE old-time MASTER mechanic. That I was not with him at his death-bed ...and the same, much later, for old friend, Donny Vesco, continues to haunt me a bit. Mostly this was because after I moved to Lake Tahoe in 1972, I rapidly stopped staying in touch with many folks, including my own relatives. Of course, they did the same to me. Out of Sight, Out of Mind. Maybe it was 'good riddance.'
After moving to Lake Tahoe, I begin to get more seriously into outdoors things ...backpacking in particular. I also began to shape-up again. I was watching my foods, & getting exercise. It was good for me. I had a lot of energy, & used it constantly.
I drove some interesting cars for awhile ...as I sometimes managed the use of an occasional car from some of the several dealerships I was doing things for. I was re-introduced to René Pellandini, & became a PAID race-driver for his dealership's Morgan cars.
I purchased the previously mentioned, & nearly brand new, Alfa Sprint Specialé ....A Bertoné bodied mini-Ferrari. Bright Italian Red of course! I began to take an interest in a girl who worked at the dealership. Being INTERESTED did NOT mean I was dating her. I was truly & suddenly smitten, this was one educated, smart (MENSA) ...sassy ...& an interesting woman. I plotted & plotted. In a while she ....horrors upon horrors ...went to work for a Citroen dealer, doing registrations. CITROENS? !
I learned about dealers, their shenanigans, paperwork, & more dealer shenanigans. I learned LOTS more of this, in much greater detail, decades later, at Tahoe, when I worked part-time for a someone in the used-car business, doing registrations.
Unfortunately, 'she' was also dating a sort-of friend of mine. She eventually left the Citroen dealership for a Honda motorcycle dealership. Hapco Motors. Owned by Harry Pokras. I decided to work for the same Honda dealership, part-time, as a salesman. Can't imagine why I would want to do that (perhaps YOU do ...certainly SHE did). The Honda 750 was about to be introduced. BIG deal that was going to be. The 'You Meet The Nicest People On A Honda' was in full swing. I couldn't get her out of my mind. I thought about her even when I was selling a motorcycle to one of the Beach Boys & she was out of my sight ...in the dealership office. It got worse. I was definitely hooked. This became a major romance. I had to get rid of her boyfriend, his name was Richard & used 'Sterling' as his nickname, as coined by him. A sterling person he was not, however. He had 'the' bachelor apartment ...in the decades-later-named Hobbit House, in Culver City, California, ...and it was his girlfriend I was in love with (and eventually married). Here is a sketch he made of me...and girlfriend....and my dog...way back when, ...it sort of represents fairly well, me...and maybe foretold somewhat what happened not long after the sketch was made. Note the BMW-like motorcycle.
He had to go. I decided that a very direct approach was called-for. I rode my motorcycle to where he lived. I purposely wore my boys-size boxing gym shirt that overly exhibited my biceps. He & I had a 'little talk', in his tiny bachelor apartment (that I then took over after he moved out, ....at my 'suggestion') ...whilst I 'played toss games' with one hand on his rather heavy dumbbell that he would struggle to lift, ...& "the rest of the message", ...much left unsaid ....got across. Truth was, he did not like her enough to want to try to keep her, & I wanted her, badly. It was nearly the last time I did something I am as ashamed about. Amazing what love can do to one's morals. I got her & the bachelor apartment. I took over the lease on that bachelor apartment, in that unusual movie-set-looking building, now one of those historic buildings type of places; well known, decades later, as The Hobbit House. I can't find my photos of the bachelor apartment, but photos of my wife ...and our apartment in the same building after we were married ....are in the photo galleries on this website. I chased her, ....until she caught me. We divorced a long time ago, we were both too immature at that time ...eventually we became friendly again, ...of a distant sort. Her name was Mary, but almost everyone called her Jonni.
At Lake Tahoe, years later, Penny (my last and forever wife), and I used to run into Jonni now & then, typically at the local college or at one of the Old Estates (Valhalla) at Tahoe; where she used to be the blacksmith (yes, really, that wee small gal!). She is a pretty good artist in various mediums. Hard to live with a Mensa type though. I am sure Jonni felt the same about stubborn & technical me. If we had both been more mature, we'd likely still be married.
While at the West Los Angeles Honda Dealership where Jonni worked, the Honda 750 came out. One of my earliest sales of that model was to one of 'The Beach Boys, and then one to a Member of The Monkeys. Wife-to-be & I got invited to one of their private parties. They found out I had a solid electronics background, knew & understood Club Sound, and had repaired Moog's (the original Synthesizers manufacturer) .....which led to all sorts of electronics work for musicians. I worked with the Jefferson Airplanes for a long time. I started to get a reputation as someone who knew musician's sound & equipment and I eventually learned so much about Moog electronics, that my shop became a factory service center for Moog. In those years, there were NO huge high powered outdoors audio equipment that one could purchase from a store, so I designed & built some, one super power one was for the Jefferson Airplanes.
I purchased the last original Porsche Speedster ever made, from Vasek Polak Porsche dealership. This was a used vehicle, a 1958 with many factory trick goodies. I won the first race I entered with it. I did not care, I had beaten Phil Hill, who I considered my personal rival ...that was ALL I cared about. Once I beat him, I stopped racing it. I raced my RS1500RS Spyder too, three times, but always worried about wrecking it, which I never did, luckily. Photos are in my photo galleries on this website.
I sold some more Honda motorcycles to entertainment industry folks. I found THAT type of sale to be surprisingly easy. NEVER figured out why the other sales guys did not catch on. For ME, I thought I knew why ....I was not overwhelmed by show biz folks, never ever in awe; & I was not pushy; I 'fit in'; &, I played jazz on the piano at various places, including potential bike sales homes. I found show-folks super-vulnerable to the correct sales approach ....homey, friendly, never ever being pushy for them to buy something ...."...let's party, if ya wanna bike, we can talk, if not, I don't care if you don't care; ...heck, let's party...." We did, too. They never had any problems with credit departments, loans, etc. If a piano was present, I'd always ask if I could play it.....and, if granted, I might ask for a duet, or?
As for the Honda's that we rode ....I think Mary (Jonni) may still have hers. I used one of our 175 Honda's (earlier, had Honda 160's) as my pit bike at Bonneville in 1971, my 'helpers' were the two co-owner's, & an employee of Linear Corp, where I was Chief Engineer.
OH....that first ex-wife (Mary/Jonni): about her 2nd Husband (me being 1st), ....my old friend Ed from my teen years, ....Ed killed himself. So much for growing up with a silver spoon in your mouth. He took a lot of years getting around to killing himself.
Perverse Sense Of Humor Department:
Before I officially proposed marriage to Penny, I had the opportunity to go on a wonderful mostly-free 2 week vacation, courtesy of an old friend. We'd be touring the Norwegian Fjords, etc., on an inter-island ferry/passenger ship, a boyhood dream of his. I promised Penny 'I would DECIDE about proposing', after my return. My intention was to drag the Proposal out for a couple of weeks after that trip, just me being asshole Mr. Perverse, riiiight? I had intended to do an interesting psychological number on Penny in how I actually did the Proposal. Perverse. Teasing, in a loving way (is that possible?). But, I was worried she'd 'get away', & I KNEW long before my Mid-June departure that I wanted to marry her. My proposal was helped along by her out-thinking me, as she said she'd be free to date, if she wanted, while I was gone, if I had not proposed first. SMART GAL! So, after 10 months or so of dating, I proposed to Penny BEFORE that trip, & we have been VERY happy ever since she said YES. So, two Senior Citizens met, fell in love & got married. Yes, we are still married and very much together.
We arrived & departed the wedding using my K-bike sidecar rig. The wedding & potluck reception & picnic was held at the Genoa State Park (Nevada). I rented the entire park for the affair. Below are just two photos from early that day. The wind was blowing my hair & the tree foliage in the first photo. Yes, that's a Tux-T that I am wearing; and, those red and green suspenders relate to the Red/Green program (Canadian). The photo was taken early, by a passer-by, later all our friends and their children showed up & filled the Park. We were married by a Buddhist practitioner friend of ours whom we remain in touch with.
I've changed a fair amount since I met Penny. I've mellowed. I'm more lazy. I found reasons, before I quit, to, sometimes, to not go riding, or flying. Some is likely due to aging; and rather too much is due to side effects of my cancer and heart drugs. Overall I am probably a nicer person (??). I often find myself going out of my way to do things to please Penny. I'm not as selfish, nor as self-centered. Strange how things sometimes happen. I both THINK-KNOW-FEEL, that I am married to the right woman for the rest of my life.
But......There have been rare occasions when I am...or have been.... a total ass. I shall try to refrain talking about them.
Before leaving Los Angeles I had a garage full of weird things such as my Norden Fuel Injectors & hopped up MG-TD;....just a lot of various time- consuming projects went away. I sold my airplane too, a Comanche 250. I disposed of my Vincents early-on, and later disposed of all but one of my dirt bikes, ...and a lot more.
Considerably after the final move to Tahoe in 1972/1973, and after I built a few hangars in a commercial project at Carson City Airport, I began using one hangar as a safe place to store some of my now re-growing stable of antique bikes. I ended up with 52 at one point. They are gone. So is my mortgage. So is the money that paid for hundreds of hours of flight in a variety of interesting craft. I owned several airplanes during the many years at Tahoe. At various times I had one of two Cessna 182's, a Twin Comanche, & the Pitts. I had an interest in a C-206 & a C-210. I had a short term interest in a military jet. I don't own airplanes anymore, they are very costly to own; particularly so when I am no longer in the Charter nor Flight Instruction business. I pretty much lost interest in flying, particularly since Penny isn't into sport flying. I still flew occasionally, when I had the time....and the money. I'd rent an airplane, which usually runs a few hundred dollars for a couple of hours. No longer.
My common nickname, 'Bob' became "Blinky" to some few of my friends, originally coined by a fellow rider, the Road Captain of a Club I rode with, who was quite annoyed by my headlight modulator, that I designed & built. To keep him even happier, I installed commercially-made headlight modulators on my other BMWs. I owned several small businesses. An aircraft radio sales-installation-repair business did not work out. I had a precision machine shop; & next door to it I had a motorcycle repair service, mostly doing custom BMW work, rather than mundane stuff. I went back to work for The Agency on a couple of updated old projects, & a new one. I am now long completely separated from the Government. I am not a welcome figure in some Countries.
I still have my childhood business: Repairing HiFi, musician's electronics, & industrial electronics repairs (presently located in my garage-shop attached to my rented Carson City home).
When I moved to Tahoe, it was initially on one of my R75/5 bikes. On that first trip, I found out, whilst camping in the mountains overnight, that raccoons understand how to undo leather saddlebag straps & are attracted to peanut butter cookies.
I have belonged to many organizations & clubs and eventually quit most of them. I did, however, became a member of the local business & social community & other groups. I left some clubs because I did not feel the members were really helping the community. I found one Club that does help the community. Children and disabled adults is its focus.....the Kiwanis Club of Tahoe Sierra; another, even better, is the Optimists. These two local Clubs are Hands-On type ...not types that just get grants and dole out money. The particular Tahoe Kiwanis club I was a member of has a locally-famous Octoberfest fun-raiser, called the Septoberfest, because it is held in September every year. I have participated in many ways, including being the Programs Chair and running the MassKrug Stemmen stein-holding contest numerous times. Penny and I were on the Board of Directors. Penny was next in line to be President of that Kiwanis Club, and was the chairman of the Septoberfest for 2017, a huge responsibility. Penny resigned from the Club in 2017. I was still a Member, but did not stay in the club after the Sept. 2018 Septoberfest. At Carson City Penny started helping children to read at a local school. She did that previously at Tahoe too, after having given up being a Court Appointed Special Advocate for kids. At Carson City we both were getting more and more involved in our new Community....but this was put on hold with the corona virus pandemic situation...but now, in 2024, things are getting back to 'some sort of normal'; whatever that is going to end up being. At present, I am not local club or group involved, but Penny has quite a few activities. One is volunteering at the local hospital in the ER area. (Penny was a Navy nurse, an RN)
I'll backtrack quite a bit:
My most favorite dog, a Malamute (I did hundreds of miles of backpacking/camping with her), got cancer; I had to put her down. I have not had a dog since. Doubtful for the future. I've been saying that for years now. I don't let myself think about Pani, my Malamute, too often....almost brings tears to my eyes.
A feral cat arrived at our house at Lake Tahoe... just walked into the house and adopted Penny & me; this was around 2006 or 2007. He had a unique personality, but eventually got taken by coyotes. We got another cat, from the Animal Shelter in late 2011. Cats have wildly different personalities, sometimes can be quite entertaining; but certainly are not the companions that dogs can be. I WANT another dog, but do NOT want to put out the energy/time to have one. The 2011 cat was Cat Of The Week, but had to be returned to the Shelter, in 2019, as we sold our Tahoe house, would be moving to Carson City, and couldn't have cats at our rental house in Carson City. In 2021 our Carson City Landlady surprised us by offering to let us get a cat ...but we'd have to pay a cat-deposit of $500. We selected an adult cat from the nearby animal shelter. Waldo II. He's still here, enjoying himself, and VV.
Way back in May of 2001 (or was it 2000?), I sold my then touring motorcycle, a 1983 BMW R100RT. I had purchased it brand-new in 1985 from a dealer-friend. My intention in 2001 (2000?) was to purchase (BMW-NA offered to sell me the bike at a big discount) a brand-new BMW Oilhead Police Bike. I did not buy it, I got cold feet. I just could NOT see myself on a HEAVY R1100RTP or; later, an offered R1150RTP. A short while later I borrowed a 1970 R75/5 from a friend, with the agreement that I would restore it somewhat, & could ride it. It was that bike that I rode to the 1st of the two MOA National Rallies in Redmond Oregon. That R75/5 bike has long since gone back to its owner. BUT....in the months of that bike being ridden by me as I restored it, I re-acquired the Airhead bug. BAD. It had been a mistake to sell my R100RT. Luckily, the owner decided he was not an RT kinda guy, & he contacted me. I purchased back that 1983 R100RT & eventually converted it into a sidecar rig ....riding it as a solo until the sidecar attachments were all completed & ready. Along the way, I purchased another R100RT, a 1984, for a solo ride. In late 2005 I added a K1100LT to my garage, with an attached EML GT2 sidecar. I sold the R100RT with its sidecar, but it remained with me until the owner picked it up in Spring of 2006. In May of 2006 I 'visited' it, & Penny & I took a full day's jaunt on it, along with the owner driving his other rig. The rig I built is now owned by someone else again. I took Penny on a around-the-USA trip in 2008 on my final sidecar rig ...the K11 sidecar rig: https://bmwmotorcycletech.info/tripphotos.htm
I kept a 1984 R100RT solo bike. I sold it & the owner picked it up after maybe a year & a half! He did some touring on it for quite awhile, & left it at his North Carolina residence when he had to go "home" (Australia). In late September 2012 (??), the bike was shipped back to me. I serviced it, & rode it occasionally. Yes, we shared the bike during all this time. On January 7th, 2014, the owner picked up this bike (and a BMW HP2 that was also here); he also took the Airhead tools & parts that I had sold him two years previously along with the bike.
For decades I thought I might not ever leave Lake Tahoe, except as ashes in a container to be spread over the mountains;.....I LOVE Tahoe. But, it was also not too many years ago that thoughts of a gentleman's ranchette someplace ....with huge workshop space; especially on a residential airpark; were still interesting me. I traveled with Penny to look at a home on a private grass airstrip in Oregon. I liked the place, Penny did not like it, as it was too isolated and distant from most old friends and any city. The cost would have busted our financial situation (which I was OK with).
I had turned down my old friend/mentor Oak who offered me a situation on his 'Indiana ranch' location, to work with him on BMW bikes. I really wanted to quit working on bikes for other folks, and Oak's situation would mean being back into it full time. I am also just a Westerner at heart ....who loved Tahoe; and I like Carson City too. I turned Oak, R.I.P., down on his fine offer.
Penny and I had long-planned to sell out totally at Lake Tahoe ...house, furnishings, electronics shop, motorcycle, sidecar rig, most of my instruments and tools, etc. ...by late Spring of 2019 ...and move to Milwaukie (Oregon), to a small cottage, in a Continuing Care Retirement Community, for the rest of our lives. It would have been THE most trying time of my life (even worse than Viet Nam??), I think, to give up everything that is me and Tahoe. It was not to be. Perhaps it worked out best as it is, now....because we ended up moving to Carson City, Nevada.
Prostate cancer:
I had PSA tests since probably my forties & I kept records. That led to my May 2003 prostatectomy, done when my PSA started to rise too much too fast and biopsies showed cancer. No cancer was found outside of my prostate during the surgery. I kept my erection nerves too (they worked pretty good when I got the chance to exercise them). I know a LOT about Prostate Cancer because I jumped into learning about it, in my usual intense fashion. I probably know more than most, even many doctors. I wrote a mostly technical article on it, it was peer reviewed and very lengthy. It was on the website you are reading. I tried to keep it up-to-date. I removed the article in November 2020, as I prepared for the final chapters of my life and the disposition of this website; and, MOSTLY, because I did not want the responsibility of keeping up that very long article. The article was last copied to one of the whole internet capturing sites, in, I think, March 2018. It is a great article, very heavily researched, I recommend it. I put a link to the website and information on how to view the article, on the homepage: https://bmwmotorcycletech.info . Here's a copy of the link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019014040/http://bmwmotorcycletech.info/prostatecancer.htm
NOTE: in that linked article, my street address is wrong, but the E-mail linked address is correct. BE SURE to obtain the latest PCF Guide.
In early 2004, during my yearly Flight Physical, I reported to the FAA, just like the rules say you must, that I'd had prostate cancer. The FAA changed me to a Third Class Medical Certification, which did not allow me to be Pilot-in-Command for Commercial flying. In January, 2005, I got my Commercial Certificate back. I kept it until 2007, when I needed my cataracts fixed; after which I could apply to regain the Commercial again. I did so, & still have my Commercial certificate, unrestricted, although my current medical problems would, even if not reported, restrict my flying again. Regular PSA testing showed no sign of any specific large prostate cancer recurrence; although the PSA was not zero....and....it began to very slowly increase over many years. Suddenly, in September 2018, it made a jump, which was quite worrisome. Because it continued fast rising, I knew that some sort of prostate cancer tissue cells were still in me someplace, or many places. It had not shown up on expensive imaging tests in late 2014 (a very sensitive new ultra-sensitive scan in late 2020 did show metastizing). My situation changed. My urologist put me on Lupron in early November of 2018. Later, the Urologist added Casodex. The result of the two drugs was to reduce my testosterone to essentially zero, and caused some unpleasant and strong side-effects. The Casodex went bye bye on August 1st of 2021, and the Lupron went away too, in favor of very pricey Xtandi. I got a foundation to cover the copay (I have Part D insurance for the rest). I eventually had a bilateral choriectomy....but was still on Xtandi, because some testosterone can be generated by the adrenal glands. Eventually the Xtandi began to fail, and I then went to super-pricey anti-testosterone drug, Nubeqa. With the cancer still active, my Urologist transferred me to the care of a Oncologist.
In Summer of 2023, genetic testing was done as well as a new super-sensitive new-fangled scan; the results of which were that the Numbeqa was stopped, and I began taking Xgeva and Lynparza. The side-effects were unpleasant. I suspect I am rapidly approaching the final stage of my life. I am now still getting monthly Xgeva shots to keep my bones structures from going bad. Gave up on Lynparza, and am back on Xtandi, which has pretty much stabilized my PSA. The side-effects are less, and more or less reasonable.
I had greatly mellowed and slowed down with my two surgeries (prostatectomy and dual inguinal hernia) way back in 2003, my selling of my share of the condo I co-owned in Palm Springs, & generally retracting into some sort of Tahoe-guy, Tahoe-life ...while trying to decide on how I wanted to live the rest of my life. For certain, I wanted to continue riding bikes & doing other physical things ...but found myself doing those things FAR less than I would like to, just did not feel like it as much as I did many years ago ...I simply had less energy. I recovered fairly well from the two 2003 surgeries (prostatectomy and inguinal hernias). If I had not been in good physical condition then, things might have been vastly worse. BUT ...the prostatectomy took a lasting toll on me. I managed to increase my Tahoe community involvements, but by end of Summer of 2018, as energy dropped again, I began reducing such involvements. My tolerance for heat continued to be poor. I found this out the hard way in 2016, when, in the Summer, I left on the sidecar rig for the USCA National Sidecar Rally, which meant a lot of miles in very hot weather. I finally gave up, and turned around after a miserable night spent in a tiny room at Middlegate, and returned home (mostly at night, when it was cool!).
With the serious return of the prostate cancer, and the taking of various drugs since Nov. 2018, and then with the bilateral orchiectomy, I was not enjoying life very much. Until late 2019 I still went to a local gym. I worked in my electronics repair shop and I often spent hours at this computer working on my BMW techsite. The Shop income is small but its income pays for utilities and a few minor frills, & I have the ego satisfaction of doing something useful...also, the work keeps me out of being excessively in Penny's hair. Besides my 'new customers', I have a considerable number of customers from years ago that would never think of going to anyone else for their electronics repairs. I've picked up a lot of new customers via recommendations that tend to be spread by word-of-mouth, and from such as comments on such as Google and Yelp. I have the experience, the talent, & I do very high quality work. I a lot of hifi repairs, musicians equipment repairs, some Industrial, and plenty-enough weird stuff. I collect a small amount of Social Security & have a modest income from investments. My military pension, a considerable sum, still goes entirely to charities. I sold or closed all the other businesses over a period of years. I have had a very noticeably large decrease in energy, and found myself rather slowed-down. When Penny and I were preparing to sell-out at Lake Tahoe, in 2019, I sold all my motorcycles and most of my motorcycle parts and service gear. It took me quite awhile to get used to not doing MC work. I don't miss the upkeep on the Tahoe house and property. I chalked it all up to advancing age ....and the cancer treatment. I had some heart problems (A-fib and overly low heart rate) and that got under control by drugs and finally an installation of a Pacemaker in early February, 2023. I am well-aware that I am in the last stage of life.
While still living at Lake Tahoe, I had decades ago stopped promoting the electronics business ...no display advertisement in the Yellow Pages, as an example. I didn't even have a business telephone listing. I passed out a business card once in awhile. In January of 2014, I finished making up a website for the business: https://fleischerelectronicsservice.com. Up until mid-Summer of 2019, the business was for sale, but I never pushed that at all. It was listed on that site and this BMW site for $10K-18K. It has not yet sold. Since we moved to Carson City Nevada in late 2019 I have slowly sold personal things we did not need. We still have a huge amount of things taking up storage area here, and I am placing some items on my electronics business website for sale, and many other things are on this BMW website: https://bmwmotorcycletech.info/sale.htm My business website, https://fleischerelectronicsservice.com, has a page called bargain-basement, where I list some additional for-sale, trade, etc., items.
Jumping around a lot more....
My closest friend from the 'Nam days told me some years ago that he wanted to build an airplane with my help ....or we could build TWO at the same time. That will now never happen; not enough time nor energy nor desire for either of us. His two sons are my Godchildren (well, one is officially, but I regard both as my Godchildren). My bud was, for awhile, the Managing Editor of the Tahoe Daily Tribune. He lived in Bakersfield for years ....an "OK" place to visit, except in the Summertime, when it is very hot. I don't handle high heat well, as I've noted. Trips to see him (by motorcycle) was to be in 2017 and 2018. I didn't make either. He died some months later, but I attended an ashes scattering, in the mountains of Lake Tahoe, with his two sons, my Godchildren, in 2019. I originally planned to have my own ashes scattered at Ebbett's Pass, at a place I had done my golden-trout fishing. Later, I decided to have my ashes scattered in the Lake Tahoe Mountains exactly where his were scattered. Later yet, in 2021 I decided to will my body to medical student instruction, and have done so, to the University of Nevada, Reno, and done the necessary paperwork.
I had my own mid-life crisis ...in early 2000 I purchased a new Mazda Miata sports car. I dared not drive it wearing a beret (even someone like me has SOME standards). A couple of years after purchase I did break-in a new motorcycle helmet. In that car. Top Down. Street driving. Always creating a scene, EH?
A couple months before my 2003 prostate surgery, & needing to start making my life less hectic, fewer responsibilities, less outflow of money, and so on; ....I sold my super-hopped-up Dodge Power Wagon truck & sold my huge collection of parts for it. No more constant messing-around with that truck; ...and in November of 2003, right after my hernia surgery, I traded the Miata for a 1997 Nissan Pathfinder 4 wheel drive and the buyer included a nice bit of cash. The Pathfinder is a nice vehicle, perfectly suitable for our present & likely future needs. Older Pathfinders are one of the best SUV's, & not too big. We still have that SUV, our only car. We also walked and use our bicycles. Penny gave away her bike in, as I remember, early 2024. She felt unstable on it. I still have and occasionally ride mine.
When Penny and I got married, she had a 2WD Subaru sedan (yes, Subaru did make some 2WD cars). We were going to sell it in late Summer of 2012 & get her a Subaru Forester AWD. We decided to sell the 2WD & not have a 2nd car. After January 2014, when the last two 2-wheeled motorcycles left (temporarily), we had the Pathfinder, plus bicycles, the sidecar rig, and our feet. I acquired a 1995 R100RT which I did a lot to, .....it was to be my last-ever motorcycle. Due to the cancer, etc., I put it up for sale and it left me in 2019. Same for the sidecar rig. The 1995 R100RT may well have been the nicest one around.
https://bmwmotorcycletech.info/1995-R100RT-Sale.htm
https://bmwmotorcycletech.info/EMLsidecar8.htm scan down that article
I skied a fair amount every Winter, but that became less and less as I aged, and more and more of my time was being spent on the computer, on my BMW website, and, helping others with BMW problems. From 2017 I had been copying and editing some of my Airheads articles and ever-so-slowly placing them on the https://airheads.org/ website. This was done to increase the value of the Airheads Club Membership. That effort was stopped quite some time ago. As of mid-2018, I finished the major work on this BMW website, which enabled the reduction of my keyboarding time. By the end of 2018 I was playing the piano a bit, working a bit, not riding bikes much. By mid-2019 I did not consider myself in good enough physical condition to ride briskly anymore. In anticipation of the move to Carson City, I sold my favorite piano, a Kawai grand. I miss it. I sold all of my larger machinery too. I sure miss the lathe.
I am getting slower, sometimes a bit forgetful, and rather tired most of the time. Age and cancer, cancer drugs and heart drugs. I do not wrench for others anymore. I rarely, now, am at Airhead TechDays. I've pretty-much quit doing Technical Seminars. Seldom I do something exciting. I do remember, however, since it was not all that long ago, when I rode considerably over 150, testing a VFR & two Hayabusa's, one of which was turbocharged. I topped-off that wonderful day by some aerobatics. Since 2016-2017 there were fewer times where I purposely slid a motorcycle in a corner; ...usually it was when testing tires. In mid-2018 and into 2019 I finally stopped personally testing tires. Even though my reflexes and eyesight were still quite good, I just did not have the energy to go do such high energy riding. I am now, in my estimation, too weak to lift a heavy bike if it slides over. Some of these things are reasons I sold my bikes and sidecar rig (the larger reason was the original plan, now dead, on moving to a place in Oregon that had no garage nor workshop space).
My eyesight is excellent, as far as clearness/focusing/ and so on....but not as good as what I'd like when suddenly transitioning from shaded roads to brightly lit road. Thus, another reason I am more conservative, even when in a car, let alone on a bike. Up until early 2019, I had a friend with interesting bikes to borrow, my favorite twisties burner was his Ninja 250; not overly powerful, but light & an excellent handler; but I am no longer riding it, nor his Ninja 500. I like VERY tight twisties ...turns that might be posted "10 MPH", narrow, bumpy, nasty ....especially the very narrow ones that are not on highways. Dirt riding is hard on me. I LOVE dirt biking. UNfortunately my back and present health situation does not. I have, essentially, given up flying and biking (except for bicycles).
I no longer spend nearly as much time in responding on some Internet mailing LISTS; BMW groups on Facebook, etc. I'm still writing, if rarely, for bike and other magazines. I still keep-up my BMW website. My website is willed to the Vintage BMW club, which supplies the Server the website runs on.
THE MAJOR effort in my late life (2018-2019+) was to prepare to sell out at Tahoe and move. We had been on the waiting list for a cottage in a CCRC in Oregon, called Rose Villa, for ~2 years. By Spring of 2019 we were no longer seeing movement of our position on the waiting list, and, after finding out the reason, we gave up the idea of living at Rose Villa in Milwaukie, Oregon, and we moved to a rental house in Carson City, Nevada. But, having read all the previous verboseness of this article, you already know all that.
I said, much earlier, that I was not going to discuss Viet Nam, & so it will be. BUT....I no longer sleep with a .45 under my pillow. Seldom any more 'Nam nightmares. I don't have a little fragment of metal in my spine area anymore. The V.A. did not take the metal out, they refused, so a doctor friend did. Besides the cancer and A-fib problems, I have long had what is called Degenerative Disc Disease ....I've shrunk, & my back can act up, causing pain in my back, left leg, left foot. Sciatica of any kind can be painful at times. I've had mini-bouts of weak left leg attacks and almost let a motorcycle fall completely over, once, quite some years ago. I had thought I'd have to give up 2-wheeling in 2012, but managed to hang-in-there, & my reflexes & eyesight remained solidly good. But, time and physical problems have caused my 2-wheeling to fully stop.
In 2011 I taught and was the Keynote Speaker at SuperTech, held at Boyertown, in Pennsylvania. I was invited back, to do do it all again. That was the first weekend of February, 2019. https://bmwmotorcycletech.info/SuperTech.htm
It is very likely that the 2019 SuperTech was my last time, due to my failing health.
Backtracking a lot of years: As noted previously, Penny & I got married. Following marriage came remodeling. This included brightening & slightly feminizing the Tahoe house, updating the kitchen counters & floors, major remodeling of one of the bathrooms, some remodeling on the second bathroom, fencing and yard things, & doing many things, especially outdoors, that Penny, my love, likes to do ...as I do. By the end of 2016 I had finished a new lower house roof, I had done it almost entirely by myself back in 1986, designing it as a double roof, which gave a lot of insulating qualities. The 2016 roof continued that idea. We then had only one major remodeling thing to do: new front fencing. I decided that removing the old front fence would please Penny more, and with some use of the old brick and mortar fence supports, and a lot of my labor, I made the front area look truly nice, with posts, LED solar lights, etc. I did it all, if slowly, and completed it in 2017.
I would have liked to remove the living room rug and install hardwood flooring, in a curved ship-like design of my own. It is not going to happen now that the Lake Tahoe house is no longer mine.
I sometimes will to do almost anything that puts a smile on my wife's face. If she mentions something, I typically just do it immediately. I still try to do that, cancer or not.
The over-all trend, especially here at the new Carson City house, has been to complete 'projects', and not gain more projects, after all, we are nearing the end of our lives, and less responsibilities are a good thing now. The last of all the major projects at the Tahoe house was completed in 2019 so it could be listed for sale. Here, at the rental house in Carson City, in 2019-2020, I built a new shop; have a substantial shed with a lot of storage shelving, installed various systems like an internet and phone system, and Penny and I dug holes and planted trees; Penny added flowers/bushes/etc, making for a much nicer patio. I have no further major projects in mind, nor does Penny....except to continue to sell our unneeded things.
I set up a Trust, and work on it most every January to keep it current. Main thing is to make things easier on Penny if I die first, which is likely.
I have been known to get embarrassed on the dance floor, having three left feet sometimes. Penny convinced me to attend ballroom dancing classes at the local (S. Lake Tahoe) Community College in 2006-7. We intend to do it in Carson City. I still have three left feet sometimes. We tried to learn the Latin Dances forms. I am actually ...SOMETIMES .... if not good, maybe OK.... at Rock 'n Roll dances, Texas two-step, Swing, Tango, Rhumba. For whatever reason, not very good at the Waltz. ChaCha? Salsa has always been difficult. Penny & I were once at the point where I think we could be, if we practiced, have our own personal form & steps. It became fun for me. I am comfortable enough now on the dance floor to occasionally take Penny to the dance floor as the first couple out there when the band or DJ starts playing. Sometimes we are the only couple dancing. All of this is not to mean ANYthing ....I am not really good at dancing. Most of the time I am embarrassed at my memory lapses on the correct form and rhythms.
I volunteered to fix the computer network at the South Lake Tahoe Senior Center, and keep up their computers. It took about 3 hours a week in the beginning; and after nearly a year I had things working well-enough that I could do it in 2 hours a month. With the move to Carson City, Nevada, in late 2019, I stopped doing their computer upkeep work.
My heavy backpacking days are over. My downhill skiing is also over. We may continue to do XC, together, as Penny does not like downhill. She dislikes being on ski lifts; and, hates the crazy uncontrolled skiers and boarders we see sometimes.
We live adequately. We would have more money if I had kept my pension instead of giving it permanently to a list of charities. I used to attend an occasional Airhead event ...such as a campout or TechDay. A Rally now & then. Do a Seminar now & then. A sidecar event now & then. Penny sometimes accompanied me. She preferred the sidecar rig over any two-wheeler ...and, in fact, would not ride behind me on a 2-wheeler at all, nothing new about that. She did not like having to swing her leg way up to get on any 2-wheeler & not having to move her head to see what is ahead of us, nor bump her helmet against mine. She preferred the SUV ....or the large sidecar, where there was a comfy seat, seatbelt, LOTS of room, etc. All the traveling is now down to our SUV, and even that is 'hardly ever'. I keep up the website, do some electronics customer work, learn a bit more now and then about computers & software, enjoy life some of the time, although not so much enjoyment with the aches and pains and my cancer treatment side-effects. The Pandemic restrictions eased-up a couple years ago, so now we've been able to see our sons and their families, and go out to eat now and then; ETC. I am well aware that we were VERY lucky to meet & fall in love as we entered our senior years. Penny had been a very active person. She had been a very ardent long distance bicyclist for many years. She's close to my age and she, too, has slowed-down now; but much less than I have. But...years ago, at age SIXTY ....she did a tandem bicycle ride across the USA ...from Seattle to Maine ...mostly camping along the way. She's also done many a Century and Double Century.
There is a SALE page on this website; that is not the same as the BargainBasement page on my electronics business website: https://fleischerelectronicsservice.com/.
I finally received my BMW factory 600K badge; in 2015.
Penny was quite active in our Tahoe community, even with our pending 2019 move, but she discontinued her involvement with the Bring Arts to the Schools program and she quit helping at the Juvenile Treatment Center; but was still involved with many other things, including at the Skilled Nursing Center at the local hospital; and her Ukulele groups, and helping elementary kids with reading, Meals on Wheels, etc. Some of those things have re-begun, now that The Pandemic restrictions are lifted. While still at Lake Tahoe, we joined the most active local Kiwanis group, which meant working together on programs for young folk; we left the group before moving. I dropped my membership in the Sons In Retirement, which is not involved with helping others, which is what Penny & I wish to make some spare time for. More on the Kiwanis situation was earlier in this article.....I resigned on October 3rd, 2018, so as to devote as much time as possible towards our moving in 2019. Penny also resigned from the Kiwanis Club, even though she was President-elect. We continued to help, now and then, with Bread and Broth at a Church, etc, until our move. I continued keeping up the Senior Center's computers until we moved, and doing many other things...just at a less energetic level. The entire Covid and my health situation is/was depressing. But, what is, is. Penny uses her involvements with Buddhism groups, I muddle through in other ways. Penny has her exercise class that she leads at our 55+ community's Clubhouse, and I do that class now and then, and I used the mini-gym at the same Clubhouse quite a bit, until 2023, when my cancer side-effects increased. I was getting further conditioning at the local cardiologists' rehab meeting for awhile, that ended in 2023 too.
2024: Penny still volunteers two days a week at the local hospital, in the E.R. area, has joined a handbell group at a local church, still plays with a ukulele group, and continues to be fairly active, over-all.
I'm doing OK for being nearly 87, with cancer, and a wonky heart (with a pacemaker to keep things ticking along OK).
Here are some quickie things:
I'm not really so cynical & curmudgeonly. I'm a pretty good cook; even capable of making exquisite pastries. I seldom need my, nor anyone's, cookbooks for anything. I can cook fancy ...or simply. I am especially interested in old-time cooking & presentations as done by expert chefs. My first-ever paid job, besides cutting lawns as a kid, was repairing the pump organ at that Catholic Church mentioned very early in this article, which was next door to the junkyard. I was 14. I spent some time, when stationed at the Vandenberg AF Base area, at the local dairy owned then by the government, getting a cream separator working, it had never been previously connected into the milk system. They had a lot of cows, & in calving season there was a lot of colostrum collected by the dairy folks they could not use. I saw to the proper installation of the cream separator, & I personally made the first batch of ice cream the dairy had ever made, using that cream separator ... with a VERY generous amount of the colostrums, ... using military-furnished vanilla/chocolate/strawberry powders. The butterfat content must have been atrocious. It was the 'richest' ice cream I ever ate, & probably that anyone ever ate. It bordered on greasy. I made the second batch (peach only) lighter, but still it was kind of high in butter-fat. For the last batch I made there, I used Mexican liquid vanilla, very pungent. DELICIOUS!! It was French Vanilla ice cream taken to extremes! I did custom electronics repair work for Willie Nelson ....and his Baldwin amplifier restoration by me is a story all by itself. I had a fun & games time when, after I finishing Basic Training, I awoke one morning after being WAY too drunk the night previously (celebrating living through Basic Training, ...well, not exactly!), in, I thought at first, San Diego, ....and....finding the SUN rising on the beach ...a long story. The Sun does NOT rise on the beach in California. I finally put some of the details in this bio. Penny & I are quite familiar with organizing & running a motorcycle rally ....we were the Organizers & Hosts for the 2009 National Sidecar Rally at Lake Tahoe. It is a tremendous amount of work. It went quite well, with wonderful write-ups in the newspaper, on local TV and radio ...and from many attendees ...but I did not like the lack of appreciation from the United Sidecar Association's Board of Directors. I didn't like their early-on comments about things either. We bent over backwards to accommodate all of their wishes, ....except; and the problem the Board had;..... we could NOT allow dogs, due to Forest Service requirements. Some members insisted that they HAD to have a venue that allowed dogs in the future. Feeling put-upon, after a year of hard work, & unappreciated, I dropped my membership. I did not thereafter attend ANY of their events. I still recommended the organization. By the end of 2013, I had mellowed some, ... and with the death of the head of the USCA (Joyce Canfield) (with whom I had almost feuded with over the Forest Service not allowing dogs at the rally...and she insisting on dogs) in early February of 2014, I rejoined the USCA. Since when my sidecar rig was sold, I let my membership lapse, permanently. I "STOLE" Donny Vesco's ride (Donny KNEW ahead of time I would), a factory Honda race bike, that he was testing ...and ......helping publicize for Honda ....at Willow Springs Racetrack. I rode it around the track for a FEW FAST LAPS, then left it near the Pits, and then high-tailed-it out of there! I was very familiar with racing on that track. I may have been the earliest Fully Emancipated Juvenile in the State of California. I like elk meat, wild smoked salmon, sushi, pickled fish heads soup, pastries, dark beer, strong ales ... & very smoky single malt Scotch ...such as Lagavulin. My 'fashion consciousness' was & is not much. I guess THAT has continued, as my wife, Penny, does feel it necessary to sometimes point out how much of a sloppy dresser I am. I prefer old worn comfortable clothes, particularly in my shop. She sometimes "helps" me make decisions on what I should be wearing. I'm quite happy in comfortable old shirts & pants with wear-holes in them, at least around the house and shop. Penny is not happy. I've been trying to wear nicer stuff. I have a wickedly perverse sense of humor at times; sometimes it is still 'stick it in your face'. That's rare though. I do try to tolerate fools more. I used to play piano at gay events in Palm Springs, and I personally opened the Gay Pride Parade there one year ...on my Vespa Scooter, sporting a rainbow sunrise decal, and a USMC emblem, ...which drove a few ex-military guys crazy. I was not gay, but I had fun in the Parade. I no longer own airplanes; they are a huge expense, particularly if not being used to generate income. On top of which, Penny has had her fill of flying in small airplanes, carrying babies, back and forth across the USA between military bases/assignments, and does not wish to fly again in small airplanes, babies or not. I have managed to have fun now and then, doing aerobatics in borrowed 'toys'.....which I do not tell Penny about. I have pretty much quit flying. I think I have convinced Penny that a flight on my birthdays is appropriate, and such has been My New Habit. These days I go flying only with a currently licensed pilot/instructor along, whom I usually have fun with by not telling him/her that I already know how to fly, and was an instructor. The following is something I wrote early in the wee hours the morning of December 6th, 2012, slightly edited (mostly to fix typos): "" Dave's death hit me harder than I realized. I went to bed thinking about that, and I woke up very early in the morning, still thinking over his music's influence on me .... & thinking about my own life back in the fifties. Few know that I studied piano for a very long time, and could have ended up as a featured player or a concert pianist. I did not have the talent, nor drive, to become a big headliner, I knew it; & all the forced-practice caused me to rebel more & more against my parents. Brubeck's use of interesting time signatures; not to mention the smoothness, polyphonic, polytonality, & polyrhythmics he is so known for ....the ideas in his (and Paul's) compositions, ....all were very influential on me. His duo with Desmond, 1953 (??), was recorded, and I obtained a copy, & played it over & over. I still have it. Desmond wrote a goodly amount of Dave's music, & hearing the two of them together was a thrill for me. I was ~14 to ~19 when his influence was at its maximum on me. I did my second piano recital when in my mid-teens at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. I played two classical pieces; & then used Brubeck's influence on me quite heavily in my encore (which I wrote), which, today, might be called something like Turned-On-Bach. This had quite an effect on the audience; which was there, they thought, only to see & hear classical music. I'll bet 99% of the audience were siblings, parents, relatives & friends of the three of us teens that had our time on the stage. The audience was thrilled. My piano teacher was not. But, for awhile, I had a very swelled-head from the applause. I had been classically-trained, except for a scarcity of musical theory. My parents had me headed for a career as a doctor or a concert pianist; the thoughts of which were quite unpleasant for me & were largely responsible for me leaving home (several times!!) when a teenager. The '52 & '55 concerts resulted in a lot of applause, which stroked my ego mightily ....but the last one (where I did the Brubeck-influenced Bach) also resulted in my piano teacher never talking to me again; & shortly afterwards a final turn away from a possible musical career. I had always wanted to be an engineer since quite young, much to the chagrin of my parents who strived mightily, after the piano fiasco, to get me to then go to medical school, which I ended up doing to placate them, and for just for my first year at UCLA. "Medical School" at UCLA was then in some out-buildings, & was nothing too much more, the first year, except an extra course in biology. Well, a bit more. One of the highlights of my teen years was going to a small "Club" (The Malibu Cottage), to which only musicians went, it was not open to the public. I got invited through the efforts of my mother's brother, Samuel Tenn, who had been a trumpeter with the Stan Kenton Band. I had been moonlighting, as we call it now, at The Lighthouse (see the link, & Howie Rumsey's band info) ....I was the scrawny underage kid at the piano. It started when I was too young to drive, so I would often bicycle the 24 or so miles round trip. I had legs of iron then. See:
https://www.thelighthousecafe.net/history. I was also moonlighting at a large 'coffee house' on the top of the Malibu Hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean.....and....at an infamous queer (gay) bar in Santa Monica canyon. Dave dropped-in late one evening at The Cottage. It was WAY late, & my parents (who had nearly resigned themselves to my becoming an engineer) & uncle had conspired to get me there, knowing who else would be there, ahead of time. At least I THINK my parents were in on this. WOW!!!! Brubeck was there!!!! He wasn't the only famous, or nearly famous, jazz artist there. BTW ...my favorite music that evening was Brubeck playing something that was based on a Bach composition. The next day I had a terrible time trying to play what I could remember of Dave's interpretation. I later furnished a recording to him of my earlier 1955 Recital attempts at emulating his style. I was nearly too shy to speak to Brubeck about those Bach improvisations attempts, but did so anyway. The Malibu Cottage, long gone now, was an interesting place. I spent a very satisfying amount of time there, and an especially satisfying weekend with a very sexy woman named Eartha Kitt. I suppose this is what old guys do, reminisce about their younger years. Side note: The late, great, Oak (Orlando Okleshen) & I had many telephone calls, typed letters, & sketches, back & forth about BMW bike repairs, but we also discussed the Railsback effect on piano tuning, and many other things, many years ago. I will bet less than 1% of pro piano players have heard of Railsback. I have no intention of expanding this bio into our many decades-long friendship. There is an article about Oak that I wrote, it's on this website, https://bmwmotorcycletech.info/WHO-WAS-OAK.htm
I have strong tendencies of a classical romanticist.
I am very interested in history, particularly of the USA.
I often wonder about what makes people think and act like they do.
Dave Brubeck died yesterday.
Addendum, Dec. 9th, 2020:
Chuck Yeager died. 97, I think he was. I had met him, back at Pancho's Place, a very long time ago. I was not friendly with him back then, and I was not very interested in airplanes/flying/etc, THEN. His death (yesterday) was notable, but of no big thing for me. Dave Brubeck's death WAS a big deal for me. Maybe I will think differently as time goes on......almost seems sacrilegious to not honor or pay homage to Chuck, here, EH?
I update this long bio now and then. Sometimes I even edit it to reduce the rambling forwards and backwards in time that causes a reader to get confused on dates. More to do, in that regards.
My health has remained much the same, with some deterioration ...more tiredness; more insomnia; some aches and pains ...and, UNpleasant side-effects of my medicines. The corona-virus shutdowns, ETC., affected everyone, but I have remained free of that virus, we've had our vaccinations, five of them, both of us, and I was one of the first to have the 3rd and fourth...and now the fifth. I have been certain that if I got the Covid virus that it would kill me unpleasantly, and over some years of our lives now, much is missing due to the precautions we had to make. The electronics repair business always has a goodly backlog, especially since I try to not work too much....but, I've been able to cut my backlog down, and hoped to be on shorter turn-around by late January 2024; did not happen.
We were part of a travel club, but it went bankrupt. I still attend an occasional TechDay. I am not up to flying commercially to anyplace; nor, long drives to anyplace.
I play the piano a bit, sometimes cook a bit, participate on the Airhead List some, etc. The rear yard has been worked-on by mostly Penny, although I've had my hand/shovel/etc., into it at times when feeling OK. It looks rather nice, even in Winter bleekness. I did not do downhill skiing the 2019-2020 nor 2020-2021 ski seasons. I finally decided that I would never ski (downhill) again; so I gave away all my downhill ski items.
During the Pandemic's initial outbreak in the USA, it was lonely, as we hardly ever visited anyone, and same for them visiting us. We wore masks if going to the market or other stores. We could not allow sons and family to visit, let alone stay here. BUT, now that we have had our Covid shots and public things are vastly less restrictive, we go out more, certainly we feel safe on our walks/hikes/dining.....but, I hate the thought of commercial flying, so we, as a couple, did not attend #2 son's wedding, in October 2021, in Indiana. I am continuing to slowly (rather way too slowly) sell stuff I don't need. Penny flies to Oregon now and then to visit her older sister, and flew to Indianapolis to be at a grand daughter's wedding. I think Penny's older sister might eventually move in with us.
https://bmwmotorcycletech.info/sale.htm Yes, the business is for sale, I badly need to retire.
The end game...last updated...well, checked, on July 11th, 2024:
For those that like details, and don't want to go find the hugely long article I wrote years ago: I had my prostate taken out in 2003, due to prostate cancer. The prostate cancer returned in 2018, at which time I went on Lupron 3 month interval injections. Later, Casodex pills were added. In August 2021 the Casodex was stopped, and I went on Xtandi (capsules), but still on Lupron. I disliked Lupron, due to its very wide systemic effects, besides its primary purpose of lowering of testosterone, which is why I was on Lupron. Lupron has been a first drug of choice for prostate cancer for decades....testosterone feeds prostate cancer. I finally decided I needed to have a deeper chat with my latest Urologist, in which I requested a bilateral orchiectomy ...that surgery was done in November of 2021. That surgery ended any need for Lupron shots, and the final Lupron injection wore off eventually. I have Part D coverage, and, I was getting a grant from a foundation to cover the co-pay of the horribly expensive next-in-line drug for me, Xtandi. The Grant was not renewed for 2023 (the source ran out of grant money). This happened at approximately the same time the Xtandi started to fail, so I went off it. The next drug was Nubeqa, another $$$$ drug, I got that one $$ covered, but it stopped working very well. I am no longer taking it. My Urologist referred me to an Oncologist, who put me on only Lynparza, which took quite awhile to have full effect and to begin to fail, but had some truly uncomfortable side-effects. Glad I could stop taking it. Back onto Xtandi. Super-sensitive bone scans are showing things as reasonable. I expect to continue on Xtandi for quite awhile, will know by the end of August 2024. I began a $$$$$ bone building (well, maintaining) drug, Xgeva, in mid-October, 2023. Talk
about $$$$ !!
I've been wrapping up my life, bit by bit, and may have to accelerate things. Meanwhile, it is very important for me to divest myself of my electronics business, and, same for my Oscar Bucher pottery collection.
Contacting Snowbum (click!)