A Mafia Murder And An Armed Teen

This is the story of "The Teenage Bodyguard." Who? Well, if you haven't already heard about this, in 1974 a teenager protected a murder witness, a woman and cocktail waitress for a week, from the mob, the mafia, from their "Enterprise". And he kept her alive. But did she survive?

Graphic by Kelly Hughes

Welcome to the Pacific Northwest podcast, "Scene of the Crime", who recently did a podcast titled, "Enterprise" (Also, here - podcast currently seems unavailable), in June of 2020. It told of the story of the Tacoma, Washington Carbone crime family who abused local Pierce County law enforcement and government all through the 1970s.

Years later, in 1978 during their San Francisco federal trial of their "Enterprise", they again murdered one of their bouncers who had been subpoenaed. But he was not the first bouncer they had murdered. The first was in 1974, and his name was Danny McCormack.

In the spring of 1974, there is a particular story that is of interest to us here. And that is the story of Gordie. After receiving a phone call from a "friend", he gave a woman who had been staying with the friend, a short ride.

When she got into his car, a 1967 Camaro RS/SS red convertible (two years later this model would be renamed as the Z28 model), she refused to give him an address to where he was taking here.

The first red light, and sign there was something wrong. Instead shea just told him where to turn until they got to her new living space. Her new home was with four people she had just met recently. With no ties at all to her past, or Gordie's friend, or Gordie for that matter.

At this point one might ask, "Why isn't this in theaters yet?" And if you're someone who could see this film produced, surely, say, "Hi!"

Exactly. Even the podcast pointed that out. The Blacklist, indicated that on an evaluation of this film. The Bluecat Screenplay Contest asked that exact question.

The Blacklist: "Since 2005, each December, the Black List releases its annual list, a survey of the most liked unproduced screenplays of that year. The annual lists are aggregated using votes from film executives working in the film industry." From The Blacklist

Bluecat Screenplay Contest: "Founded in 1998 by award-winning writer Gordy Hoffman, BlueCat has remained committed in discovering unknown, gifted screenwriters and showcases their work to a global audience year after year. Through written analysis provided to all entrants, BlueCat has supported thousands of screenwriters with many who have gone on to successful careers in the film and television industry."

Actually, I've been working with Gordie, the protagonist of this story, along with Voyage Media's head of their Originals Department, Robert Mitas. Robert has had screenplays produced himself, and worked producing films with actor and producer, Michael Douglas.
We are currently working to see this screenplay and story produced and into theaters or via another of many viewer platforms. I'd be happy with Netflix or Amazon Prime or others.

Text from Thursday, January 24th, 1974 Tacoma News Tribune article:

Patron kills bouncer at Tiki

The bouncer in a Lakewood night spot was slain early Sunday as he argued with a disgruntled customer in the parking lot.

Danny Derrick McCormick, 25, 3102 S. 47th St., was pronounced dead at Lakewood General Hospital at 2:30a.m.

He was employed by The Tiki, at Villa Plaza.

Sheriff's deputies were told McCormick was shot in the chest by a young white man who earlier had been harrassing a waitress in The Tiki.

After closing at 2AM, the suspect returned to pound on the cabaret door, unsuccessfully demanding to be let in. When McCormick and a friend went to their car, the suspect and a companion drove over and began angrily discussing the Tiki operation.

The suspect pulled a revolver, deputies were told. McCormick's friend grabbed him and told the bouncer to "get the gun."

McCormick was shot as he approached the suspect, who broke away and fled with his companion in their car.

An off-duty school security officer who had left with McCormick but gone to his own car fired a shot at the fleeing car as it sped away.

Mccormick was rushed to the hospital but did not respond to treatment.

It was this murder of a coworker that sparked this whole story. A story that led to a cocktail waitress to go on the run because, as she contended, she was IN that parking lot when Danny was murdered. A murder she said was NOT performed by an anonymous disgruntled patron, but rather by one of the capos of the head of the "Enterprise", John "Handsome Johnny" Carbone himself.

Why isn't this on screen yet somewhere?

Getting a film made is a magical thing. But we continue to work toward seeing this produced so you can see this story for yourself. And maybe, make up your own mind.

Let Me Tell You A Story About Tacoma, WA in 1973

Let me take you back, into my past...to the year 1973. Tacoma, Washington. I was seventeen. Allow me to set the stage...

Myself in Manhattan in 1974

I had graduated at seventeen, got a job, moved out of my parent's house and finally, started my life. Like many teens, I'd been ready to be on my own for years. Though in reality, I wasn't really ready for it. In some ways, I was more ready for it than many adults ever become. In other ways, not so much. I was very adept at problem-solving, at heading toward trouble when necessary, regardless of my personal feelings.

Me on the left fighting in the 1967
Seattle Open International Karate Tournament put on by my Sensei.

I had started martial arts in grade school. I had studied flight ground school. I had studied search and rescue and first responder disaster first aid in an auxiliary of the USAF, the Civil Air Patro. I had been on a private rifle team and then spent three years on my high school rifle team. I had flown small planes.

Me on the left with my high school SCUBA club in 1971

Immediately after high school, I had started sky diving. I already had my SCUBA diving license in tenth grade and performed my first open water, saltwater dive in Puget Sound's waters the same day I took my driver's license written test. In fact, I was sitting in my wet swimming trunks immediately after my open water dive while I took my written exam at my high school, after hours.

I can remember being distracted while taking my driving test by my wet swim trunks under my jeans and if anyone could smell the salt waters of Puget Sound from me while we sat stressing over filling out our test. Still, I passed both tests that day, for SCUBA and for driving.

My 2nd-floor apartment at 17

One day while sitting at my apartment in an old house in Old Town part of Tacoma, a very nice area of manicured lawns and beautiful old houses, I got a phone call that would echo throughout my entire life to today. For purposes of story and filmmaking, we altered things to turn that phone call into a party instead. But it only made the story more interesting and wrapped up several issues quickly and neatly, increasing the tension and decreasing the cost of making the film overall.

That phone call led me to some years ago, to begin writing a new screenplay. I had just been thinking of what story from my past would make an interesting story, one that could be written and filmed and sold and shown in theaters. See, when I left my parent's house in 1973 it was my desire, after a childhood of adventures, to continue on that path to bigger and better adventures, better stories, stories I could one day, as an old man, write and people might want to buy and read, supplementing my retirement.

By this time in about 2013, I had published short horror stories for money. Years before in the 80s I had gotten published in various local computer magazines, those that looked like tiny newspapers or a Nickel want ads format. I'd gotten published in the greater Seattle area and my favorite piece "Cyberspace", about the new internet for people and not just the military and universities, and about workers and managers dealing with the use of the internet at work.

Many managers were freaking out about it...should they fire employees over it? I argued it was little different at the time as over personal use of telephones which once gave managers great concertation and to today, is an issue with employees. Especially considering today the use of cell and smartphones.

So, I reviewed in my mind on that day in 2013, what stories I had that would be best to attempt a biopic of my past life. I reviewed my published stories and my memories. I looked at old photos.  I considered stories from my years in the USAF when I had a secret clearance for working around nuclear weapons. Some interesting stories there and I'm released from talking about my work in the service after twenty-five years had passed. Which they have. I thought about years growing up in the 60s and 70s and even 80s. Lot's of interesting stuff then.

In the 90s and after 2000 I was in IT work, raising my kids and my life had toned down quite a bit. In fact, when my son was about eighteen months old in 1989 I remember driving down the street considering if in now having a child I shouldn't curb my activities and do my best to be there for him growing up. And so that day I truly became a father. Then in 1993 my daughter came about and even more reason to live sane and safe.

Then I remembered something from my past, when I was seventeen. I graduated from high school and moved out of my parents as soon as I could. I got an apartment in an old house and a job where my sister had her first post-high school job, three years prior to me. Then one day I was sitting at home and a friend called me and asked that I give a woman a ride who was staying with him and his roommate. To make a long story short, I gave her a ride and ... the rest of that story seeped back into my mind.

As I ran over that day, that week actually, I realized that may be the story. My most marketable story. A story I had never told anyone. And the more I thought about it the more I couldn't believe I hadn't thought about it sooner.

Because the story was about my staying with a woman for a week until she could leave town. Something about where she had worked, at the Polynesian style Tiki Restaurant in the Tacoma suburb community of Lakewood, Washington. there had been a murder three of the young bouncer there. It was at Tacoma's first topless venue. The bouncer was only twenty-five.

The woman, in about her late twenties, admitted to being where the murder had happened and said that those who committed it believed she saw it. A murder allegedly according to the newspaper and Sheriff's office was by an anonymous patron. But a murder she claimed had been committed by the restaurant owners themselves. Those "owners" were the local mafia. Not like today where you hear about a mafia of a loosely held gang. This was the real mafia.

So I agreed. I would stay with her for that week and keep her out of trouble, away from prying eyes and keep her alive until she could leave town forever for her old home town. It was an interesting week. So I agreed. With myself. That would be the story, the screenplay I would write. One day. Some day. Time passed. Occasionally I would research some on it but never got past that stage.

A few months later I was contacted by an author whom I had written an adaptation of her novel, an espionage romance, to screenplay format. it had been a few years. She said her book been optioned once for a film, but the year had passed and the option expired. Now she had interest from another producer. One in London who wanted to see it. So I contacted him via email.

I ended up sending him a copy of the screenplay. In our emails back and forth he asked me what else i had available. So I sent him a list of my finished screenplays and protected screenplays I was considering writing. I mentioned Gray and Lover The Heart Tales Incident, which had been a semi-finalist in the Circus Road Films screenplay contest. I mentioned a few others: Colorado Lobsters.

And, Popsicle Death, Sarah, and Poor Lord Ritchie the three short stories/screenplays I had included as a part of Gray and Lover and then due to coverage suggesting removing them and let the frame and main part of the screenplay to run free, I  then cut. And to very positive effect in coming close to winning a contest with it. But then I set Gray and Lover aside for this new property.

I included a list of screenplays I was thinking of writing. He latched right onto one and asked to see it first should I ever write it. The name really grabbed him: "The Teenage Bodyguard". I finished writing it in nineteen days and sent it back to him. I never heard back from him on either property. I looked him up later and found he had disappeared from the scene. So I moved on. Continued to research and send out to contests that gave feedback. I honed the screenplay and researched more.

I'll skip the ins and outs of my efforts on this screenplay. However, through my research, I stumbled onto exactly what I had gotten myself into back in 73. The story only continued to get more interesting.

I finally got a producer to work with me just a few months ago and because of that, we have redrafted the screenplay to a smaller and more marketable approach. It's been a learning experience with producer Robert Mitas. A nice guy, interesting and knowledgable guy I've enjoyed working with who is now attached to my project.

Robert has a few irons in the fire, another film in the works similar to mine as it's a true story from a young guy's past and I'm looking forward to seeing it.

I watched his latest film, an adaptation of Shirley Jackson's story, "We Have Always Lived In The Castle". Michael Douglas was an executive producer. I really liked it. Crispin Glover was excellent as always as a quirky character, an uncle.

For my project, our project, we are now looking for a director and have a shortlist we are working off of. I look forward to seeing this project produced because it's an interesting story, a story about a place and time that hasn't received any attention.

Who KNEW there were mafia efforts in Tacoma, Washington in the 1970s? I didn't and I lived through going up against them. I just thought it was a bunch of bad actors at the time. Had I known back then, at seventeen, who they were, would it have made any difference to me at the time? I really don't think so. Here was a frightened and abused woman, who was asking for help and who was I with all the skills at my disposal, to walk away from her. That just wasn't me.

There is much more to this story. You'll be able to watch some of it in "The Teenage Bodyguard" once we get it produced and on screen for people to see. It's a much bigger story than will be on screen and maybe we'll get around to telling more of it in ensuing years. But I believe, as does Robert, that what you'll see when this version, this part of the story gets told, is a very interesting and entertaining film and you won't regret watching it.

Author's Reading at Studio 724 - Port Orchard

Saturday I went to another Author's reading at Studio 724 in Port Orchard. I have written about the Studio 724 Gallery and it's dynamic owner, Louis King before. I've been at a lot of events there this year with more coming.

This time I got to meet a couple of interesting authors and hear them read passages from their works. One I already knew previously (Marshall) but hadn't gotten yet to know his writings. The other was new to me and a very interesting guy with an interesting book, an interesting take on the vampire genre, with more to come.

Today's readings were by Mark Allen and Marshall Miller.

Mark Allen is retired military and has written a vampire book titled Nocturnal. I that book he did not want to follow the trend in vamps being glittery or romantic. Not an easy thing to do now a days to come up with a fresh slant on vamps. His vampire is scary, clinical in his actions and not ever quibbling over his situation, the ethics, the pain of being him.

He knows who he is. He lives how he does. And he's unapologetic about it. He is realistic however and he does cull food with a sense of economy and reality. Some are just not targeted as his food sources, children, the weak, the innocent. But he didn't choose this path out of compassion or ethics. Rather he chooses the dregs of humanity out of a sense of efficiency and his own sense of perfection. not unlike perhaps, a wolf in targeting the easy kill or the choice of what is perhaps inadvertently the best for the herd.

Mark gave an impassioned reading and one felt he truly felt his protagonist deeply. His next book he is already working on will venture into the realm of werewolves, but with, as is Mark's nature, a fresh take on them and their greater endeavors in society. Mark also mentioned that he writes screenplays, has an L.A. agent and has directed an indie film.

Marshall Miller has written a series of books about an alien invasion that is certainly worth a look.I've known Mark for a little while now, through the Studio. He hosts a show on public access with another author, Peter Stockwell, for KLAW (Kitsap Literary Authors and Writers), and Kitsap Publishing based in Poulsbo, WA. They usually air on Saturdays at 6PM PT.

From a description on Writer's in Kitsap County on MeetUp.com:

Kitsap County has a monthly television show filmed at Bremerton public television station by the fairgrounds. Want to get involved? Want to be interviewed? Come by the station every last Tuesday of the month, we take over the station at 2 PM. Come learn how you can help.

Someone coined the phrase for Marshall that his three volume TSCHAAA series (from Kitsap Publishing) as the War and Peace of alien squid invasion novels. Marshall read from his first book, The Gathering Storm. It was a fun and intense section he read of his book.

As his own write up says:

 If you like Sci Fi/Speculative Fiction with Adult Themes that make you THINK; If you like books with exciting and well-developed characters; If you like strong heroes and heroines, unusual but interesting Aliens, and slam bam ACTION that harkens back to the Golden and Silver Age of Pulp Fiction, you’ll LOVE this series.

These were both very interesting authors and we look forward to their next efforts. I also personally look forward to the next author event at Studio 724!


Shameless plug for one of my own books, Death of heaven (video book trailer).

About the production of, The Rapping

We are currently deep into pre-production of Last good Nerve Production's short horror film, The Rapping. Originally intended as a three minute short horror film it is currently around ten minutes and will hopefully be completed under fifteen minutes in length.

Originally we had planned to have as our first narrative horror short film be one titled: The Bremerton Mea Culpa. It is a story I first wrote in college, published in Anthology of Evil and was further expanded in my book, Death of heaven.

I have built a tiny universe of my characters. In reading all of my fiction you at times can find characters from one story popping up elsewhere. So I have decided to build on my written fiction now in my produced films whenever possible. I love when I find characters I like in other places than where I expect to find them. Also some of my stories in books are available as short ebooks or audiobooks.

One example is from my story, Poor Lord Ritchie's Answer to a Question He Knever Knew. And yes I researched it, believe it or not back in that character's era there was indeed a Lord Ritchie. He also pops up in the World of Pirates anthology in a story titled, Breaking on Cave Island. It details a piece of Ritchie's life previous to "Poor Lord Ritchie's Answer..." during a time when he was, of all things, a pirate. I am currently also compiling a sequel, Anthology of Evil II, with some of these stories that were in anthologies. I'm hoping to have that out and available sometime this year.

When the World of Pirates anthology publisher offered to include a story of mine, I decided to use a previous character of mine and Lord Ritchie just seemed an obvious one to expand upon. Odd how these things pop up, altering things, heading you into directions you had never seen coming. Up to that point I had never even considered Ritchie might have been a pirate but it does fill out his background and perhaps explain some of his damage in life (you'd have to read the original to see what I mean). And trust me, his life is pretty damaged. But then, tampering with things one shouldn't bother can affect one in those ways.

Expanding on previous works is pretty much the same with my Mea Culpa Document of London story. That one is about a medieval witch hunter and judge. It too will be added to that overarching compendium of my characters as yet another branch of its own storyline.

So when we finally do get to that project after wrapping up The Rapping, it will already have a rich background to draw from. As the screenplay for Mea Culpa was being written, along with considerations of SFX, it grew, if not out of control, then much larger than we had intended for an initial project. A project that should be selected for its simplicity. But then, I always do tend to go full crazy...regardless.

So it was decided to first film a shorter and easier to shoot production. I've also been practicing writing "smaller" for years now. Consider my first screenplay, Ahriman, involved massive special effects and two planets. Good story though. One I may well update and put back out there to be produced. It has elements of Brainstorm, The 13th Floor and other such films.

Looking around at my writings of what to choose from, as these films were initially going to be drawn from my writings, nothing easy or simple was rising to the surface. As we had easy access to a location, a house with a sizable yard and garage where we can shoot literally any time we want, that was in part how the concept for the first film came up and the Garage Tales series was born.

However while discussing all this with fellow producers Nik and Gordon Hayes, we started to consider the attic in the home. The garage for Garage Tales lent itself to a larger concept. While the attic allowed (in my tiny mind anyway) a much smaller consideration somehow. Even though its square footage might just be greater than the garage. But an attic, well, attics have a built in fear factors. It's the unknown, the seldom gone into. The "what in the hell is that creeping around above us?"

It was right there, in the house. The attic, with its built in spookiness factor. Like basements, but different. Basements tend to be used more after all. So from there we developed a smaller conceit and delivery for our first narrative.

We just needed a story. We came up with the concept of a couple in a living room who hear a sound, seek it out and well, things happen. But what sound? Perhaps just a knocking sound, a tapping, sound a rapping. Why did rapping pop into my head?

Because it was Poe, pure and simple. I've  always been a fan of Edgar Allan Poe, since I was a kid. I was a fan as a child of the Roger Corman films and the British Hammer horror films. I immediately realized I had been thinking about Poe's poem, The Raven. Just the first stanza though:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—

Only this and nothing more.”

And there it was. "The Rapping".

Immediately it was brought up about a conflict with modern Rap music and how it can be confused with that. But that is really just a double entendre. How is that a bad thing, at least in this case? Besides been there before. "JZ" Murdock, right? Not my fault and I'm older than Jay-Z after all.

Originally I was just thinking as executive producer and as screenwriter and editor, of using only the first stanza. But as the project developed I realized I needed to read the entire poem again and consider it in its entirety.

Which made me realize that it is really about grief and a lost love. Not a direction we were headed in. We had built this story with the love, the significant other, right there. The "love" was named Poppet, not Lenore as in the poem. I realized we needed a rewrite. The screenplay had already had some major changes made to it by then but this was much bigger.

I had to rethink that. In fact it stopped me dead in my rewrite. I also had to submit the paperwork to SAG\AFTRA (more about that later). To submit to them as an Indie signatory, I have a few documents to submit. One of which is the screenplay itself. As we now have a SAG\AFTRA actor (more about that later, too), we have to go this route if we wish to use her. The documents we have to initially submit to get the ball rolling are:

-Pre-Production Cast List
-Line-Item Budget
-Copy of the Screenplay (Treatments/Outlines are acceptable for non-scripted projects.)
-Signatory Verification
 Copy of Personal Photo ID (If signing as an Individual)
 Formation Documents (If signing as a Corporation, LLC, etc.)

So I had to have a good version of the screenplay to submit. I already have all the documents signed by the actors. But I was jammed up as there was now a reversal to my (our) original concept. As we have been realizing through this entire project and development, every stoppage like this has led us to a better project.

I took some time off and thought about it over a few days, all the while having it bouncing around in the back of my mind. I took my Harley out for a ride around Port Orchard, which was quite beautiful and a great repast after too many months of cold and rain.

Eventually I got back to it. Sitting down one day with Nik, I told him my problem and we discussed the storyline. It just all started to fall into place. Feeling rejuvenated, I began again to rewrite the screenplay. This time I got it done in one quick sitting. I now have a screenplay I can use to submit all these docs with. As I'm writing this the day before this blog is published, I just need to go over it one more time today and submit it.

Backing up... what have been the issues we've had that kept stopping us? We have brand new equipment, new software for editing the shots, and we've never done a narrative film, just documentary. So we have the experience of building a film, just not a narrative, and one with FX.

The story is of an entity that invades a home and affects the inhabitants. But what kind of an entity is it? Alien, specter (ghost, interdimensional being), demon, military invention, technological horror? What? Is the, are the invaded crazy, on drugs? This is all reflected in the opening establishing shots around Bremerton leading to the home.

Backing up again... Starting on a Friday, I was at the Port Orchard Dragonfly Cinema Film Festival. I had so much fun and got to be in another Kelly Hughes (Leprechaun Productions) horror film. Alison Arngrim (Nellie Oleson in Little House on the Prairie) was also in that film. Last year she had "murdered" me in another Hughes' production. So I knew her a little. I got to hang with Kelly and helped him with Alison over the weekend.

At some point it occurred to me to ask her if she'd like to be involved in our project. But how? She was busy and leaving on Sunday to speak to legislators in Sacramento on Monday. I couldn't let this opportunity pass us by. At the beginning of the film there is a place where the words of the first stanza of The Raven are superimposed on the screen. After a while I'd thought to have someone read those words rather that put them on the screen.

We'd found in a friend of Nik's and mine, Tom Remick, that he used to be a professional announcer. The fix for these words on the screen was obvious. But then Alison came into the scene and this was the obvious and a reasonable possibility of how to get her in the film. As a narrator of the poem I simply couldn't turn down this opportunity. And what actor wouldn't want to be involved in a Poe project?

So I asked her and she was happy to be a part of our project. She said when she was a child she had her mother read Poe to her before bed. Perfect! I spoke with Tom and he was happy to be a team player and understand the importance of having someone like Alison on the project. This led me to consider how to keep Tom on the project. Again it enhanced our project.

Thoughts were that he could do an underlying deeper voice to enhance the oddity of Alison's voice, or have him do some voice work at various places as an audio FX. Or perhaps have Tom read the stanza again at the end of the film. Perhaps having Alison's voice underly his at the end in a reversal of the opening lines. Having text read again at the end as well as the beginning of a film has been done many times before. Reading text at the beginning that when reread at the end, has an enhanced meaning by that point to the audience.

This past weekend I submitted the documents to SAG\AFTRA and have therefore begun the process of becoming a SAG\AFTRA signatory and actually being able to use Alison on this project. It's been a vastly educational project for all of us so far. Not Alison really, as she already has vastly more experience in film than all of us put together do, having started in TV\film back in the late 1960s.

We have now set the official start of the project for early July and need only to submit to SAG\AFTRA. This has already been a rich and rewarding experience.

And I only see more coming. I'll keep you apprised.

Earth Day, April 22, 2015 - My First Earth Day & Bert Thomas, Swimmer and Diver Extraordinaire

Today, is Earth Day! Hurrah Earth!

We really do need to push ourselves and our governments (and other's) to leave things better than when we found them, rather than abusing things for fun and profit. Existence on this planet, IS a profit for us by the way.

We need to do big things as well as the little things to sustain and fix our planet. The biggest thing we can do however is to change our ways of thinking, especially as it relates to big money and governments.

As individuals, we need a paradigm shift in our thoughts about how we live, how our community and country lives and how others live in their countries. The world is a contained unit. It's like we all live in the same room and if someone lights up a cigar, we all suffer for it through their pleasure. If someone does one bad behavior, it does have a ripple effect across the room, or the world.

Like the burning of tropical forests to plant palm trees for palm oil. A hugely destructive and yet, profitable behavior. Insects are dying off, like bees and when they go, they say, we go. Insects after all, do not need us, we need them for survival.

We need to act on climate change whether or not is is affected by our activities as there is great debate among the laymen about that, although there is not among informed people, like scientists. We need to at least think about our planet and our actions. We need at least one day a year to think about it. We need to therefore think about it, at least, on that one day.

Wednesday April 22nd, 2015 - Earth Day

Earth Day is an annual event, celebrated on April 22, on which day events worldwide are held to demonstrate support for environmental protection. It was first celebrated in 1970, and is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network, and celebrated in more than 192 countries each year. - Wikiipedia

It's a day of respect for the planet we live on. I reflect on how we have and are treating it, and to feel gratitude it would deserve just as if it were a person. It's what we humans have to do sometimes, to anthropomorphise things in order to see the degree of respect that we should attribute toward them, for our own benefit.

Here's an interesting web site for today, EarthDay.org, the Earth Day Network. Also, there is BTNW to take a different slant on things..

I first because aware of Earth Day when it was started. I took a NAUI certified SCUBA class that year in 10th grade at and through the Tacoma, Washington Lincoln high school that I was attending, eventually to graduate from in 1973.

I started this blog only about Earth Day but then in the writing of it something became obvious to me and that was that my famous diving instructor, Bert Thomas, seems to have disappeared in history.

Allow me to say that I'm a better person for having known and learned from Mr. Thomas, as is much of the world. As a SCUBA diver and one trained by Bert Thomas, as well as having been a life long resident of such a special place as the Pacific Northwest with it's many waterways, diversity of population and life, and its amazing places to visit on land, I could only grew up with an innate sense of ecology. I also took two quarters of Oceanography in college.

So I'm going to tell you a little story and give you some background. Allow me to explain....

Bill's Boathouse 2013

When I was just starting high school, a local dive shop called Bill's Boathouse located on American Lake in Steilacoom, Washington, wanted to run a trial to train and certify local high school students toward their SCUBA certifications. This would increase awareness of SCUBA diving overall as the infant recreation diving sport that it was, as well as increase sales for the products the dive shop was selling.

Lead by Bert Thomas, world famous for a variety of things such as attempting to be the first to swim the English Channel, and successfully swimming Seattle to Tacoma as well as helping Jacques Cousteau in the development of the aqualung or S.C.U.B.A. system (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) back when Bert was a Navy hard hat deep sea diver.

Bert also swam non-stop from Port Angeles, Washington to Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada and there is now a plaque on Ediz Hook indicating the location he swam away from at Port Angeles..He swam the 18.3 mile distance in 11 hours on his fifth attempt on July 8, 1955, almost two months before I was even born. 1,500 people where there to meet him when he arrived in Victoria, BC.

Port Angeles, WA

Although he had failed in his attempt to be the first person to swim the English Channel, he then not only crossed the channel from Cape Griz Nez, France to Dover, England, he was then "pulled from the water after reaching about midway on the return trip."

May 15, 1956. 

Bert was born in Durango, CO, but called the PNW and Tacoma, Washington his home.He was a Marine drill instructor in San Diego and a platoon sergeant in a demolition unit. Later he was a Navy frogman instructor at Pearl Harbor.

Odd. My first Ishinryu Karate Sensei the also great bear of a man, the great Steve Armstrong was also a Marine DI only in Okinawa. I don't use "great" lightly with either of these men, either. Bert has been described as a "human polar bear" and a "professional cork".

"Description: Tacoma distance swimmer Bert Thomas is embraced by his wife Mary at the end of his swim from West Seattle to Old Tacoma on May 15, 1956. Thomas swam the 18.5 miles in 15 hours, 23 minutes in 40 degree water battered by high winds and the tide. His feet touched the bottom for the first time at 3:05 a.m., 15 feet out from the shore. Visibly exhausted, he staggered in to shore and collapsed in his wife's arms. He appeared ghostly white with blue lips. His wife struggled to get him into his bathrobe to warm up. When he could speak, the ex-frogman's first words were "Man, it was quite a haul." Mrs. Thomas had supported him on the swim, aboard the "Sharon Two." She fed him through a tube every hour and lit the cigarette that he smoked, continuing the swim on his back. Also aboard the craft was his 12 year old daughter Sharon and Erling Bergerson. The other support craft was the "Memories," skippered by George Peterson. (TNT 5-15-1956, p.1) ALBUM 9". - Historylink.org

Oddly, coincidentally enough (considering this blog today), Bert ended his 15.5 hour swim from Faultleroy, Seattle, 18.5 miles on May 14, 1956, at the Tacoma Old Town dock (I'll get back to that in a minute) where there were 5,000 people to meet him.

Having known him personally, he and his wife also got to be friends with my mother and sister, both of whom who were motivated by my achieving my own SCUBA certification in getting their certifications. I can honestly say that Bert was a truly great man to know and be trained by. My NAUI certified SCUBA card was signed by the great Bert Thomas himself. It indicates that I had 41 hours of training and I received my certification in May 1971.

In writing this blog, I found very little record of Bert online (there are however these interesting photos and descriptions I did find). So, I thought I'd go into a little more about him out of respect so at least he will be slightly memorialized in more detail, somewhere.

My SCUBA card signed by Bert Thomas and dated 1970

Bert was a great bear of a guy and a pleasure to be around. When they opened their second dive shop, Philippe Cousteau sent a bouquet of flowers to the shop. The dive instructors were a great bunch of guys and Bert was a real character. As was old Bill, who owned Bill's Boathouse, though he was old even back then when I knew him.

Bert Thomas Obituary, 

Bert's fatal event, as it was explained to me, was in attempting to stop a student surfacing too fast during an open salt water certification dive. A new diver thing to do which can be potentially lethal, as it was for Bert. As one of his students was rushing to the surface, Bert raced up after him to stop him from getting the "bends", also known as decompression sickness, divers' disease, or caisson disease.

Officially, Bert died on Thursday, June 8, 1972, having suffered a heart attack at Tacoma General Hospital. It's been conjectured however by one of his dive instructors, that it was that event with the student that led to his passing. 

The student came to his senses and stopped on his own, but by then Bert had too much momentum and couldn't stop himself from surfacing too quickly himself. He was rushed to the hospital but didn't make it which isn't unusual in this kind of thing.

However, he died doing what he loved, diving and teaching.

Before all this happened, we had started a SCUBA club at my high school.

Lincoln High School Newspaper Oct. 22, 1971

Those teachers in my high school SCUBA class also included Mr. Vincent, my biology teacher who initially didn't want me in his class, kept throwing me out of his class (usually for good reason) and just didn't much like me. But after we had to do ditch and don in he school pool where you have to dive to the pool bottom and ditch your gear, surface, breathe, then dive and don your gear, his attitude about me from that day forward dramatically changed for the better.

Mr. Vincent, Biology Teacher May 1971

He nearly drowned (he thought so anyway, though he was fine aside from a little sputtering) and I was there to help him. Being the fish in water I had always been, I gave him some support and advice and did not make fun of him, but showed him compassion.

The Author (right) on open (saltwater) certification dive May 1971

I had several years of search and rescue experience, being a commander of others in Civil Air Patrol and before that in Karate. Yes, I was a pain in class for a teacher sometimes. But in a real life situation, especially a dangerous one, I was very effective both as a leader and a companion in arms, so to speak.

Diving in 1978 in Hawaii at a vacant Hanauma Bay on O'ahau Island.

Once he saw that side of me, everything changed between us. We never became best buds, but he did have a respect for me from then on that equaled the one I had always had for him, from the beginning.

Over that next year or so the now officially certified students of the first 1970 Lincoln High school graduating SCUBA class, all kept talking. At first we joked that our next effort would have to be sky diving and for some of us, that happened (for me nearly two years later when I was 17, then ended up a parachute rigger in the USAF years later, among other things like working on the B-52 nuclear bomber\weapons platform).

We started the Lincoln High SCUBA Club. One day someone brought up that we needed to do something to raise people's awareness of SCUBA diving and concerns about our planet, conservation, and clean up. Someone mentioned the new Earth Day.

If you lived in Puget Sound, you'd know many of us who grew up here are highly concerned about our environment.

It's like living on a microcosm of an ocean at your front door. We are seafood lovers, nature lovers, mountain climbers and hiker.

Washington state has just about everything here other than tropical environments, though we do have rain forests (I live in one), but we also have deserts, mountains, waterways and so on. You can go to where there is snow, and that same day to a desert, any time of the year.

We kicked around ideas of what kind of event to plan, where, why. We finally decided on cleaning up under the Tacoma Old Town Dock.

Tacoma Old Town Dock History
"Old Town Dock was first built in 1873 and served the shipping industry until trade operations moved to the Tideflats. After that it quickly transitioned into a popular public space. It was closed in 2008 after an engineering study found it to be too weak for pedestrians. After five years and $2.3 million in renovations, it reopened May 15, 2013."

Our thinking was that this dock had been around "forever" and had to have a lot  of junk under it that didn't need to be there. We knew we couldn't even make a dent in it, but it was a statement and figured, wasn't that was Earth Day was all about? To bring things to people's attention and in the course of that, do even a little good?

It was agreed and decided to go forward with it. It occurred to me that without people knowing we were doing it, it wasn't much of a statement. So I mentioned that if we were going to do this, someone needed to get the attention of the media, so people would hear about it in a timely fashion, or at all.

I was designated to find the attention. I wasn't exactly thrilled with that as it seemed a bit daunting for an 11th grader, but I brought it up, so...I got it. I followed through. I called TV stations. No one would bite. I'm still not sure why they found it uninteresting but concepts like Earth Day back there were still thought of by many as just "more hippy crap".

It seemed like an obvious video event to shoot and a good news piece as a human interest story, though admittedly, someone contacting the media wasn't thought about until the last minute and so I was calling mere days before the event.

One TV station suggested newspapers and so I called around from bigger to smaller. Finally I got one to bite who said they''d send a photographer. Success! They were a small publication called the "Tacoma Review (Combined with Tacoma Buyer's Guide)". As they were a weekly newspaper, the publish date is different than the day we were actually diving.

Sure enough, the Tacoma Review photographer showed up.

1972 Tacoma Earth Day Old Tacoma Dock SCUBA clean up

Under the docks we found trash, lots of it but I also found a few antique bottles I kept, some medicine some alcohol but all small at around six inches high. Within a year, I donated them to an older friend of the family, to her husband who had a bottle collection and was old and very ill. He died within a year or so but the bottles had cheered him up. Although I'd love to have those bottles now, I simply cannot feel any  regret in my actions.

LHS SCUBA Club Diver extracting garbage under doc

We also found several bicycles, and more than a few fishing poles. We assumed that people biked to the dock to fish and wind or accident found their transportation and fishing poles in the deep water, lost to them forever.

It was eerie diving under that dock, among the wood pilings encrusted with sea life, barnacles, mussels, sea anemones. That previous Christmas, I had gotten some SCUBA tanks from my parents. Duel 72 cu. in. US Divers brand, black, steel tanks. I could stay down for about an hour around 30-40' with proper and controlled breathing, which takes a little practice (first rule of SCUBA diving: "Stay Calm!" always, breathe slow and easy).

Your humble narrator diving under the  Old Tacoma Dock 1972

When the newspaper came out and I saw the diver with the dual tanks, being the only one in the club with duals, I knew it was me and that I had made the front page! Pretty cool, especially since I called them to come shoot photos of us. I got ride of the gear over the years as it got older but I still have those French, Flotante fins as well as my US Divers Turbo fins (which didn't float) and my wrap around mask, though I haven't been diving in some years.

In the end, this was the end of this event. The few who read the edition of the Tacoma Review with us on the front cover knew about it, but no one called, and I didn't pursue more media attention even though we had made it into a local newspaper. Now I know, I should have followed up, but I was sixteen. The event was Saturday, the newspaper came out on that next Wednesday. And that was the end of it.

After high school graduation the SCUBA club fell apart, or at least, I wasn't around anymore. We had done the Earth Day event. We had done several group dives. And that was it. I'm not even sure if there were other dive classes, but I believe there were until I graduated and I know they had moved into other area high schools to teach, but I don't' know how that all turned out. I know they had expanded to another dive shop and were doing well last I heard around that time.

All of this led to my producing a wood block print (linoleum block actually) of a free diver. Not great but for a 10th grader with no talent for art, not too shabby either. This is the only surviving print of the eight print run in Mr. Thomas' Creative Crafts class.

"Skin Diver" print 8 of 8, May 1971

Now, getting back to the original point of this little jaunt into history back to the beginning of the advent of Earth Day....

We all need to help our most favorite planet, to consider how we relate to it, and how we should act toward it.

It doesn't have to be a large effort, some international committee you set up, or even a small Earth Day SCUBA diving clean up under a dock type of event. It doesn't in fact have to be any kind of event at all as it is more about how we act on a daily basis that most counts. It can merely be in the way you talk to others about the earth and how we treat it. Or in your posting about it, or simply in your altering your habits even a little bit toward the better.

The earth is not unlike having a car when we were teenagers. It may get messy inside that car, after all its yours and you don't have to keep it as clean as your parents car, but eventually and hopefully, we mature to the point that we realize our environment indicates a big part of who we are and how we want to live.

If not taking care of that car leads to a lack of care about more important parts of the car than just the interior, things like the engine or the brakes, then eventually things will start to break down and one day, probably when we most need it, it will simply stop working.

When I think about Earth Day, I can't help but think about my first foray into environmental activism. or about Bert Thomas. Or the waters he swam in to break those records back even before I was born. I think about our Puget Sound waters and how there are places where there is so little oxygen in the waters now that there is nothing living there. I think about the huge ball of plastic the size of Texas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

I think about Japan's failed nuclear plant due not really to a tsunami but due to it's poor design and maintenance of their Fukushima plant, its radioactive materiel still floating around in the Pacific Ocean. I think about coal burning, carbon issues, war zone pollution, the killing off of the Amazon basin's forests. I wonder why we are so bent on killing ourselves, just for more money.

Take a moment this Earth Day to consider your environment, think about our truly amazing world and make a change. Or, two.

It's really not that hard to do and it's really the least we can do.

Not to mention it's really only in our benefit to do so.