ArvinAlP64

Hi Sandy, Thanks for being interested in the "old days." You've got three times more jumps than I do and I bet you have better stories than mine too. I'd like to hear some of yours if you care to share; after all, if we can't do that on this site, where else can we do it. To answer your question, I never got to know Gary Young that well and so we didn't keep in touch. The last time I saw Gary was at the twenty year 8-man reunion that Bill Newell put together in 1985. I was roommates with Jim Dann throughout the Arvin and Old River days, even into the "County Dump" period out of Bakersfield Airport so you'd think I'd have more info on Jim than SCR-216 just provided, but that's not the case. I believe MJOSPARKY posted something about Jim a while back. Probably the best source would be Bill Newell since he's the focal point of SCR and I would think he'd be tapped into the "grapevine." I believe Bill's email address is on the SCR site. The last time I saw Jim Dann was in the late-eighties when I organized a Saturday night jam session at Bill Newell's in Bake. Don Henderson and I rode our bikes up from LA. Don brought his baritone ukelele and I had my bongos. We met Jim at the Travelers Restaurant in Greenfield where we used to eat when Arvin was alive. Jim was riding a pan head he was restoring. We went over to Bill's and, if you've ever been to any of Bill's houses, you know he always has a room dedicated to music with a complete sound system and at least eight conga drums. Bill got me hooked on Latin percussion on the first night I ever spent in Arvin, but that's another story. So we get to singing, playing and recording any of the old tunes from the '60s we could remember. Jim was on lead guitar and vocals, Don on baritone uke, Bill on congas and I played bongos. The high point of the evening was when Don performed his "term project" from a college course in songwriting he had recently earned an "A" in. He not only managed to incorporate every single point that his professor had taught about modern songwriting but also conspicuously included them in the lyrics just to make sure that nobody could miss that fact. As you know, Don has a great sense of humor and a dynamite singing voice. I know that Bill recorded it because after Don did it once, I asked him to do it again and made sure that Bill was rolling tape. Thanks again Sandy, Al Paradowski SCR-2

Thanks Miss B., I arrived at Arvin in 1964 with a handfull of jumps. This was a few weeks after the 6-man. Outside of a few casual remarks by Buquor and Stage, Don was the only other person who taught me anything about relative work. One day I asked him a question and he climbed up on a packing table and demonstrated his radical frog and some closing techniques. That was a very generous thing to do at a time and place where you could cut the competitive atmosphere with a knife. A few months later we were in the 8-man together. One time in the late-eighties Don and I were riding motorcycles on Palos Verdes and he pulled over near some cliffs overlooking a tree-lined cove. We walked over to watch the seagulls hanging in the lift. Don told me that he used to come there early in his jumping career to study the gulls for tips on relative work. Later that same day on Palos Verdes, he showed me where the "chickie run" scene from Rebel Without A Cause was filmed. After I showed interest in Dean and the movie, Don took me to the Los Angeles alley where the "Rebel" scenes between Dean and Nataile Wood were done. It turns out Don was hiding on a garage roof, those days in 1955, watching the proceedings and the director had to keep chasing "that kid" away because he was getting in the shots. IIRC Don wound up working for the studios in the "60s. Al Paradowski SCR-2Quote

Goodby Bill. Thanks for everything. Al Paradowski SCR-2

Hi Scratch, I hope you're doing well. Your D981 signatures are all over my logbooks from the old days at Arvin. I've been monitoring this site, curious about where the younger generation is taking the state of the art. Looks like they're doing some fantastic things. Reading about Louie's death has had me feeling low. The first time I saw Louie was when he and Bob Thompson knocked on my door at about two in the morning one night in early '65. I was crashed on the Murphy bed/sofa in the living room of the garage apartment behind Jim Dann's parents' house in Burbank. I knew Louie's name from the six-man. That color cover shot by Buquor was what got me interested in relative work. I think Louie had been down in Texas for a while. Anyway, the three of us spent a couple of hours swapping stories. I mostly listened. I made most of my last jumps with Louie in the early '70s. I stopped logging them but I think this one was at Perris or Oceanside. The rest of the load was Pete Piciollo, Bob Thompson, Deke Dillon and Ron Richards. Louie backlooped out of the six-man but didn't let go of my wrist. The result was him stealing my air while pulling me over to where his French jumQuotep boots were coming up to collide with my face. Those boot hooks did a nasty job on me plus I almost faded to black. I finally got stable and headed for the target. In those days, I'm sure you remember, if you weren't close to the target when you umpacked a cheapo, you'd be going hiking through the thickets in platform boots. Anyway, I was tracking but I couldn't see because my bubble goggles were smashed and getting really bloody. We landed fairly close to each other so I just unbuckled, walked over and said, "Hey Mr. Smooth, where'd you learn that cool trick?" I must have looked pretty bad because he glanced up and his eyes got real big. He said, "Whoa!! Did I do that? Hey man, sorry about that." Needless to say, he bought me a huge steak dinner that evening on our way back to LA. Everyone in the restaurant was staring at the guy with the hamburger face. Hope I didn't ruin any appetites. Louie always felt self-conscious about his last name. Many Polish-American guys do; unless they happen to live on the south side of Chicago. I should know; mine has one more syllable than his. He always wondered what his name meant. He said that the suffix "ski" meant "son of." I asked a college student to research our names. I was told mine meant, "Son of the Silversmith." When I informed Louie, he looked a little envious until I told him that his meant, "Son of the Knight of the Silver Lance." Neither of us did any further checking. Louie and I exchanged numbers at that twenty-year eight-man reunion at the Travelers in Greenfield in '85. As you know, out of respect, Bill Newell had invited a bunch of the earlier RV pioneers too; Don Molitor and Hoolie Olivia, to mention just a couple. I got into motorcycles in the late '80s and rode up to Ridgecrest to visit Louie where he owned a billiards/beer bar called "Partners." Luckily, I had quit drinking in '72. Even though I lost touch with him in recent years, I still felt close, because you knew you could always see him if you got the urge. Now I feel a sense of loss knowing that I can't. Do you know if he'd been sick for quite a while or was this relatively sudden? I just can't picture Louie in a hospital bed. I'm really glad that Deke and Tall Paul were able to be with him. I'll always remember the way I last saw him in the early '90s; laughing and the picture of health from his years of working in the construction business. Regards, Al Paradowski