Section 4. Sport
The only sport my Dad cared about (at least as an adult) was golf. Mostly playing it, although he took the family to a golf tournament once, I think up in San Francisco, where I saw my favorite player: Gary Player (who always dressed in black). Mom also enjoyed the game, while Ned and I would tag along as well. We started at Hillview Golf Course in eastern San Jose (near the Reid-Hillview Airport), but then switched to Aptos Beach Golf Course (now Seascape Golf Club). This was a much longer day for us, as we had to drive over Highway 17 to get to Santa Cruz and thence to Aptos – but I always enjoyed the drive through the forested hills. And Aptos was a much nicer (and profitable!) place for us kids. When Mom and Dad played a hole, Ned and I would parallel them, scrounging through the rough (which was much more wooded than your average golf course). There we would pick up any lost balls we could find, for which Dad would pay us each a nickel. What a great deal – on a good day, we could earn up to 50 or 75 cents each, while Dad got cheap balls in good condition.
For the rest of us, the only sport was major league baseball. Because we had moved into northern California, my Mom felt it incumbent for us to root for the home team, so she cheered the San Francisco Giants. But because our family originated from southern California, my brother rooted for the Los Angeles Dodgers. I took a different tack altogether – I thought the best players were with the New York Yankees, so I rooted for them. This was in the early 60’s, when Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle were battling it out for the home run record. I liked Mantle a lot, but for some reason Maris rubbed me the wrong way, and I never could cheer for him. And the rest of the team – wow! Whitey Ford pitching, Elston Howard catching, Joe Pepitone, Bobby Richardson, Tony Kubek, Clete Boyer, Tom Tresh: man, what a great lineup. And Ned and I had a great time rooting for each of our teams when they faced off in the 1963 World Series – and although I stood steadfast by my team, I admit I was jealous of the Dodger pitching staff (Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale) and their speedy shortstop Maury Wills who stole bases like crazy. One of the builders Dad knew had season tickets to the Giants, and occasionally he’d give us four tickets, and the family would drive up Highway 101 to Candlestick Park for a game. It was a nice outing for us, but I was disappointed because we’d only see National League teams play the Giants, never my Yankees (since they were in the American League).
Both Ned and I played Little League baseball, at the field on Miles Avenue, sandwiched between Highway 17 and University Avenue. There were six teams then – the best two were the ones sponsored by the Firemen and La Hacienda Inn. The Elks and the Swim & Racquet club were middling teams, while the two bottom dwellers were the Village Printers and the Merchants (it was obvious who most of these sponsors were, but I never did figure out exactly who “The Merchants” were – which merchants? Some amorphous group of shop owners?). Ned was taken by the Elks (head Coach was Emil Zanardi, his son Joe was the assistant coach, and another son Jim played on the team) and while I was too young to play, that team took me on as batboy (#00). So when I came of age two years later, naturally I hoped to play for the Elks as well. But instead I was picked by the Firemen, which was no longer a particularly good team. In contrast, the Elks were then one of the best teams, while Ned turned out to be a pretty good pitcher. On the other hand, I was a terrible player. But because of the league’s policy was to give ALL the kids a chance to play at least part of every game, I was put in right field for two innings (out of a six inning game). Over the course of my 20 game seasons, I had 20 at bats. About half of those times, I was instructed to bunt, and never made it to first base. But during the 10 other times, I got 2 or 3 singles, so if you disregard those times I was to bunt, my batting average was a respectable .200 – .300. The most interesting time was when we played the Elks … and my brother was pitching. At lunch before the game, my Mom told Ned “Now, don’t strike out your brother”, which I thought was GREAT advice, but he failed to act on. Ned had a wicked curve ball back then, which I just could not hit, but at least I went down swinging.
There was one other activity that my brother and I were involved in – a sport that I suspect no one else in the world has ever attempted. We didn’t have a name for it back then, but I have since christened it “Berry dunking”. When walking home from school together, at the corner of Chirco and Corinne Drives we’d come across a pyracantha bush loaded with berries (Fig. 7.4.1). We’d grab a handful and attempt to drop a berry into the rectangular hole of the cement lids of the water meters as we passed by (Fig. 7.4.2). Our only prohibitions were to a) not stand still over the water meter, and b) not bend down low over the meter. This was a very difficult game, and we might get one or two berries in every 50 to 100 attempts. Chances of success decreased with rising wind, and you really needed a “good” berry to have a chance – one that didn’t have any leaflets attached, and was well-formed and solid (late season berries were often shriveled which made them terrible choices). Decades later, I have since taken the sport up again during my walks through our neighborhood, and most recently I got a new high score, something like 3 or 4 in after about 40 attempts. Try and beat that!
Starting in high school, Ned began to get more interested in soccer. Both of us signed up for the team that had been newly organized by Mr. Lallemand; I washed out on Day 2 of tryouts, but at least I lasted one day longer than Ned. Later, his daughter Anne turned out to be a natural player and could have gotten a scholarship to play the sport in college, but she didn’t want to spend all her time on the soccer field, and passed that up. Later Ned & Merryl became big boosters of San Jose’s professional soccer team, the Earthquakes.
I on the other hand had an ingrained problem that kept me from enjoying sports: I wasn’t fond of losing, but on the other hand, I also felt bad for my opponents if they lost, so it was a lose-lose situation for me. And PE was never my favorite class. In junior high one year, they split our PE class into half – one half did archery, and the other wrestling. I got placed in the second one, which I absolutely HATED – I was a terrible wrestler. But I got through it, knowing that I’d later be doing archery, which sounded like a lot of fun to me. Finally the switchover day came: at last I’ll get a chance to try something fun! But instead the teachers pulled a fast one on us, and decided to combine the two halves together, with all the kids again doing … wrestling. What a dirty deal. To this day I’ve never had a bow in my hand.
In high school I was still not into sports, and playing football in PE class was agony for me. I had no special skills, so I was used as a blocker when on offense. But since I was always thin (no fat or muscle) I got real sore when I was hit by the defense charging through the front line. Luckily, I then got moved to fullback position. I still blocked, but it didn’t hurt as much because the front line slowed them down a bit before they’d make contact with me. However, I did decide to try out for two afterschool sports. I already mentioned my luck in soccer, but I did slightly better in JV basketball. Because I was on the tall side, you’d figure I’d have an advantage in basketball, but not so – my competitiveness was virtually nil, and I had zero confidence in my ability to play. I remember playing in only one game (against Westmont), where I went from the role of hero to goat within 5 seconds. I was guarding an opponent who had the ball, when I darted forward and stole the ball and headed down court. But I had no confidence that I could make the shot. So I stopped, with the idea of passing the ball to my teammates as they came up … but I inadvertently took an extra step and was called for travelling, so the ball went right back to Westmont. We lost the game by several scores, so this error of mine didn’t affect the final outcome, but that was it for my school sporting career.
But in my junior year I began to enjoy going to the Friday night home football games, and cheering on a classmate of mine, Vince Pluckebaum (although I think he spent a lot of the time on the bench). For the 70-71 season time our football opponents included a non-conference game against Fremont, and then conference games against Blackford, Branham, Camden, Campbell, Del Mar, Leigh, Prospect, Saratoga and Westmont. We had two rivals, the first of which was Saratoga, the only other school in our school district. Our other rival was Campbell, which game was played on or around Thanksgiving (thus the “Turkey Day Game”) and always included a rally as well (Campbell high school closed down in 1980, and nowadays Los Gatos High plays a totally different set of opponents). I was exceptionally proud of two members from our class of 1971 (Mike Denevi and Auro Milesi), for in the 1969-70 season, they were the two main quarterbacks, even though they were only juniors. But frankly, a more compelling reason to attend was that the lettergirls were stationed at the back top of the bleachers, of which I thought Carole Rose and Jane Stoddard were exceptionally cute.
When I was at Cal, I once attended a single football game, just for the “collegiate” experience. I can’t remember much about it, except it 1) wasn’t a big name opponent, 2) it was dismally overcast, and 3) we lost. So that was it for me and American football for a while. But when I visited the British Isles in 1974, I saw a rugby game on TV there, and was entranced by the flowing action on the pitch – none of that start and stopping emblematic of American football. So when I returned to Cal I attended a rugby game. However, the style of the game here was much more reminiscent of American football, so I gave it up.
That is, until grad school, when Don Dahlsten (my major professor), invited me to a Cal football game. For some reason, that took, and I’ve been an ardent Cal football fan ever since. I also restarted attending Cal’s men’s rugby team, and have faithfully followed them as well. And while Cal’s football team has tended toward the mediocre since the 1980’s, the rugby team has enjoyed an unmatched record of excellence. A collegiate national championship for men’s rugby was started in 1980. In the 43 years since then, Cal has won that title 28 times, and finished in the top four another nine times. And while I celebrate all the victories of the Bears, my favorite moment was in 1998, when I attended the national rugby championship match in San Francisco, where Cal won the title by beating our arch rival, Stanford.
But there was one sport that I really got into as a participant. In my senior year in college (1974-75), I was living in a rooming house, and one day a fellow resident asked if anyone was interested in joinimg him to go over to Marin County where a “New Games” event was being held. One of the attractions was hang gliding, which intrigued me, so I and a couple of others went along and drove across the Bay. Being college students (ie: relatively poor), we ducked into the event area through a gap in the fence, saving us the price of admission. I didn’t participate in any of the activities offered there, nor do I remember seeing anything of interest, but instead we headed straight to where the hang gliding demonstrations were being held. Back then the gliders were “standards” with delta shaped wings (Fig. 7.4.3). These were low performance craft, but were relatively easy to handle, launch, and land. I saw only one glider, when it was coming in for a landing, and was amazed at how easily the pilot brought his glider in very low across the ground, and then simply by pushing his arms forward, tilted the wing until it was almost perpendicular to the ground. That arrested the glider’s forward progress – it rose perhaps a foot or so, and then gently set the pilot down on the ground on his feet. It was simple, effortless, and beautiful. I was hooked. However, back then gliders cost about $400 for a kit, and I had neither the funds nor the time to explore the sport further1.
Now fast forward to July of 1981, when I had a car and a job with the Oakland Post Office, supplying me with both mobility and a decent income. So I finally was able to follow my dream of flight when I signed up for lessons with Chandelle Hang Gliding (staffed by George & Janice Whitehill and Wally Anderson), located on (or near) John Daly Blvd. in Daly City. There was a rating system for pilots, based on ability to do certain tasks and experience (typically measured by number of flights and airtime), that went from Hang I to Hang V. “Hang ones” were rank beginners that had satisfactorily completed a ground school (ie: passed a written test) and had a couple of short flight with no turns, starting from a small hill with a gentle slope (like in Fig. 7.4.4). My ten lesson training package from Chandelle cost $200, and they took us to a variety of training sites: Thornton State Beach (just below Fort Funston), Fort Cronkite in Marin County, the sand dunes at Dillon Beach in Marin County, some field out near Pittsburg in Contra Costa County, and the lower hill at Ed Levin County Park in Milpitas. When I had finished I was rated a Hang II. When training, pilots were supposed to keep a log of every flight, so you could document your experience and air time, which is crucial for attaining a higher rating. I suspect most pilots discontinued logging their flights once they reached the Hang III level, but being the slightly OCD person I am, I continued to log all my flights until I retired from the sport. I progressed to the Hang III level mostly by flying at Ed Levin Park, making linked 180 degree turns, as well as being able to spot land three consecutive times within a 50’ radius. A Hang IV rating would have required more airtime and the ability to make a tighter spot landing, while Hang V’s were for teachers, but I was never interested in progressing beyond a Hang III.
By this point, the old “standards” were obsolete, and the newer gliders could fly higher and faster. In 1982, fresh after completing my training, I bought a black and green 164 Gemini (Fig. 7.4.5) made by UP (Ultralight Products, the “164” is the wing area in feet), a sweet intermediate level glider, that was easy to set up and take down, and great to train on – I named her “Miss Kubelik” in honor of Shirley MacLaine’s role as an elevator operator (elevator operators take one up and down, you see) in the 1960 movie The Apartment. Hang gliding was not a cheap sport to get into. The glider I was interested in cost was the neighborhood of $1500, while my harness went for $150, my helmet $50, and my parachute set me back another $50 or so. And replacing down tubes (the part most commonly broken when one has a hard landing) went for about $20 a pop (and I had to replace several of those). A fellow pilot named Ernie had a side business (Ernies’ Rack-It), and he installed a front rack on my Honda Civic, allowing me to transport the glider from my house. I latter upgraded my harness to something that provided greater comfort and less drag, as well as a better helmet. I also bought a variometer and an altimeter. Varios measure the rate of change of altitude, which is extremely important when flying at inland sites, where you are trying to catch a thermal to circle high, but are not really useful at coastal sites, where the lift is fairly steady. However, I found the altimeter extremely useful, as I was able to determine just how high I was getting above launch. Finally, I also bought a camera mount with a remote shutter switch, and thus was able to install a camera, giving me the opportunity to take midair pictures. Sometimes I mounted the camera centrally (pointed forward), and sometimes on my right wing, pointed back towards me for a selfie (Fig. 7.4.6). Although a sweet glider, eventually I became frustrated by the Gemini’s inability to fly as fast and high as the other gliders around, and in 1984 I upgraded to a higher performance Wills Wings 160 Duck (Fig. 7.4.7), and then in 1999 to a 166 Wills Wing Ultrasport with VG (= variable geometry: a feature that allows the pilot tighten or loosen the sail, depending upon whether they are looking for easier handing or better performance).
My ultimate hang gliding goal was always to get to the Hang III level of proficiency, because then I could launch from the top of Fort Funston, which is not only a scenic place to fly (see photo on home page), but may also be the easiest place in the world to fly. While a lot of inland flying spots require a 4 wheel drive vehicle to get up to the top of a mountain over steep, twisting, dirt roads, Funston is located in the southwest part of San Francisco, near Lake Merced, where the flying is administered by the club Fellow Feathers (https://flyfunston.org). Parking is just a few yards from the set up area, which is then only a few feet from the launch spot. When the winds is moderate, straight in, and smooth (a common condition at Funston), you don’t need to run aggressively to get in the air – just a step of two (derisively called the “Funston two-step” by pilots who fly at other locations) and you are instantly going up (Fig. 7.4.8). Once airborne, pilots can usually effortlessly soar back and forth above the cliff for as long as they want (some limitations being getting hungry, cold, or having to pee). BTW, back in the day, the closest toilets were located a couple of hundred yards away from the setup area. But the setup area was separated from the viewing platform by a dense patch of 8’ tall bushes, and we’d refer to this patch as the “pilot’s lounge”, since one could save himself the long walk over to the port-a-potties and back by ducking into them to relieve oneself. And as the sun sinks late in the day during summer, the wind often smoothes out, and one can enjoy an “evening glass off” at sunset (Fig. 7.4.9).
On an typical day (with a single air mass coming relatively straight in at 10-15 MPH), a pilot can expect to get perhaps 200’ over launch (which itself is about 150’ AMSL), but if the wind was light, or coming in slightly more southerly or northerly, then the lift at the cliffs is reduced, and you can’t get as high. Landings are always at least a little more difficult than launches, but the air just off the ocean is usually more laminar and buoyant than inland sites, and thus landings at Funston are relatively easier as well. And the landing site is right next to the launch site, so a pilot can park their glider while taking a break before their next launch, or have another easy walk back to their vehicle if they are done for the day. And if you tire of soaring the main cliff (a length of a couple of hundred yards), you can turn left and fly south. First you get to the “bowl” that is adjacent to the third hole of the “Cliff Course” of the Olympic Club golf course. And with sufficient altitude you can then continue south past some very low cliffs, until you reach Westlake (a district of Daly City) (Fig. 7.4.10), where the seaside cliffs eventually rise to 600’ over the Pacific. When you fly Westlake, you really feel released from the earth’s pull, as you can get quite high with a lot more room to maneuver compared to the narrow band of lift at Funston (but getting too high in this area could be a legal problem, as the SFO Terminal height restriction for this area begins at 1600’). And if the wind has a southerly component, the tail wind will assist you arriving back over the main Funston site with a LOT of altitude (Fig. 7.4.11), providing one with magnificent vistas of the East Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. But even at Westlake you still need to keep an eye out. One day in 1989 I was just chillin’ out there, maintaining a nice level course over some gorgeous scenery. Then I noticed a hawk some distance above me go into a stoop. I watched it with a little interest, wondering what it was going to attack … when I realized it was coming straight for me and wasn’t slowing down. So I pulled my glider into a steep deep to get away from it. After 5-10 seconds I thought I was clear and leveled out, and instantly afterwards the hawk hit the top of my glider – whump! I immediately left the area and sped back to Funston, fearing the whole time my glider may have been ripped up and I’d have to throw my chute in midair for the first time in my life. But apparently the raptor didn’t have its talons extended, and simply bounced off the top of my wing, because when I examined it there wasn’t a scratch on it. But I paid more attention to my fellow flyers from then on.
And one can even go further south than Westlake. If there is a strong wind with a northerly component, pilots who gain a lot of altitude over Westlake can continue down to Pacifica, about 8 miles from launch. There is a beach there (by an A&W restaurant) where you can land, and if you had made arrangements with someone before leaving Funston, they could come and fetch you back to Funston in a vehicle. But if you were REALLY adventurous, you could fly southwest away from the coast, and head for Pedro Point, where there are more steep cliffs. Once there, it is easy to gain more altitude and make it all the way to the Half Moon Bay airport (this was in the age before cell phones, so getting back to Funston meant finding a pay phone to ask someone for a ride). Well, in November 1984, another pilot and I arrived over Pacifica with about 1,000’ of altitude, and we decided to try for Pedro Point. We left the buoyant air along the coast and struck across open ocean, when I quickly realized that I was losing altitude a lot faster than my companion, who had a better glider. So I waved goodbye and turn around and skedaddled back to Pacifica, while he continued on (he did make it all the way to Half Moon Bay). Meanwhile I satisfied myself with landing at the beach in Pacifica, and as I broke down my glider, I was wondering how I was going to get back. Well, lucky for me, in drove a gal with a pickup truck. She had been at Funston and thinking somebody might need a ride back there, came down on her own initiative. Otherwise I would have had to hitchhike back to my car and then return to Pacifica again to collect my glider.
Funston occasionally gets wind shears, which is when an air mass moving southeast meets another air mass moving northeast right at the cliff. The denser mass remains low, and the lighter mass gets pushed above it, with an area of turbulence at the intersection of the two. If you can penetrate the turbulence, you can get really high. Unfortunately, my Gemini wasn’t up to that, and the one time I used it to get into a shear, I ended up landing on the beach directly below Funston … which meant carrying it 150 feet back up a tough climb. But the Duck had much better penetration than my old Gemini, and one day I successfully got to the top of a shear, about 1300’ AGL. I celebrated by eating at Bill’s Place (the one at Westlake Shopping Center, not the original on Clement) for dinner that night, before driving home.
After my training sessions were completed, my flying was almost exclusively restricted to Funston. However, there were a couple of exceptions. In 1982, Kim McGarrity accompanied me for a weekend trip to the flight park at Dunlap, California (in Fresno County), but the first day it poured rain, so we just came back. Two years later, Carolynn and I drove up to Hull Mountain in Mendocino County (Fig. 7.4.12), where I got a total of two 30-minute flights for the weekend (Carolynn was greatly appreciated by the other pilots, because she could drive the truck back down the mountain to the landing zone, thus freeing another pilot to fly down)2, while in August I had a single 15 minute flight at Slide Mountain (just south of Reno, Nevada). Slide had a tough launch site: you had to step over a 2’ high road railing, where there was barely enough room to stand before starting your launch (Fig. 7.4.13). In 1985, my brand new wife and I moved up to Pullman, in the Palouse area of the eastern border of Washington State, with my glider. I flew only four times up there: a couple of “bunny flights” at the local high school there, a 15 minute flight starting halfway up at St. Joe Baldy, and an hour flight (with ridge lift and thermals) at Tekoa Mountain, landing at an airport two miles downwind (my first and only cross-country flight). Then for her birthday in 1988, I gave Carolynn the gift of a tandem hang gliding flight. After attaining her Hang I, she and I got a ride up to the top (1,750’) launch site at Ed Levin County Park in Milpitas. I launched in my glider first, and then she and her instructor hooked in and launched from a second glider (just like the folks in Figs 7.4.14a and b), and we all enjoyed a sled ride down to the landing site together (she’s the one on the left in Fig 7.4.15). Although she has never evinced any interest in becoming a solo pilot, she did enjoy experiencing what it is like to fly that one time.
But from 2004 through 2009, I only recorded a total of 7 flights, mostly due to the fact that I was devoting as much of my spare time as possible to collecting insects rather than flying. Traffic on the Bay Bridge was also becoming more and more horrendous, and if the wind at Funston was on the light side, I’d find myself debating whether to wait and see if it would pick up, or to leave in order to beat the traffic home. And unlike most other pilots, I never got really dialed into flying – I tended to hold on to the control bar tighter than necessary, and after an afternoon of presumably carefree soaring, I would land to find my muscles quite sore. My flying career ended on April Fools’ Day, 2010. That day I had a single 15 minute flight in strong and turbulent wind, and I ended up landing in a rotor, which led to the breakage of one of my down tubes. I took that as a sign to hang up my wings, and sold my glider and harness. Ultimately my hang gliding career spanned 29 years, and tallied 811 flights with a total air time of 197.25 hours. My worst injury was a twisted ankle suffered during my training period. I have occasionally since considered taking up parasailing, but never followed through. I got very nostalgic when I came across a launch site at Hat Creek Rim in Shasta County during one of my insect collecting trips, and have returned to Fort Funston once or twice to watch the gliders, but now accept my body is no longer up to that activity, and I have become a ground jockey. But I have never regretted for one moment the time I spent airborne.
1 By the way, for those who have never had an explanation of how hang gliding works, here’s a two bit digression. The person is the pilot, and the craft is the hang glider (not hand glider). The pilot wears a harness that is attached to the center point of the underside of the glider – thus the pilot is hanging below the glider (hence the name). More advanced pilots use harnesses that sort of resemble sleeping bags – they are very comfortable to fly in, but are more awkward to deal with when on the ground. That’s why beginners in the sport start off using student harnesses – they don’t provide as much support when you are in the air, but allow much greater freedom of movement to help get you into the air and landing back on the ground (in the 1980 movie Nine to Five, towards the end of the film, the secretaries bind up the manager in one of these student harnesses). The suspended pilot holds on to a triangular control structure – two “down tubes” and a horizontal control bar. By pulling the bar in, the nose drops, and the glider dives and thus speeds up, while pushing the bar away raises the nose of the glider, so it rises a bit and slows down. Turns are initiated simply by speeding up a tad and then moving one’s body to the left or right. Launching is done facing into the wind, and either running down a slope or off a cliff. You maximize your time aloft by flying in an area of rising air – either circling in a heat-generated thermal, or by cruising back and forth over a geographic mass that is deflecting oncoming air upward. You land by flying out of any rising air, and then into a relatively flat area where you can bleed off speed as you fly lower, and then land as noted in the paragraph above.
2 When I started hang gliding the vast majority (well over 95%) of the pilots were guys. By the time I retired, that number had gone down somewhat, but it was still a male-dominated sport. So I found the following entry in the online “HG Glossary” none too surprising, to wit: “Girlfriend: The single greatest threat to a pilot’s airtime, or, hopefully, a driver.”