Like most who grew up to be race fans, we were first dreamer kids. Sports fans, all have the same discussion eventually, who’s best. Best in the game. Best in the league. Best on the team. We all ask it and been asked. We all have our favorites and as we get older, we often learn our favorite and best aren’t the same thing. The answer isn’t nearly as important as the discussion. The discussion is where passion is born.
The work that is done by a racer is far more than the average fan understands. It is more than the learned fan knows. Only from the inside can one start to appreciate the work that goes into success in racing. Unlike most sports, auto racing has many disciplines. Much like assessing the best football player, how does one measure accomplishment between different positions and skills? IF we measure only the number of rings then the discussion regarding best football player ever within a long historied sport with 10,000 players, is one sentence. But for all the numbers, who has the second highest number of rings? Almost no one knows that without google. The discussion is better than a simple sentence.
Among those who have campaigned in US motorsports, there have been many greats among several top-level disciplines. F1, sportscars, WRC, drag racing, MotoGP, NASCAR, sprints, dirt track racing, AMA and AFT, Unlimited Hydroplanes and MotoGP. The list goes on. If we simply measure championships, the list goes down dramatically but also tends to focus on single disciplines. We can compare championships in a single discipline within the sport but then the greatest is again, reduced to a single sentence.
Among the most dominant in a single discipline is John Force with 16 championships at time of this writing. Ricky Carmichael has 14 AMA motocross/supercross championships. Steve Kinser has 20 World of Outlaw Championships. Scott Parker dominates AMA/AFT championships. Other mosts includes three drivers with 7 championships in NASCAR. Four drivers have won the Indy 500 four times. The most US motorsports championships by a single driver I know of is by Jerry Hansen. He has 27. I am willing to bet no one reading this has ever heard of him. But if we are being simply quantitative, he is better than John, Steve, Ricky and those three in NASCAR, by far.
The rub here is, Jerry’s championships are in amateur road racing. Many if not most reading this would now discount his championships against those listed above because he is an amateur. I could also argue, that as an amateur, it is likely he built his own cars, transported them and tuned them over the race weekend. Amateurs largely race alone. But still, honorable mention would likely be the most offered to Jerry in this discussion.
The domination of a single discipline is absolutely masterful. However, that is only a single dimension. Winning is the point of competition. Championships are the culmination of accomplishment. What if a single driver could win championships over more than one discipline, does that make them greater? What about overcoming? What about those who had to work their way up as opposed to those who could throw money at the sport from early on? There are many dimensions, but I have thus far skipped one aspect that must be made clear before anyone can truly be assessed.
What is a racer?
A racer is more than a name on an entry list. Although I have limited racing experience and almost none compared to the men listed above, I have learned that a racer doesn’t stop once they take off the belts. So much of a driver’s success depends on the racer away from the car. The driver can succeed but only if the racer knows how to navigate the sport, sponsors and the politics and prejudices of their chosen disciplines.
When discussing the politics and prejudices, we have to acknowledge that the sport is among the most mainstream white sports in this nation. There are few minorities in auto racing. One could list the number of black drivers in the history of the top divisions of NASCAR on one hand. The same could be said for Indy cars. One could list the number of women in the same on only a few more hands. Indy cars, sports cars, sprints, boats, and motorcycles offer little improvement. Only drag racing has shown significant progress in this realm. It is a multidimension problem that is beyond the scope of this work, but it has to be acknowledged for the simple reason that those who have made progress have had to overcome more to achieve it.
Wendell Scott, Janet Guthery, Lyn St. James, Willy T. Ribbs, Dewey Gatson, and many others I cannot list fully or will come back to have had to work harder to accomplish what they have. A large force on blacks not being involved in American motorsports was the American Automobile Assocation, AAA, who unofficially but very effectively segregated all the racing they sanctioned until 1947. That unofficial policy is sociopolitical and engrained many prejudices for many years after including today. Although Wendell Scott won a NASCAR race back in the days of segregation in a part of the nation where lynching was not unheard of, not another black racer won again in NASCAR’s top divisions until Bubba Wallace, over half a century later. No women have won a top division NASCAR race although 4 have won touring series races.
Danica Patrick deserves a mention here as the only woman to have won an Indy car race. She also had poles in NASCAR and Indy car. She brought major sponsorship with her which was a rarity for women in motorsports and often a limitation. Lyn St. James also brought major sponsorship with her in some seasons of her career, and she raced top tier cars.
These men of color and women in the sport have overcome more than most of us can imagine. One of the things I both love and hate about this sport is the equality of competition. Age, race, education and gender should largely be neutralized in motorsports. A woman will never likely play in the NFL simply due to size. A woman will likely never play in MLB simply due to muscle mass. Motorsports simultaneously offers an equal playing field yet has clearly been unavailable to so many.
An exception to some of the previous three paragraphs are the ladies of NHRA/IHRA drag racing. Shirley Muldowney broke into the sport and took over for a time. There are many stories of her attempts to move up in divisions of drag racing and the gender barriers she faced. I won’t recount the story I know best only because I don’t know the proper details and feel it is one for her to tell but, she overcame sexism enough to take part, and win races and championships. Other ladies followed and women are a force in the NHRA today. Shirley Muldowney has a movie made about her career, but she deserves a better one.
There is also the dimension of what a racer does to succeed or further the sport during or after their career. Drivers have gone into broadcasting just like many sports. Drivers have owned their own team or started others. Motorsports has offered the odd dichotomy of a driver racing directly against drivers they hired, driving for a different team. One of the most storied examples of this is the race where Dale Earnhardt Sr died while racing for Richard Childress. The first two cars in the finishing order drove for Dale Earnhardt Inc. I know of no other sport where this occurs much less with some frequency. This is an example of dimension of racer beyond driver.
When we look further and going back to the amateur racer example, there are many pro racers who designed and built their own cars back when rules permitted such a thing. AJ Foyt and Jim Hall come to mind. Although Jim is one of my favorite racers his contributions are more in design and innovation than wins. As a point of clarity, he was not the first to put a wing on a racecar. He was however the first to truly understand the value of generating downforce. On the other hand, AJ has done far more and has won more races in cars he designed or built, than most pro racers have won at all.
There is also the more tilted dimension of former racer turned owner. There are two men who have turned their love of the sport as a fan and driver into a far more successful career as team owners. Chip Ganassi and Roger Penske have defied the old adage, “The only way to make a small fortune in racing is to start with a big one.” Both of these men built racing empires from largely unsuccessful driving careers. Each recognized their ability or desire to build a team and win through others. Ganassi has won in many disciplines and is arguably one of the very best team owners the broad sport of American motor racing has ever seen. His direct contemporary and direct competitor is Roger Penske.
Penske has gone beyond motorsports and branched out to corporate ownership, series ownership and track ownership. Penske teams designed and built their own cars and won with them, but rarely sold them to others. Penske is likely the second-best known name in this article, but many who know his name may not know he is a racer. Many who know he is a racer, may not know he drove. For a brief moment, Penske was almost an American automaker.
There are those who dominated their discipline like no other, but fall short outside that realm even if they did try out other disciplines.
Hurley Haywood in my opinion is the greatest US endurance racer with 5 Rolex Daytona wins, 3 Le Mans wins and 2 Sebring wins.
John Force in my opinion is the greatest US drag racer with 16 NHRA championships, 1 AHRA Championship as a driver and 22 championships as a drag racing team owner.
Dave Villwock is the winningest unlimited hydroplane racer with 65 wins. Wonderfully, Bill Muncey has 62 and Chip Hanauer has 61.
John Buffum is the winningest US Rally driver I know of with 11 national titles. He is also the only US driver to win a European Rally Championship event. Of note, he also helped bring back and promote the Mt Washington Hill Climb event. He largely was the US Hyundai rally team and had a hand in Subaru’s US effort. This combination of championships, pioneering, advancing the sport through event involvement and taking on the responsibility of managing cars or teams for others is a theme that helps us understand what we are seeking in a label such as, Greatest US Racer.
So to define racer, we must acknowledge that a racer is far more than a driver. A racer wears many hats, not just a helmet. With that in mind, what criteria am I measuring?
Accomplishments as a driver in wins and championships.
The diversity of the skills they have demonstrated as a driver.
Accomplishments beyond that as a driver that have contributed to the sport and expanded it to others.
With those criteria in mind, I set out to consider many racers that have helped shape the sport I love. Unfortunately, none of the racers I came to the sport to watch, are on this list. That isn’t a reflection of their skills as much as the reality that those who inspire, come in every form of the sport and every level. I campaigned for 13 years as a driver, and I had only a few rules. Rule number one was, if a young person wanted sit in my car, I did my best to accommodate. I like to think there is someone with a racecar in their garage right now, because they sat in mine in a paddock, promo event, gas station or restaurant while on the road.
HONORABLE MENTION
Scott Pruett
Soctt has experience in sports cars, NASCAR and Indy Car. His talents were mostly in road racing sportscars. To his name he has 10 professional karting championships, 11 Sportscar championships including IMSA GTO in 1986 and 88, Trans-Am champion 1987, 94 and 03, IMSA GT endurance championship in 1986, and IMSA Grand Am championship in 2004, 08, 10,11, and 12. Along the way he also scored wins at Sebring in 86 and 14, overall Rolex 24 hours of Daytona in 2004, 07, 08, 11 and 13 as well as class winner of Le Mans in 2001. If you are a fan of Scott, make sure you check out his line of children’s books.
John Fitch
John had a good career as a driver, being the first American team and car to win Sebring in 1953, later winning the GT 5000 class at Le Mans. He partnered with some of the best the sport has ever seen including Moss and Fangio and part of a few of the moments in racing history such as having a hand in the innovation of the rolling map used by Moss and Jenkinson for their win in the Mille Miglia and won his own class in that event. He was also the co-driver and first reported as the actual driver in Mercedes’ worst accident in racing history. His racing career is connected to some of storied names and marques such as Briggs Cunningham, Mercedes, Kurtis Kraft, Cooper, Jaguare and Corvette, but his skills were most placed in road racing and primarily in sports cars.
The reason for inclusion in this list is for his after driving career. He managed Lime Rock (one of my favorite courses to race) and put a mind to the safety of both racers and road drivers. He developed many safety features used today both on track and roads including the ubiquitous yellow barrels full of sand at the end of fixed barricades. He also developed the safety cell concept for drivers in cars making a system of components designed to work together to protect the driver. I cannot consider him a greatest racer ever but he stands in the moment of some of the noted events in racing history and his innovations have reportedly saved about 15,000 lives on track and street. For that alone, he had to be mentioned.
Mark Donohue
I am including Mark on this list largely because of his fame and place in US racing history. He had a hand in the sport in a way I highly respect, as both driver and engineer. Like Alan Kulwicki in NASCAR, he approached this sport much like I did at my own level. His resume here is somewhat limited for two reasons. He passed away from a racing accident but few recall he had actually retired before that accident, having been pulled out of retirement by Penske to try F1 racing. Before his retirement, he was nicknamed ‘Dark Monohue’ because his normal upbeat and friendly demeanor had been worked out of him.
His accomplishments include 1966-67 driver for the Ford GT40 team at Le Mans. 1967-68 USRRC champion. 1967-68 Trans-Am class champion Sebring. 1968-69, 71 Trans-Am winner but this is also an era of well documented cheating which can increase his stock as an engineer but diminishes his stock as a driver. That stock as a driver though is still very high. 1972 Indy 500 winner. Driver and developer of Porsche 917-30 including 1973 Can-Am champion. 3 wins in Indy car and 1 NASCAR win.
The theme I notice with Mark other than his near complete affiliation with Roger Penske is that he won quickly in most forms of racing he undertook. He took a hands-on approach and contributed his own ideas in development and set-up. In some of the biggest moments of American glory days of racing, he was near the front. Although very lovable and very skilled he falls short on several of my metrics for greatest American racer. His time was short but intense. His successes and contributions are multidimensional and his career far too brief.
Robby Gordon
Robby is a diverse driver but more importantly is a diverse businessman. Robby has campaigned in all three top divisions of NASCAR, Indy Car, Champ Car and raced at Indy both in his own car and for others. In all those he has a combined 6 wins on both ovals and road courses. During his days in sports cars, he won his class at the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona in 1990, 91, 92, 93 and 94 and three Sebring wins
Robby’s first love and biggest involvement has been off-road racing. He has SCORE Championships in 1986, 87, 88, 89, 90, 96 and 09. Two Stadium Off-Road championships. Baja 500 class wins in 1989, 90 and 05. Baja 1000 wins in 1987, 89 and 06. Robby formed the Stadium Super Truck series in 2012, that has crowned 10 champions to date and took part in the X games in 2014, 15. He has also taken the series international.
As many may not know, he also owns Speed Energy Drinks.
These racers and others have had amazing careers worthy of books or movies. The top of a sport, as mentioned, is an amazing accomplishment. Having the diversity of talent has also already been demonstrated along with being a businessman in the sport, promoting it and profiting from it. If these names don’t make the short list, those on it must have at least these traits.
THE SHORT LIST
Parnelli Jones
I am starting with Parnelli Jones because he is likely the least known on my short list. Like most on my short list his resume is diverse in disciplines and numerous in championships. PJ raced and won in Indy cars, Pikes Peak, Stock cars, Sports cars, and the most famous possibly of them all, Baja. He also managed teams and built cars. He also, like some on the list previously he has been a business owner.
1963 Indy 500 winner. 1963 Pikes Peak Hill Climb winner. 1964 USAC Stock car champion. 1970 Trans-Am champion. 1971-72 Baja 1,000 winner. 1970-71 Indy 500 winning team owner. 1970-72 USAC championship team owner. 1976 SCORE championship team owner. Three-time Tripple Crown car owner. Three seasons as an F1 team owner with little success. Parnelli Jones has also owned at least five companies supplying private and racing car development and parts. Perhaps the most significant contribution outside his own wins and championships is his hand in the development of the Ford DFX engine that powered all Indy 500 winners and USAC/CART champions from 1978-87.
Mr. Jones demonstrated wins and championships as a driver over multiple disciplines. He demonstrated wins and championships as a team owner and with a hand in design over multiple disciplines. He also contributed to the sport as a business owner and took the industry to the people. Perhaps my favorite aspect is his part in the development of an engine that dominated a sport. I knew many of these but not all of these before I started my project.
Carroll Shelby
Shelby is such an icon he doesn’t need a first name to be known. His time in the sport is not as long as his presence in the industry but his time in the sport is impressive. This is one of the men that made me ask the one question this whole work is trying to answer. Where does one lie in the rankings based on the different combinations of your contributions and accomplishments. This is one example where the accomplishments most know and he would likely be most proud of, came after he had to hang up his overalls and helmet.
From 1952 to 1960, he had too many sports cars wins to note but won in MGs, Cadillac-Allards, Aston Martins, Healeys, Ferraris and Mastertis and more. He won at Silverstone, Monza, Sebring, Aintree, Riverside, Giant’s Despair and others of note such as his 1959 win at Le Mans. Shortly after that win he had to step down from driving, or I am sure this list would be much longer, but the car world benefitted from his forced retirement. His Cobra was introduced in 62 and changed how other cars were built. In 1964 those cars were modified to the Daytona Coupe version, ironically finding their greatest success in 1964 with wins in Le Mans and the International Championship for GTs. Shelby racked up Le Mans wins as a team manager for Ford GT program, 1966, 67, 68, 69.
Carroll Shelby is the most iconic name on this list. Even people who do not follow racing know the name and likely connect it to cars. His accomplishments especially at Le Mans as a driver and team owner or manager are American legends and help add legitimacy to the US racing culture. His accomplishments in the seat are impressive but not diverse. Shelby is a master of the road racing sportscar. I feel if he could keep driving, he could have and likely would have mastered others forms as well. But he didn’t. The empire he built, was built on a foundation of racing, but had more legacy in street cars lending his name to Ford, Dodge, SCCA and many others along the way.
Jimmy Johnson
Jimmy Johnson is best known for his ability to turn left but started out not only turning both directions but taking air. Johnson scored 6 combined championships in SCORE, MTEG and SODA racing series before he ever got in a stock car. Once he did get in a stock car, he changed the sport of NASCAR. With 83 wins and 7 championships equaling two of the all-time greats. At the end of that career, he also took on endurance racing and Indy car while also buying into a NASCAR team. He is still racing so his career will have to be reassessed. With the force of his success and brand, he and his wife also started a foundation helping family and children in need, taking the sport to the community in service.
Kenny Roberts
Kenny Roberts would not often make it onto these lists, ONLY because he raced motorcycles. Very much a US product he found success in the states as well as Europe. Starting in the colonies, he was the 1973-74 AMA Gand National Champion in a series that included a diversity of tracks from small dirt tracks to road races. ’74 Trans-Atlantic Trophy winner. In 1978 he became the first American 500cc world champion and finished second in the 250cc Championship. 1979-80 500cc world champion. As a team owner he won a 250CC world Championship in 1990. His team also won the 500cc Championship 1990-92. Roberts did start his own engine building company but it never influenced the industry and seemed to be in step with bad timing.
Much like Jackie Stewart and Niki Lauda in F1, Roberts became a force for safety to be introduced into top level motorcycle racing. Also like Jackie Stewart, he used the threat and force of a driver boycott to demand change and advance the sport. He also brought his dirt track riding style to the road racing courses and changed how road racing motorcycles were ridden to this day, and ushering in a long line of GP world champions that started in dirt track. Roberts also helped fund the USGP at Laguna Seca.
Roberts checks all of the boxes as a winning driver, team owner and advancing the sport mostly in the name of safety. Outside of the motorcycle world, he would rarely be thought of as one of the nations best racers. But I do.
Mario Andretti
The first thing I will point out about Mario is that he is in fact, a US citizen. He became naturalized at the age of 24. Before that age he had mostly raced locally in modified stock cars racking up 21 wins. He worked hard to find a next level ride and found several, eventually becoming Indy Car and Champ car champion in 1965, 66, 69 and 84. Like AJ Foyt, those championships were in era with and without wings. In that Span he also won the Daytona 500 in 1967. 1969 Indy 500 win. 1969 Pikes Peak win. 1974 dirt track champion. 1978 he became F1 world champion, the only one on this list. Sebring wins in 1967, 70, 72. Daytona 24 hour winner in 1972. In 1995 he won his class at Le Mans, second OA. He is the oldest driver to win an Indy car event at age 54. He also set a closed course speed record during qualifying for the Michigan 500 at 234.2 MPH.
Outside of his accomplishments as a driver he has been an ambassador to the sport and sometimes bridging the gap between different US racing series and between US and European series. Mario also helped build a legacy in US motorsports through his sons Michael and Jeff, his nephew John and his grandson Marco.
Andretti is a name that needs no explanation except to possibly identify which Andretti. Mario is racing royalty and would be one racer many other famous racers would want to meet. This goes a long way to greatness. As a driver he has won Championships in sprints, Indy cars, F1 cars and won in sports cars and stock cars. He has been an ambassador to the sport and advanced it.
THE TOP 3
3 AJ Foyt
There are few racers more iconic in American racing than AJ Foyt. I’ll be up front regarding him, I am not a fan of him personally. There are too many things he says that just irk me and his involvement in one of the most saddening moments in racing history is ever present for me, HOWEVER, he has a resume that simply cannot be denied and his place in history is legendary.
1960 USAC sprint champion. USAC/Champ Car champion 1960, 61, 63, 64, 67, 75, and 79. The important aspect of this list is that those wins transcended the engine changing ends of the car and the introduction of wings. Few can claim even wins over that era, much less championships. USAC stock car championships 1968,78, 79. USAC silver crown champion in 1972. Indy 500 winner 1961, 64, 67 and 77. These wins again transcend engine placement and the introduction of wings. Winner of Daytona 500, 24 hours of Le Mans driving 18 of 24 hours, Sebring, 24 hours of Daytona. As a team owner AJ won the 1999 Indy 500 and IRL championships in 1996 and 98.
I respect that AJ Foyt also often built his own cars. AJ worked on them at the track and helped diagnose them as a team owner. He was also single minded to his goals that usually served him well. One of my favorite photos is of AJ and Mario both in dirt cars sliding sideways fully committed. There are few detractors in his career and most of those are due to his passion for his sport.
AJ had championships in Indy cars, stock cars, sprint cars as well as wins in most of the major US motorsports events of course is a 4-time winning driver of the biggest. AJ also won championships as a team owner. AJ ticks all the boxes as a driver and has a better resume as an owner than many.
2 Dan Gurney
There is no list of greatest racers without Dan Gurney. There is no list of greatest US racers without him being among the top. He is one of the three most often mentioned names when the question is asked. When I started this project, I honestly expected him to be in the top position. The reasons are numerous. His career started in sportscars with great success racing among the greats of the day. One of the unique accomplishments Mr. Gurney achieved is his limited yet amazing F1 success. Although he only scored 4 wins and no championships, he is the only US owner, designer, builder, driver to win in F1. It is also one of the most beautiful F1 cars ever, but that has no measure in this scale. As a side, this is where AAR was formed but at that time it stood for Anglo American Racers, having been built in California but based for F1 operations in England.
One week before that beautiful F1 win in 1967, Dan won the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It was the second win for the Shelby run Ford GT40 team. In 1964, Gurney won the GT class in a Shelby Daytona. Outside of Le Mans, Dan won Sebring in 1959. As a team owner, Gurney won 24 Hours of Daytona, Sebring and the Indy 500. The team is credited with 8 championships including 2 in a dominant run in IMSA the likes that has rarely been seen in the sport with 17 straight wins. AAR customers also won an additional 3 Indy 500s and 3 championships. During the AAR days Eagles were entered at the Indy 500 from 1966 to 1986. In that time, Eagles qualified around 150 times making it one of the greatest marques in the history of Indy.
Gurney also contributed to the sport with his famous champaign scene at Le Mans. Every time a winner sprays champagne in victory, it is an echo of that moment. The Gurney flap has surpassed auto racing and can be found in most anything with aerodynamic flow including commercial aircraft. Gurney also is the author of the ‘white paper’. This is credited with the formation of CART moving American open wheel racing from USAC. Some will see this as a loss rather than a gain, but much like those who pioneered safety, the purpose was for those who take the risk, to have a say. It was a huge risk to take. In the theme of risk taking, Gurney was also the first to set a modern time for the cannonball in 1971. He is also the only Presidential candidate (unofficial) on the list.
He may be my favorite racer on this list, and even as this writing I am not sure he and the one driver I rank above him, should not be reversed.
1 Tony Stewart
I was hesitant to have Ton Stewart on this list because he is still building his achievements, so he is not therefore done. However, as a name that keeps coming around in discussions this work is based on, he must be considered, and I was a bit surprised by the result. His driving achievements include National Midget Champion in 1994 and Triple Crown Champion (Silver Crown, Midget and Sprint cars) 1995. As of this writing only one other driver has won the sprint car triple crown. 1997 IRL champion. 2002, 05, 11 NASCAR champion as a driver and 2014 NASCAR champion as an owner. He is still a NASCAR team owner. He also entered sprint car team ownership earning 5 titles, Silver Crown cars earning 6 championships and 8 in World of Outlaws. In a broad departure from his experience, he also owns an NHRA team fielding cars in top fuel, funny car and a top alcohol car for himself. Adding to the intrigue, Tony has won in top alcohol in his fourth outing He also owns Super Modifieds cars.
His greater contributions to the sport include owner of the fabled Eldora Speedway, Paducha Speedway and Macon Speedway. He also founded and owns the Super Star Racing experience. He also started the Tony Stewart foundation helping ill and disabled children, injured animals and injured racers.
Known as a fiery personality especially in his younger years, Tony has won Championships as a driver in three distinctly different disciplines and has competed at a high level in others. As team owner he continues that pattern with even greater numbers. His role as a track and race series owner means he is advancing the sport and preserving it. He appears in commentary roles in NASCAR and occasionally other auto racing events. His foundation is also a reflection of racing serving the greater community.
I chose Tony Stewart as the Greatest US Racer for a few reasons. His resume as a driver is extensive and his diversity is well demonstrated. His passion is evident and came across as it did like any others on this list. His contributions for other drivers as a team owner exceeds most on this list. His ownership and promotion is only exceeded by one. Like Jimmy Johnson, his foundation is a service to the community in the name of the sport, for no gain other than pride. With all that, he only falls short in one aspect that I truly respect which is car building but in this era of spec racing and parts, I’m not sure that is accessible anymore. He is also still going like a few others on this list, so this resume will likely only grow.
WHO TO WATCH
AJ’s resume is among the greatest the sport will ever see. Mario is likely the only to offer an F1 championship for a long time to come and Dan’s accomplishment in F1 will never be matched. Between champagne, family trees and builder drivers that will likely never return to the big stages, these names are written in stone of US racers, but others may come along. Tony in my opinion has a greater resume even if not a bigger name. But greatness is not a name alone. He has done more than 99% of pro racers already. There is no telling how far his interests may go. He is still young so his resume will still grow and likely diversify. Younger still and chasing titles in diverse fields, is Kyle Larson. He already has many dirt track championships and a NASCAR championship along with a Daytona 24-hour win. Next year he is headed to the Indy 500. Although I have no expectations of a win, or likely even a finish in his first outing he may catch the bug and return many times. He is only 30 at the time of this writing, so whose to say how far he can go.
I entered this work expecting the result to be one of the others on the short list. As I researched and looked further and further in depth, racers such as Jones and Roberts surprised me and were compelling. Jimmy Johnson is still growing his portfolio and Michael Andretti stands a small chance of expanding to F1 as a team owner. If I were to do this work in the near future, I may change my mind, but the list did one thing for me that I desired, it taught me more about the US racing scene. There are likely 100 names I could spend a great amount of time researching and enjoying every moment of it.
From my first race in the days of the 6-wheel Tyrrell, to the first day I put on my own fire suit, I have wondered who the best is. In that first day of my indoctrination, the best may have been on the starting grid. In the days of my own entry into my own races, the name likely changed. On this day, I have found my own conclusion. What I look forward to the most, is the next time I try and update this list.
The man known universally as FDR, pictured here in 1936, is the subject of historian Robert Dallek’s Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life.
One of the most infamous days in 20th century history is December 7th, 1941. There has been much written about this day and
much of it speculates on how Japan could have snuck up on the US to execute their sneak attack. There are not only many theories, but many investigations that have looked into the events leading up to that day. Many people have drawn conclusions sometimes with strong evidence, other times only by excluding strong evidence. The passion in this story is palpable. Like many muddied events in history, it snuck into my curiosity.As in my other projects, I sought to answer one question. I answer many questions along the way to find the one, but the one question this project seeks to answer is did FDR allow the events of December 7th, 1941 to happen, namely the attack on Pearl Harbor specifically.
What follows is not my groundbreaking research on the topic as I am a reader, accumulator of knowledge and thinker, not an investigator. In this case, there is no need to be for as I previously stated, this event in history is muddied, but not mysterious. The facts needed to answer the question I pose are already available and easy to find, among all the flotsam and jetsam. Gleaning it out was my task and to my own satisfaction, I did.
What I searched for and essentially found was the ‘who, what, where and how’.
Most of the focus of this day is spent on the couple days before the attacks, and the Japanese code, named Magic. Once it was clear that we had been able to decipher some Japanese transmissions prior to the war, many historians, history buffs and conspiracy theorists made the leap that we knew what was going on and therefore let it happen. Oh, if history and reality were just so simple…
Others note that the fleet carriers were out of Pearl Harbor at the time so we must have known because we made sure they were spared. This is easily disproven as evidence of anything. Most of those who make this claim misidentify identify which carriers were based in Pearl at the time.
Other theories reference that we had radar and either had to know or conveniently made sure they were not looking at the time of the attack. This technology certainly could have made a lot of difference if it were implemented, and the right way.
Another angle I have heard is that there were warning signs that could not be ignored, only ordered to ignored, therefore there must have been a mechanism to make sure the warning signs were ignored. Ignored implies an action. The explanation here is inaction.
The roots of most of the misconception is in how the intelligence and security regarding Pearl harbor was handled. That is where most of the uncomfortable truths lie and where we will find our understanding.
The causes that lead to war are many and long lived. The roots of the war in Europe can be found in the Versailles Treaty. The roots of the war in the Pacific can be found in the Washington Naval Treaty. Each of these turned out to be tools of perceived, or real, oppression.
Like Germany, the symptoms of war with Japan can be traced back far in time before the first shots were fired. For an in-depth study of the reasons that Japan attacked the US, go here https://5280nup.wordpress.com/2022/02/21/why-japan-attacked/
The attacks were a disaster and sent the nation reeling. It was not just a men and machinery disaster but one of intelligence and coordination. I’ll quote Henry Clausen, “With a modicum of intelligence and enough business acumen to run a small cigar store, the disaster at Pearl Harbor could have been avoided.” Notice he said disaster, not war or likely even the attack.
Skipping past the causes of the war in The Pacific, the causes of the failure at Pearl Harbor are several. Like most airplane crashes, military failures do not occur due to one reason, but many. We’ll go through the ones most often sited. We will address the intelligence systems last as they are the most complex. The simplest is the machinery of the event.
Radar:
Radar was likely the invention for WWII. It was not unique to any nation and all significant combatants had some form of it. By December 7th, England had already won the Battle of Brittian due largely to radar so it was well understood and had been expertly deployed and exploited during the war already. This was not the case in Hawaii. In Hawaii what we had was a loose collection of new equipment that few understood, and no one was deploying effectively. We had mobile units which could have been a game changer. Instead, most were parked and the few that were deployed had new operators who had little to no training. This was less a concern to the fact that they were only operational a few hours a day, maybe. But there was still a bigger problem in the scenery of radar deployment in Hawaii.
Ironically, one was operational on the morning in question and detected the Japanese forces flying in. The new operators saw the mass of planes coming. They also followed procedure and called it in. No one answered. When someone did call back, it was not an expert on either Navy or Air Corps planes or flights, but the flight was logically and even if not expertly identified as a flight of B17s coming in from the mainland. There was a flight of B17s coming in from the mainland due that morning.
The radar units were new. Most were not yet deployed. Most operators were barely or not at all trained and most importantly, there was no staff to report findings to that could process the intelligence, assess it and disseminate it to, anyone. The system was being sat on, not deployed, expertly or not. Most units were not operational. If they were there was no system for identification of anything detected and no system to disseminate that information if deemed to be a threat.
The point being, Radar offered no defense and was barely able to have done so the way it had been deployed to that date. It was unfortunately, a testimony against a system we will explore further on.
The Carriers:
The carriers in the Pacific were few. The USS Enterprise CV6 was supposed to be back in Pearl that morning from ferrying planes to Wake Island and did arrive later that day. There was no mystery to why it was not there on schedule. Weather slowed the carrier group, so they were late. They would have been arriving that morning otherwise and likely been a victim of the attack.
The Lexington CV2 was ferrying planes to Midway when the attack started. This was scheduled well in advance of the attack and it takes considerable effort to load the carrier and sortie the group. The mission was canceled when word of the attack got to them and the carrier group turned back to Pearl.
USS Saratoga CV3 was almost in San Diego on December 7th, after finishing service in Bremerton Wahington. It had been in Bremerton since before the Japanese fleet left Japan.
Thats it. That was the entire front line carrier fleet in the Pacific at the time. In order for this to be evidence of the theory FDR allowed the attack to happen by making sure our most valuable Pacific assets were out of harm’s way, several things would have to be known. The date and exact time of the Pearl harbor attack would have had to have been known, at least several days in advance. That is impossible as we shall see. Another fact is that FDR would have to have somehow understood that the weapon of the future that would be the center of the war in The Pacific would be the carrier. Notice the numbers of the carriers. CV2,3 and 6.
We had only built 7 carriers to that date. Six were in service as carriers and one had been demoted to float plane tender.
The act of war that showed the future of the carrier, was the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7th 1941. We had no prior proof that carriers could carry an attack alone. They were seen as defensive ships to protect what was known to be the most important ships in the sea, the Battleships. These were called Capital Ships. Until they were largely sitting on the bottom of Pearl Harbor, and because they were, the US learned on that day that the most dangerous weapon of war in the Pacific would be carriers.
The one counter to the claim that we didn’t yet understand the value of the carrier is that 9 Essex class carriers were ordered before December 7th. By contrast, after the order was placed for the Essex class carriers, there was also 5 South Dakota class battleships, 6 Iowa class battleships and 5 Montana class battleships under construction or ordered. Each of these cost more than the Essex class carriers. The orders placed prior to or soon after the start of the war in The Pacific, reflects far more investment in battleships than carriers. These were in addition to 15 already existing battleships. There really is no evidence that FDR or anyone of power in the US, understood that the carriers would be the weapon system of choice in The Pacific so the fact the carriers were not there on December 7th, was pure happenstance. Wven the Japanese were spending far more money on the largest battleships ever put to sea, than on the carriers they used to start the carrier war.
The Codes:
This is the biggest piece of evidence conspiracy theorists and some investigators use to claim that we let the attack happen. We were reading the Japanese code, so we had to know since we were ‘listening in’.
No
Notice the heading is ‘codes’. Plural. What we had broken fairly effectively was the Japanese diplomatic code. This was the code used to communicate between Japanese consulates and the home island. These codes transmitted messages as benign as housekeeping information and as powerful as the 14-part declaration of war. What they didn’t transmit mostly because they were not known to diplomats was Japanese Navy planning and deployments. Diplomats were not, and are still not privy to this information. Frankly they didn’t need it. The breaking of this code was not a view into Japanese Naval operations.
The Naval code was known as JN-25. The code was extensive and complex covering more than 32,000 words. This code was where and how information was passed between Japanese Navy ships and Japanese operational bases and the home island. What was not done, was to layout attack plans and timelines in code in a broadcast. These were done in planning rooms among those involved with the attack, just as any other nation did then and does now.
When a fleet sails, they have their orders in writing and notification is not needed. When a fleet sails, they literally have orders signed as a binding document. These orders are not transmitted unless there is a need to change them. Once sailed, a fleet did not communicate by radio more than necessary, if at all.
The massive attack on the allied bases in The Pacific were planned well before the fleets sailed. Any updates to the orders could be transmitted after the fleet left port, but the fleet would not answer. Even if we could not read their mail, radio locators could locate a fleet transmitting in return. What would be transmitted by the home island is not detailed plans or timelines but updates on weather possibly or if the plan were canceled. Nothing broadcast would be of value when seeking the details of the mission, and in fact unless absolutely necessary, would say nothing at all.
Once the fleets left home waters, they would enter the expanse of the largest ocean on earth and we were not scouting it. Once they left, we could only find them by luck, if we were looking. We weren’t. We didn’t.
Notice I said fleets. This is when we get into some inconvenient details for conspirators and skewed historians. There were several fleets that sailed into The Pacific for attacks on the allies. We tend to think of Peal Harbor as a standalone event and this is pathetically and insultingly wrong.
Pearl Harbor was only one of several locations attacked on December 7th. The opening attacks on the allies was broad and undefensible. Within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese also attacked Midway Island, Wake Island, Guam, Malaya, Thailand, Shanghai, and the Philippines.
The Wake defenders held out without resupply or hope. There was no hope of US forces helping them. In the end, the casualties tell the story. 120 US service men killed, 49 wounded. 2 were classified MIA. The soldiers did what determined soldiers do, they held out until supplies were exhausted including all 12 of their attack aircraft. 433 men were taken prisoner along with 1,104 civilians. The Japanese killed 103 of the POWs. Another 97 died in captivity, most being POWs for the rest of the war.
The Wake Island defenders exacted 1,253 causalities. They heavily damaged a light cruiser and sunk 2 destroyers. That is almost 10-1 in casualty ratio for an isolated group of men who knew in the end the only hope was to make the cost so high, the Japanese would give up. The men of Wake drew the first major blood in the war in the Pacific. These men endured and fought like hell and are almost always overlooked and forgotten.
The Philippines was an even bigger disaster and dwarfs Pearl Harbor. By the end, the allies lost 25,000 combatants dead, 21,000 wounded and 100,000 POWs. The soldiers and civilians fought a retreat until pinned without any hope of rescue. They were not just American soldiers. They were not just men. A contingent of American nurses were taken POW and rode out the war, enduring hell and tried to care for those they were held prisoner with. Nurses to the core. Nurses till the end. This purgatory went on for years.
When we think of December 7th, we think of Pearl Harbor for two reasons. The loss of capital ships was the core of the Japanese attack. The loss was massive but not nearly as bad as it could have been. The oil pens were not attacked, nor the drydocks. The subs were largely left alone and they took the battle to the Japanese in the opening months. There were only a few ships that were damaged that did not return to the war, with age being the determining factor as much as damage.
The second reason we think of Pearl Harbor when we remember December 7th is as simple and petty as many of the causes of the US not knowing the attack was coming. The largest battle of the opening days of the War with Japan, happened on December 8th, but at almost the same time as Pearl Harbor since The Philippines is over the date line. All of the previous listed locations were part of the opening day attack by Japan
When we consider the code that we had broken, there was information taken from that code that was valuable. That information actually did provide us with a broad warning of the coming of war. The aforementioned 14-part diplomatic message that was sent to the Japanese consulate was translated by the US faster than by the Japanese consulate in DC. Much is made of the fact that the 14 part message notifying the US that Japan was severing diplomatic relations was delivered after the attack on Pearl Harbor. (thus being s sneak attack, otherwise it would just be an attack) However, US intelligence in DC already had it translated before midnight Washington DC time, December 6th.
For many, this is the AH-HAH moment. We had the information almost a half a day before the attack on Pearl so it had to be a set-up. Let’s look at a few factors here. Who is the ‘we’ and what was the ‘information’.
The diplomatic message severed relations. It did not state that an attack was eminent. It did not state where that attack would be. It did not offer any insight to the attack on Pearl harbor. It was however, a warning that could have and should have warned our Pacific bases that a state of war now existed and to act accordingly. So then, why didn’t they?
On December 7th, the US had a fairly large intelligence gathering system. It had Naval Intelligence, Army Intelligence, Philipine Intelligence, Australian Intelligence to a degree but we were not in the war yet so they did not share anything we didn’t have to know. The same is true with British Intelligence. We also had the FBI in Honolulu and oddly even Hawaii Police. (not yet called Hawaii 50) So with all this going for us, what the hell failed if it was not FDR that caused the problem?
There is a lot of blame to go around, in Washington, Hawaii and Manila, with the Army, the Navy and the State Department and War Department. What follows is the who, what, where and how, and some of the why. This list of who and what is to blame is also not complete as there has to be many more players in the dysfunctional cast of characters than can be named or would be of value to list.
The reality is that there was no system for disseminating the intelligence gathered by the different agencies and entities listed above. There was no one clearing house of information. There was no one address all fed their intelligence to, to have that agency send the intelligence to those that needed to know. There was no agency in charge. In one case, there was no efficient means to transmit any intelligence from DC to Hawaii or back. There was also no cohesive system of who can know about the intelligence gathered from the breaking of the code, because the fact the code was broken was top secret and not all top staff in the intelligence groups had clearance to know about the breaking of the code. In short, there was no system of intelligence in the US military on December 7th, 1941.
That, is both the reason for the sneak attack’s success and simultaneously, the best defense of FDR from accusations of him conspiring to allow the attack so the US would enter the war he so desperately felt we should have already been in. I’ll return to this later.
As mentioned, there were many entities gathering intelligence. Several locations of Army and Navy personnel were intercepting and decoding Japanese diplomatic transmissions. Other agencies were monitoring phone and mail communications. Often, the Navy was breaking the same transmissions in Hawaii and Washington DC, at the same time. Although this was useful for validating the translations, it was a poor allocation of manpower. The reason these two offices were operating in simultaneous roles, was that they were competitive with one another rather than complimentary. The leaders of each office did not like or trust the leader of the other. Time and manpower was lost due to egos.
The Army was also code breaking but they were less overlapping in labor. The Army and Navy were alternating primary responsibility for code interception and translation on alternating days. This was a horrible allocation of responsibility and created a lot of inefficiencies.
So, we have competing decoding staff in two different offices on the other side of the world from one another and competing agencies sharing responsibility on alternating days. We also have to communicate between those offices on the other side of the world. Back then, this meant telegrams. This meant telegrams in code. This meant that we had to have our own communications be reliable after we had done the work to intercept and decode the Japanese transmissions. The Navy had a fairly reliable but inefficient system for doing so. It could take hours to transmit a message, much less messenger it to its final destination.
Type the message desired to be sent from DC to Hawaii. Courier that message from the office where it was written to the office it would be coded. Then code that message in the correct code. Courier that message to the office to be transmitted. Add that code to the pile of outgoing radio transmissions headed towards Hawaii. The weather has to be favorable, or at least not disruptive. Once transmitted, it then had to be send my courier to the office on the other end where it would be decoded. Then couriered to the proper recipient office. That was one message. That was also a good day for doing this task. That was also, the Navy way.
The Army had less advanced transmission abilities because the competing offices did not share the same equipment. On some days, such as some of the days leading up to December 7th, the coded message would be taken to Western Union and transmitted by them. This added the steps of coureurs on either end, taking the same message to be sent or delivered to and from the Army intelligence facility to the civilian world and back through security.
Either of these methods took hours, not minutes and certainly not seconds like today.
This was the setting of intelligence gathering by our two branches of military leading up to, and well after December 7th. We can add to it the offices in the Philippines and Australia and what the British or Dutch wanted to share of their own. This doesn’t include the FBI in Honolulu and the Honolulu police as well.
As mentioned above, there was no one address where all such information was sent to be evaluated, connected to one another and then disseminated to those who needed to know, filtered by who of those who needed to know, had the clearance to know. It is too easy to be critical looking back with a modern lense. There is also much valid criticism.
In the few days leading up to the attack, transmissions between Japan and their consulate in DC were intercepted and decoded. Although we didn’t know it at the time, no matter the Army or Navy, we were decoding their transmissions faster than they were. One of those messages referenced a coming attack that would be indicated to the consulates in numerous allied locations and DC by a conventional Japanese radio transmission regarding weather and wind. the direction of the wind in this fake weather transmission would indicate where the coming attack took place.
This sent a few assumptions in motion. It was clear that Japan was planning on attacking somewhere. It was also clear that it was sooner rather than later. What it did not offer was insight to where since the nature of the messages directly reflected that there were numerous possibilities. It also demonstrates that the diplomats had no prior knowledge of the location or time, only that an attack was likely coming. It also set in motion an attention to Japanese radio transmissions, military and civilian that was intensive. Looking for that ‘winds’ transmission took time and resources. It never came.
As we know today, there was an attack coming. At the time of the message regarding the coming ‘winds’ transmission, the Japanese fleet had already sailed. Other than calling off the attacks, there was no further discussion and the die had been cast, without the diplomats knowing more than what they were being told by their own military.
One of the most important things to consider when deciding if the US knew an attack was coming, which is the premise of the FDR conspiracy, we have to consider what we did know, and when. FDR had no way of knowing any more details, as the information known at the time, is known today.
There was another directive from Japan to its consulates in allied cities to burn all their code books except one and destroy all but one of their code machines but one. This went on and was witnessed in several cities. This was known by the US both from decodes and direct witnessing of the acts.
Not long before the 7th, Japan sent the first 13 parts of the 14-part message, and the US decoded it. When considered, even by FDR and his advisor, they knew it was building up to war. The 14th part did not arrive until late on December 6th. It was decoded on December 6th by the US.
The 14th part of that transmission although decoded on the 6th by US intelligence, was not delivered to the War Department, State Department and head of the Army and Navy until the morning of the 7th. The reason for the delay, was that one man decided it was too late and did not want to wake anyone at midnight. Hawaii was 5 hours behind DC. That decision to not wake anyone in DC was made at 7pm Hawaii time, December 6th.
All of this leads to only one conclusion, war was coming, and it would include at least the nations already allied against Axis forces in Europe. To that point, the allied forces in the Pacific had been largely left out of the war in Europe. It would be fair to assume that since consulates in DC and Honolulu were burning codes and code machines, the attack could come against the Americans. But again, there was no evidence of where or when.
It is easy to say, with so many signs that war was coming and likely with the Americans, why not prepare? That is a fair question. Unfortunately, the answer is uncomfortable.
Even with the fractured and scattered information, why were there no scout planes sent from Hawaii or neighboring outposts like Wake and Midway? There is no sign that the order, either by Navy or Army command was even considered. No command was given in the Philippines by General MacArthur. With the information that war was likely coming to the Americans, it is perplexing if not negligent that there was no effort made by either the Army or Navy to post sentries. If the order had been given, I would not be writing this paper and the war in the Pacific would have been very different. The war would have started regardless, but it didn’t have to start the way it did.
The Army commander in Hawaii at the time, did not like his command. His duty was clear, but his interest in it by most accounts was lacking. There were also charges of the General being unfamiliar with and disinterested in the complexities of his command. By most accounts, he was ill suited to the post. No efforts were made to increase a state of preparedness for enemy attack by General Short.
Admiral Kimmell was the Navy commander. Most reports describe him as more capable than Short but there is a lot of criticism for his command as well. Like Short, he made no efforts to increase the navy’s state of readiness. They both had access to intelligence that war was coming. The only question is how much they had. Both had been warned by the War Department to make ready for Japanese aggression. Neither put any significant action to that order. What came out later was that both Short and Kimmell claimed they had no actionable intelligence to demand significant preparation. Even if that claim were true, they had orders. There is no sign either put action to the order.
In the early morning of December 7th at Pearl Harbor, the USS Ward was a destroyer operating in the Pearl Harbor defensive zone protecting the mouth of Pearl Harbor. With the help of a ship towing a gunnery target into Pearl, the USS Ward spotted and opened fire on a sub trying to follow the ship towing the target into the harbor. It reported that it spotted and hit a sub. That information could have correctly sounded the alarm. Instead, this was dismissed because it was the first command for the commander of the USS Ward. Decades later, a mini sub was dredged up close to where it was reported with the exact damage reported by the USS Ward. The young officer in his first command was right. He also arguably fired the first shots of the US war in the Pacific.
His information should have sounded the alarm.
Also, on the morning of December 7th, one of the very few radar stations happened to be on when the Japanese planes were approaching Pearl Harbor. They appropriately detected the mass of planes. They appropriately sent that information up the chain of command. And as mentioned, there it died for lack of coordination, organization and initiative. That information could have sounded an alarm. Instead, it was dismissed by a lieutenant alone in an office with little sleep and no one to tell it to. The men in the radar station who had almost no training were right.
Their information should have sounded the alarm.
These were the indicators on the morning of the attack. There had been orders from the War Department. There had been reports of code books being burned at the Japanese consulate in Hawaii by the FBI. Twelve hours before these events, the 14th part of the message had been decoded by the Americans in DC. Given all of this information, what was the state of readiness of the US forces in Hawaii in on that morning?
American planes were not ready for an attack but secured from sabotage by being clustered in tight groups easily guarded. If the threat was coming from the island in the form of spies and saboteurs, this would be the appropriate defense, but the Army had no information that the threat was from within the islands. This defense posture was worse than no defensive posture at all.
That guarding against sabotage extended to ammunition. The Army’s antiaircraft guns were not equipped with easily accessible ammunition. It was locked away and under guard. There are accounts of Navy gunners opening fire in the first wave of attack by the Japanese. I could find none of Army gunners opening fire. That doesn’t mean there were none. Nor does it mean that it was the fault of gunners, but the defense condition ordered by General Short.
The ships of Pearl as we know were tightly clustered and tied up. There was no effort to spread any ships by putting some to sea to act as a picket line or to scatter them. The Navy was asleep at anchor on Sunday morning in Pearl Harbor. This was the state that Admiral Kimmell had dictated.
As mentioned, the information was there to understand an attack was coming. The idea that all who were burdened by the mantle of command had that information is a question that can defend or conspire against the sneak attack analysis. As mentioned, the decoding was done by both the Army and Navy on alternating days. They both had at least parts of the picture and there was those in DC at least, that had most of the information available well ahead of time. There were some who had all the information available. No one in Hawaii did. There were offices in Hawaii that had a lot of the information, but the Army and Navy hardly communicated. There were no liaisons. There was no central agency for intelligence staffed by both that could monitor, prioritize and disseminate the information they had. The information was scattered and fractured behind egos and nonsensical clearances.
The lines of communication between DC and Hawaii were unreliable and at best, slow. If the goal were to suddenly take the initial 13-part message and eventual 14th part very seriously, there was no mechanism for those in combined command to know and coordinate a response or plan. The communication between any single source in Washington DC and any other single source in Hawaii was slow. It is clear that those who needed to know, had no mechanism to know all they needed to know, were not communicating or coordinating with the other command, and showed little to no ability to effectively command their posts.
There is no other way to describe the command and intelligence gathering and dissemination in regard to the Pacific at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack as anything other than dysfunctional and ineffective.
So how does all this prove that FDR did not knowingly let the attack on Pearl harbor happen to push the US into a war that he wanted to enter?
With no reliable communication, no single point of coordination or dissemination in Hawaii or Washington DC and no clear timeline or map point to indicate where and when the coming attack would arrive, there was no way to issue any order to not defend against an attack. If FDR was to secretly issue a command to stand aside and let the Japanese attack, he had no means to issue such a command. He would be a fool to do so since there was no way such a command could be hidden and history or the newspapers the next day would have openly branded him with no need for conspiracies.
The reality is that the pre-war condition of American intelligence and military command in Hawaii was pathetic. It wasn’t that systems broke down; it was that the systems were barely or never built. The United States had only been inching out of a isolationist stance with no real respect for the threat even though a large war was already under way in Europe and China. The war in Europe had erupted over two years before. The war in China had been building for over 4 years. Germany had already invaded the Soviet Union. Millions had already died in a building world war. The US arrogantly or ignorantly assumed geography isolated them from war and they could pick and choose if, when and where they would enter the war.
The 14-part message answered the if. Japan was about to decide the where and when for the US. There need not be a conspiracy by FDR to make sure the American people and Congress would change their minds and support entering the war. The simplest explanations are provided by Occam. The attack, no matter how devastating, was coming anyhow. Being attacked by the Japanese even if they only attacked Wake Island, would have constituted war. The 14th part of the message was a Defacto declaration of war, so no attack was even needed. If that 14th part was not clear, the actual plain language declaration ran in Japanese newspapers on the same day of the attack. The American consulate was witness to that newsprint declaration.
The theory is that FDR let the Japanese attack the US military installations on December 7th in order to enter the war in Europe is most directly and simply countered by the reality that the attack did not enter the US into the war in Europe. On December 8th in Washington DC, Frankin Delano Roosevelt stood before the complete congress and declared a state of war with Japan already existed. Only Japan. The US, its President, and Congress did not declare or enter the war in Europe as a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, Midway Island, Guam, Malaya, Thailand, Shanghai, and the Philippines. It wasn’t until December 11th that a state of war would exist between the US and the remaining Axis powers in Europe. It was on that day that Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.
There was no conspiracy because no conspiracy was needed or could have been executed due to decisions made years to hours before the attack.
As a side note of trivia, it is the lack of any organization to manage intelligence that lead to the Pearl Harbor attack being unknown to the US prior, that led to the formation of the CIA.
Sources:
And I Was There, Edwin T Layton USN
Pacific Crucible, Ian W Toll
Pearl Harbor Final Judgement, Henry Clauson and Bruce Lee
This is, to the best of my ability, the history of Colorado 4×4 Rescue and Recovery through my perspective. I was there at almost the beginning so much of the history I am going to provide is from my own perspective. As luck would have it, I was involved in most of the major events in the early years, so I know firsthand, or knew of the events second hand as they happened. There is a less personal history here https://www.co4x4rnr.org/history/ but it is not as complete, nor does it cover all the years I have written as there were problems getting the later years uploaded. I wrote the history on the org website to put down how the organization I am so proud of come to be. This accounting is my more personal experience in that history.
The first thing I want all to understand is although there are similar groups today, there is only one similar one that predates us, Wessex 4×4 Response in England. There were smaller 4×4 operations attached to Search and Rescue organizations, but we invented this format. No other organization I know of works in the same conditions or as prolifically as we have. Many people lent a hand, big and small and Colorado 4×4 Rescue and Recovery only exists due to many who have made it possible.
It is also important for readers to know that I write this not for the organization, but for myself as this was some of the best years of my life, with some of the most important people in my life and some of the most important work of my life. I was and am blessed to be a part of this organization. If it ends one day, I will have my years in the org as some of my most coveted memories.
I’ll try and highlight the people and steps that made us who we are. I apologize if I forget someone while trying to tell the story, there have been many contributors. At the request of Eric Ross, former president of CO4x4RnR, I am going to be as accurate as I can, good or bad, this is who we are and how we became in my opinion, the most professional and prolific 4×4 search and recovery group in the world.
The original inspiration for the group came when Craig (CJ) Lehman had heard about an off-roader who had to leave his rig on Red Cone Pass near Montezuma, CO due to a mechanical issue. When the gentleman returned the next day, it had been vandalized. CJ saw a need and understood that the off-road community is full of good people willing to use their rigs and time to help anyone in need. He was right, and that vision is why we are here.
Although CO4x4RnR is registered as a Search and Rescue origination, most of the missions are about vehicle recovery, not just person recovery. The reality struck us that for each broken, stuck or lost rig in the back country, a traditional SnR foot, ATV or Side by Side team would have to go find and extract the persons involved. The vehicle would remain as traditional SnR teams are not equipped to do that and 99% of tow companies won’t. Those that do, usually quote bills in the $1,000s, and even $10,000s. Each time a traditional SnR team goes in to recover people in a stranded vehicle, another mission for someone is required. CO4x4RnR combines the person and vehicle recovery into one mission usually.
There are three kinds of missions: Vehicle recovery. Person extraction where the persons are removed but the vehicle is left to be recovered during better conditions or Search and Rescue missions where vehicles can assist or complete a mission.
AS WITH ALL SEARCH AND RESCUE TEAMS, CO4X4RNR OPERATES ON DONATIONS, PLEASE DONATE ON THEIR HOME PAGE TO SUPPORT THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO VOLUNTEER THEIR TIME TO FILL THESE MISSIONS. https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/co4x4rnr?locale.x=en_US
On August 20, 2014 CJ started our original (no longer operational) Facebook page now searchable as Colorado 4×4 Rescue and Recovery Prior Dispatch Page. It was a Good Samaritan self-dispatching page. At first, anyone was able to post and ask for help. People would respond much as we do now, but the page was public with no active administration. As an example of how that worked then, you can follow Houston Area Off-Road Recovery page on Facebook now. They currently use a similar operational model as us then.
The recoveries in those days were … scary. There was little organization, no training, no real rules and it WAS the Wild West. For my own first recovery, sometime around Jan 2015, I responded on my own to private land. I pulled out a diesel dually F350 that was framed out in mud. I did a double line pull with steel line that Matt Balazs from Ontrail Training https://www.facebook.com/ontrailtraining/ still uses as a teaching example of compromised line that should not be used, while I was tethered to a fence post of unknown origin or condition. In short, although I was successful, I broke every rule Matt Balazs from OnTrail Training has since taught us. This was a typical recovery for us back then and is done every day among average off-roaders.
Back then the informal format of the page and the way it operated on its own, promoted the informal nature of our recoveries. There was no real planning, no rig requirements and you usually had no idea who we were teaming up with. For me, I limited some of the variables by often working with the same people on recoveries. It was fun and loose, and I was mostly in it for the thrill and as a logical next step in my off-roading. I had trained and led off-roaders and helped form a club. I brought that experience, just like all others in the org, to the org.
The first level of control we added was to add administrators. CJ was trying to do it all and it became too much to monitor by one person. Initially, the admins were simply asked to approve posts before they went public, eliminating the spam and banter, focusing the page on official posts only.
The admins eventually processed requests asking for specifics and trying to eliminate non-off road based recoveries. This is also when we started suggesting types of rigs and equipment in the actual posts. This was still fast and loose compared to what we refined over time and now have, but it was a huge step forward. There was a core of about 5 of us that did most of the work behind the scenes and about 10 that did most of the actual recoveries in those days.
The admins then were called that simply because they had administrator access to the Facebook page. This was essentially the core of the group and the admins defaulted as those who ran the group. Some of them stayed with the group for a long time and became far more involved like Matt Radder, Dan Arkulary, Talbot Wolaver and myself. Others like Jaquie Sparks, Bridget Buchan, Cody Daig and Troy Mynes, as well as others I cannot recall did amazing work but eventually moved on, having left it better for their time, determination and passion.
May 2016 is when we had our first major recovery. To that point it had mostly been simple off-trail pulls. This was different. Today it would still be a small challenge but not nearly as much as it was then. A Grand Cherokee rolled on Middle St. Vrain and landed on its driver’s door on wet ground. About 12 of us responded (I oddly had just come off the trail) and managed to recover it that night. It was a MAJOR growth point for us. We had never handled such a complex recovery and we learned many lessons that night. It was also the first time we used Ham radios to support a recovery. That’s when Jim Dixon emerged from behind the scenes and started becoming a resource for comms and eventually initial training.
One of the most memorable moments of the recovery is when we had several drunk off-roaders approach the team and complain that we had the trail blocked and they wanted to wheel. CJ was on the ham radio and was able to reach Jim Dixon who was on his base station at home. It was pre-arranged that Jim would state on the radio he would relay the report of drunk drivers to the Forst Service and County Sheriff. This was played out in ear shot of the drunk drivers. When they overheard the conversation, they high tailed it out of there. Dan and I high fived one another and a voice came over the radio from Jim, ‘did it work’? Yes Jim, yes it did and although that was a way of managing a crowd issue, in reality it set in motion a slow boil about the value of ham radios in off roading. This isn’t the last time this would pay out in similar fashion.
Middle St. Vrain Trail. Our first roll over recovery.
The first couple years of the organization, then appropriately called a group, was a wild and fun time to be sure. The page grew fast with followers eventually peaking out over 2,000. We had spectators there from around the world and inside some offices and companies we got to know much better.
2016 was a watershed year for the organization. I won’t follow a chronological path as much as a path of influence highlighting events that led to the parts of the organization still present today.
In Spring of 2016, our administrators (previous name for dispatchers) were contacted by a mother from Woodland Park who was concerned about her two sons who had gone into the back country just before a spring storm rolled in. The storm had dropped over a foot of snow and her kids were overdue. Because she wasn’t exactly sure where they had gone, a traditional foot-based search was not an effective option at that time. She was desperate for help.
A team of administrators brainstormed and came up with a way to approach the problem from our skill set. Information was gathered and they identified the most likely roads the boys would have taken into the back country, prioritizing the ones less traveled. A plan was developing and a team was formed through back channels, seeking our most skilled volunteers and capable rigs for deep snow conditions.
The plan was to find the truck the boys had driven. This location would then be given to the sheriff so foot based SnR teams could start a search from that point. Equipped with a plan that included prioritizing roads and a base command to send in vehicle teams as they arrived, CO4x4RnR’s first search operation was fielded. Matt Radder and CJ headed up this operation, Matt having come off a 3rd shift as a mechanic for UPS. Ham comms were used in limited applications and CBs were depended upon between team members.
Although it took several hours and many teams coming in and out as available, the boys were found. They had found a cabin to overnight in, likely saving fingers and toes if not their lives. They were ill equipped for the storm that had hit. I was not there but was helping coordinate on-line and make calls. This felt surreal and like we were ill equipped to be so lucky. We were successful and we knew we were on the cusp of something bigger.
Although a success, this mission started a discussion and progression that eventually led to the requirement of a 72 hour bag for all team members. It also advanced the discussion that eventually led to ham radios being a standard on recoveries for tracking and base communications that were both lacking.
This was our first action that drew the attention of the TV press and CJ Lehman was drafted into reluctant service as the press representative for a TV interview. I at the time, had done several interviews for other groups so I coached CJ from afar not able to leave work. CJ did a much better job than he felt he did but he decided this was not something he wanted to continue doing, even on behalf of the group he founded.
Soon after this operation and the press that followed, we received our second request for 4×4 SnR help. A similar scenario was playing out in Southern Colorado; two boys, a storm and a family desperate for help. Again, the same plan was put in place but there were many more roads to cover. Five teams of two rigs each mobilized to drive south from Denver as a pair of administrators created a much larger search grid.
I had several members who were meeting me at my house, and we planned to meet up with a group on the south side of Denver and caravan down together as a team. One member had a contact with the state patrol who volunteered to meet up with the caravan and escort the group as far as they could. The weight of the mission started to set in as travel time was significant and the storm was bigger than the previous one. The time was also pressing as temps were going to plummet that night.
This operation never got going as the sheriff in the area of the lost boys heard of our involvement and called us off, threatening to arrest us if we entered his county. (I won’t name the county) Ironically, the charge we were threatened with was interfering with a rescue operation that never actually took place. Although disappointed we would not be going south; we chose to protect our members from legal issues. I was ready to depart when we were stood down, literally loading food into my rig with my traveling companions pulled up in front of my house when the call came.
The outcome was unfortunate as one of the boys walked out the next morning, his brother having succumb to the elements during the night. They had been on one of the roads our admins listed as top priority. This left a scar on the members of the team that persists today. I am still angered by this outcome, knowing that we had a plan that may have supported a different outcome. We lost one of the admins due to the weight of it all. It became obvious we would need to develop relationships with law enforcement and SnR teams if we were to be able to help save lives, building on our skills we were already developing. (good or bad, the Sheriff was voted out soon after)
2016 was also the time we started seeing some mild landmark events such as the first time a team executed two recoveries in the same day on separate calls. We also for the first time experienced team members calling a recovery off due to weather, making it clear that the team in the field had ultimate control, and administrators were in a support role once the team was fielded. I was part of both of those teams as I was doing a great deal of the missions then. This was also when we started seeing the value of scheduling recoveries, rather than burning out members with immediate call-outs even when not an emergency. Although those seem obvious today, these were learning edges for the org.
Lower road, Argentine Pass
Along the way that year we also started seeking specific team members with specific skill sets we wanted on recoveries. This was very basic, but it set the stage for skills training and team building in the future. It became clear that we wanted to raise the level of all response team members, rather than depend on and eventually burn out specific members for certain roles.
We knew that certain rigs would be needed for many recoveries and this would exclude others but we wanted to make all the members as skilled as possible, to raise the level of skill, regardless of vehicle. This was also when we started seeking ride-alongs for members who had desire to help but not always the vehicle to go on the mission.
We identified that recovery skills training was needed and wanted by our recovery volunteers. Unfortunately, off-road recovery skills were not an affordable or common area of training available to the public then.
Jim Dixon was tapped to start that process through Colorado 4×4 Basics. A small number of us attended a one-day training up north, teaching the basics of safety but mostly showing us how much we as members and a group we needed to learn. Upon completion of the training, it was clear we needed a comprehensive training program for all our volunteers. Protection of our volunteers started coming to the front and the wild west days of recoveries were soon to end.
Another watershed event that happened that year was that CJ and Matt Radder met Matt Balazs at the Expedition Colorado event. Although this was not the start of a training relationship, it was the start of a professional and developmental relationship. We had much to do before we would be organized enough for Matt Balazs to step in. The relationship that started that day though, was one of the most influential and important in the organization’s history.
The events of 2016 made it clear that protection of our volunteers needed to become paramount. In the first response community, the first priority is the safety of the individual team member, second is your teammates, third is the requesting party. We learned that we could only serve the public by first protecting our volunteers. The best ways to do that, was skills training and to become a non-profit.
Perhaps the most comprehensive change that started that year, due to the SnR deployments and the growing sense that we were on the cusp of something big, was the need to become prepared and organized. We had no idea how hard that would be and no idea how far reaching that process would go. It also meant technology would come to the front, sometimes too much, but it also became where we grew the most and defined our operations.
CJ and Matt Radder did a lot of behind the scenes research and developed a plan for where we should go, and what model to try and follow and adapt to our form. That research started before the first BOD meeting. The die was cast that a lot of work would be needed to get to where the organization could start to stabilize.
By then we were averaging close to 100 missions a year and we were starting to understand that we had to become organized since we were already in demand. There was no formula to follow, nor other teams we could ask for advice. We would have to invent the organization from the ground up.
Yankee Hill
As the early years of Colorado 4×4 Rescue and Recovery had been characterized by fast growth and expanding roles, the next step would be about graduation from a Good Samaritan group to a non-profit organization. We had already reached a point of averaging over a call-out a week, rivaling the busiest SnR teams in the state and more active than many. The only logical next step was to become a 501(c)3 non-profit. This meant there needed to be a Board of Directors.
The Search and Rescue roles we had been asked to fill showed that there was need for further organization and a formal structure was necessary. This meant By-Laws and Policy and Procedure. This also meant that we needed money.
Although we had accepted donations in the early days it was often in the form of the requesting party paying for gas for the volunteers; usually none. There had been no formal banking plan but the formation of a charity would obviously demand one.
When CJ looked for those he wanted to be on the first board of directors, he looked both to those who were invested and active recovery members, as well as those who had specific skills that would be needed. He contacted several of us to meet with him so five of us met for coffee at the Starbucks in Northfield. The hand picked group was told what the purpose of the meeting was and we set about defining what would become the organization today.
Part of the meeting was a presentation of the reasons for forming a c3 charity. This was chosen to both encourage donations but also put us on the same legal footing as traditional SnR teams we hoped to work with. It also importantly offered the volunteers a level of protection, the BOD being the main focus of the organization if legal issues arose.
What was clear, was that we would need to fill the required roles of BOD members in order to become a Non-Profit. The original BOD consisted of five members.
Craig (CJ) Lehman – President
Matt Radder – Vice President
Talbot Wolaver – Secretary
Dan Arkulary – Treasurer.
Todd Doc Bunger – Public Relations
Ironically, three of the BoD members were among the leaders in the field taking the most calls, Matt R, Talbot W, and myself.
CJ and Matt had been running most of the group to that point so their titles only formalized their roles they were already filling very well. Dan was an active recovery member when he wasn’t helping to run a bank so he was the natural choice for treasurer. I had press experience so I was asked to fill the role that was more intended to be PIO, than PR, but I felt that we would need to grow through affiliations and out reach would be needed. Although Talbot was reluctant to fill the role of Secretary, I was happy to have him on-board since he was also my frequent recovery partner.
During the meeting, we discussed what we hoped to see the organization do in the future in order to set goals for ourselves. CJ was adamant that the organization progress to a point that we had actual members and member only recoveries to raise the level of skill on all teams. Matt was determined to build off the Search and Rescue role we had filled, having been on both teams and in field in Woodland Park. I wanted us to become partners with the Sheriffs, SnR teams, and USFS offices, developing professional associations for co-deployment and mutual support.
In order to file for the Non-Profit, we needed money. The only way to raise the needed money was for the original BOD members to give money to the org, not yet a charity. $600 came from most of the BOD members to cover the filing cost. This is where the initial $150 membership dues came from, the same that was donated by the founding members.
We identified that there were many steps ahead of us to get where we wanted to go. With input from Jim Dixon, Matt Radder largely wrote our original By-Laws. I wrote most of our original Policy and Procedure and Dan took on the 501(c)3 filing. We knew we would have to have members and training in place before we could secure insurance, but we had no idea how to do that at that point.
In order to start the paperwork, we also needed to choose a name. Although the name we all know was what the group had always been known as, we could change the FB page easily but changing the org name after filing was not as simple. We discussed options and although it was a bit cumbersome, we already had a strong reputation as CO4x4RnR, so we chose to stick with it.
We set some procedures at that time and also limits. The montra, ‘we fill the gap between a commercial tow company and Search and Rescue’, was defined in that meeting. It was also needed to market us to other first response organizations.
We felt we needed to start marketing ourselves which would require money. We needed the tools of marketing such as a canopy, business cards and a website but one thing we could use that was free, was a catch phrase. All faces looked at me as the newly minted PR guy and out came, “We Recover the Rockies”. It was voted on and approved.
Although there were many things we knew we needed, the immediate issues of the day had been identified. Late in the day as the coffee ran low, we sat back and wondered if we were killing the group by trying to step up to become a non-profit, or if we had taken the first step towards establishing a whole new type of emergency response organization.
Dan handled the 501(c)3 filing on his own. It was only found out later that he also took on some additional costs to push it through. He never accepted the check from the org when those expenses were found out. Talbot only remained a BOD member a couple months, finding it was not for him but he remained an active and depended upon recovery volunteer for months to come.
From that meeting came the core of the organization for the foreseeable years. Others would come in and fill roles that lasted years.
What we didn’t know then, was the amount of growth and the hours of work that would come with it.
To that time, we had had some impressive recoveries and some crazy ones. Matt R and Dan A went on a recovery, Dan still in the more formal attire of a bank manager and recovered a vehicle near Woodland Park. While they finished the recovery it became apparent there was something burning. The requesting party (RP) had started a campfire while waiting for help and left it unattended. When Dan looked to the scene, the fire had spread to a 20-30 foot ring. Dan put the fire out in his rather formal clothes using a pulaski fire tool he had from his wildland fire fighter days.
We had another mission I was added to late as it became clear there was a second vehicle on scene being driven by a man who was rather inebriated. He was not part of the requesting party but was stuck behind them on trail. I was sent to manage the drunk party. The recovery went well, and we coordinated with the Sheriff office letting them know where we would leave the trail, since the drunk driver was along with us as we escorted the RP out. Managing the party was an unexpected challenge but offered the org an opportunity to show that we would involve the sheriff dept when needed. Deputies met us at the trail head and did a masterful job of appearing as if they happened upon us and found the drunk driver by happenstance.
Although some of the more casual and memorable missions came early, what followed was some of the most important work any of us had done to that point, understanding that if we fulfilled the visions we had developed, the org would stand alone as a pioneer and leader. We figured it would take a lot of time to build the organization, but we underestimated. In reality it took close to 2,000 hours a year from each of the early BOD members, including going on recoveries. Burn out was the biggest risk, often exacting its toll. The BOD would see turn over, original members stepping out and new ones bringing their enthusiasm with them to new roles.
McClellan town site, Argentine Pass
Much of the second half of 2016 was the BOD waiting to hear that we had been approved for the 501(c)3 filing or would have to raise money to resubmit. The BOD held off on announcing the progress until we had met that milestone, wanting to assure the volunteers that that hurdle had been cleared and we were advancing. Meanwhile, we set about formalizing the structure and visions we had laid out in the original meeting.
The winds of change started blowing right after the first BOD meeting. The BOD met every month as we set up a bank account and developed plans for taking the informal Facebook page people only had to follow, to a legitimate first response organization. We wanted insurance, closed membership that included training, membership in honored organizations that would put us in touch with other organizations we hoped to support and become a leader in the field. The problem was, no one had done it before, in a 4×4 based organization.
This truly was a challenging time for us. With no model to follow, we had to invent and guess on the path forward. Not only did we not have a model to follow, but no one outside the Colorado 4×4 world knew or understood our mission until we explained it. We also met skepticism, anger, and mocking as we tried to formalize what had once been a ‘if you cannot recover yourself you don’t deserve to be there’ mentality. Although we agreed that preparation and training would prevent most issues we would be called for, the influx of outsiders to Colorado demanded our mission. For the first several years, fully 50% of all the vehicles we recovered had out of state tags or 30-day tags.
I started researching on-line and found several similar ideas around the globe. There is Wessex 4×4 Response in England, and King County SnR in Washington has a 4×4 division. There are professional organizations in the Southwest as well as Australia and there were informal groups like our original group scattered about. Nothing other than King County and Wessex was close to what we wanted to become.
On August 8th, 2016 the now well-known phone number went live through Google voice and business cards were printed. This would ring several BOD members’ phones as well as the administrator’s (original names for dispatchers) phones. At that time, there was a lot of overlap in administrators and BOD. There was a small group of about 7 people, doing 90% of the work in those days including many of the recoveries.
In September, it was formally announced that a BOD had been established and that we had officially become a 501(c)3 non profit. We also made known our vision for the future, outlining goals and timelines as well as required steps to reach them. This was received both with excitement and groans. The future was becoming more formal and professional so the Wild West days were officially ending. This was hard for some volunteers to take but others saw the vision and wanted to be a part of it.
This official announcement freed up the org to start reaching out to the emergency management community. After a day of wheeling on my home trail, Argentine Pass, I stopped in the Clear Creek Sheriff Department to meet the Sheriff there. I sat down with a reluctant but curious Sheriff Albers to introduce him to the org. I was honest about our progress as well as our aspirations and our limitations. He was intrigued, but wisely, also leery. It was probably best that at the time, I didn’t know Sheriff Albers was one of the most respected and senior Sheriffs in the state.
The Good-Samaritan Facebook nature of the org at that time was a clear concern. The last thing any first responder needs is cowboys in the field of Emergency response. At the end of the discussion, he was happy to know about us and asked that I personally text him when we sent a team into his county, and when they were clear again.
This was a major step forward for the organization as we realized the Sheriff was both in support of our ideas and efforts, but wanted to monitor us to make sure we were responsible. We knew we needed to up our game and accelerate our timeline. A potential major advocate in the field was now paying close attention. I had no idea of the growth that was coming so I had no idea how often I would be texting Sheriff Albers at times that made me cringe.
In November we received a call in the middle of the business day for a seemingly normal recovery. When the team deployed to recover the vehicle, no one anticipated the lessons we would soon learn. Matt Radder led a team near the top of Argentine Pass where a Toyota had slid off the side of the trail. This was a normal, ‘side-off’ recovery but it had a new twist for us, it was above tree-line and next to a snow bank, limiting trail access. The meeting of Matt Balazs allowed us to borrow a new tool for us, a Pull-Pal. With the tool in hand(s), the team set out.
The recovery was normal until a buzz started in the afternoon among the administrators. Derek Gustafson had become our weather watcher and he could see a major storm headed for the team, but they were not in cell range. No one could warn them of the storm headed at them, coming from behind the ridge. Ham radios were not standard at that time and as we learned later, this was not only a cell hole but a ham hole.
I had just gotten off work and I knew the trail system well so I volunteered to head out. The team on scene saw me rushing to the recovery scene but had no idea why. As I arrived on scene, the temperature was over 60 and most were in t-shirts. We stopped the recovery for a few minutes and talked about what to do; we had less than an hour.
The team became far more deliberate but expedient and moved the rig up the mountain. It wasn’t long before those who had winter gear had to put it on and some people without were rotated in and out of the rigs to stay warm in the wind as the storm pushed over the ridge line, starting first with rain.
Near the peak of Argentine Pass
As the RP vehicle came back to the road surface, the team was able to start freeing up rigs. As they did, the rigs were backed down the shelf road to save time as the storm hit. By the time the RP vehicle was on the road, it was below freezing, snow, and visibility was quickly dropping.
The lessons we learned were these: All team members had to have full winter gear on every recovery so no one becomes endangered no matter the conditions. We had to start establishing Ham comms as standard, which would take time. Weather had to be a constant variable to be tracked and communicated to the teams in the field. We also wanted a Pull-Pal since it was the only way that recovery was accomplished at the time.
By the time the team reached pavement, there was 4 inches of snow on the ground. The trip home on I-70 was absolutely treacherous, Matt Radder and I made much of the trip east on the interstate in 4-low, weaving through stuck and sliding vehicles. By the end of the day, there was over a foot of snow in Georgetown. We learned that even highway closures had to be monitored and planned for when we sent teams into the field. We got out just ahead of the closure. It was one of the more thrilling days I had ever had in my jeep.
The team got lucky that day, a major winter storm landing on-top of the team while operating on a shelf road above 13,000 feet could have been deadly. We vowed that the organization would grow, to make sure our teams were much better prepared. Much of the future work was to protect our members in the field. We determined; we would never become the problem first responders needed to solve.
2016 closed out as a momentous year with major changes and establishing the visions for the future we now see as standard. The year had included our first two calls for Search and Rescue work, one being successful. Our first foray into training taught us how much we needed to learn. We felt we dodged a bullet on a recovery that could have become far more dangerous very quickly, teaching us many lessons about managing recoveries safely. We made first professional contact with a first responder. The biggest single event that year changed the Good-Samaritan group into a 501(c)3 charity, aiming at becoming a first response organization in support of the existing organizations to take some of the load off of SnR teams; becoming a force multiplier.
Although less obvious then, the agreement I had with the Clear Creek County Sheriff was a major growth force for us. The sheriff wanted a text, no matter the hour. So, for the following year he and I were aware of every team’s status in Clear Creek County; there was over 120. I also met with him in person every quarter through the end of my tenure as PR director, to make sure we maintained a healthy relationship with the most powerful person in the county we most often deployed in. We grew, a lot.
The organization was eager to move in the new direction and started planning for the day we would have enough money to buy org equipment, fill the communications gaps with radio relay and throw a Thank You banquet for the volunteers who do so much of the work. At the end of 2016, those were lofty goals considering we had only about $1,000 in the bank.
2017 was a year of behind the scenes work and a public shift in our perception. In 2016 we became a 501(c)3 because we wanted to start protecting our members and legitimize our organization moving towards a first responder organization. In the original BOD meeting one of the goals was to be able to support Search and Rescue teams with our specific skills. Part of that goal was met with the non-profit filing but the real need was training, to become better equipped and to become better known among the public and first responders.
It was also a year of foundational change. After working for months on and launching our initial website, our founder Craig Lehman decided it was time to move back east to be near his family. The organization was his vision and was started with his leadership. In March of 2017, he stepped down and after much discussion; Matt Radder became the new President. I became VP along with my PR role. Dan Arkulary remained as treasurer but it was time to add new members to the BOD.
In April, I pushed for Jim Dixon and Matt R sponsored Jeff Schafer to be added to the BOD. Jeff had become a very active member was among the most enthusiastic responders after I had tried to recruit him several times through several chance meetings on trail. He was eager to learn and improve the organization with his enthusiasm. Jim was well known throughout the off-road community and educated and experienced in land use issues and conservation. In order to build bridges with USFS and BLM, we needed to become better in land use related issues. Jim was also an early trainer for some members so he was already invested in the professionalization of the organization.
In March of 2017, we were also contacted by Chris Breidenbach at The Edge 4×4 Automotive. He was interested in supporting the organization by becoming a sponsor. This was our first major affiliation in the community and a huge endorsement considering Chris’ standing in the 4×4 community. He became our first sponsor and laid a foundation for others to follow.
With building demand and more complex recoveries being sent to us, we tapped into a resource that Craig and Matt had fostered, a friendship with, Matt Balazs from On Trail Training. In April of 2017 saw the first graduating class from On-Trail Training-Recovery Skills 1. The early graduates would form the nucleus of much of the future of the org.
First On Trail Training graduates. In this photo was 1 BoD member at the time, 3 future presidents, 1 future VP and 1 who would have an award named after him.
Volunteers cycled through training as fast as On Trail Training could schedule them. Our goal then was to get better and safer using On Trail Training to establish us among the most qualified recovery organizations in the world. As Matt Balazs became a certified recovery skills trainer through I4WDTA, we aspired to work at a level they and he could be proud of. It was a lofty goal.
Matt Balzs brought the skills of I4WDTA to our organization and friendship and leadership to many members including myself.
This was also a year that we decided to start marketing ourselves at popular events in the 4×4 calendar. We used still very limited resources to purchase a canopy and print pamphlets. Early on, this garnered another of our most valued relationships, Outer Limit Supply. We wanted to make sure that all of our teams deployed carried a first aid kit. Travis Hurley and CO4x4RnR teamed up to personalize Grade A first Aid kits.
These personalized kits were strapped to the outside of our rigs and became known as ‘Outler Limit Kits’.
These kits became the foundation of our first aid preparedness and continuing education for top tear responders. This was also the time we printed our first windshield banners. Although some felt they looked like club banners they rendered our response vehicles easy to identify. As our reputation and role grew, those banners became powerful tools.
On an off day, four of us went up to a local trail with kids in tow to simply enjoy a day on trail with friends. We waited at the trailhead after airing down as we could see vehicles existing the trail. The four of our rigs, windshield banners on all, were approached by the first of several vehicles working down the trail. The lead driver asked if we were from Colorado 4×4 Rescue and Recovery. I stated we were. She got on her CB and told the others to high tail it to clear the trail, as CO4x4RnR was coming in. Before I could let her know we were only there to have fun, she cleared the road for us.
Our reputation and identification had a powerful presence in the off-road community.
The five BOD members set out to address the growing pains that the organization was seeing, including an increase in calls and requests for help. The primary struggle then was having coverage for the administrators who were fielding the calls. Burn out had become the biggest issue in the organization. We were becoming a victim of our own success. We would have to get better, or burn down.
At one point, we were down to two people covering most of the calls and it felt like we could not handle our mission. A decision was made to form a dedicated team with specific training and establish criteria for what recoveries we were qualified to handle.
In one comical series of events Jim Dixon had taken a call as organization operator for a potential recovery from a rather hard to handle RP (requesting party). He had been texting me regarding the conversation, then offered to transfer them to the PR department. The call then came to me. I was able to calm the RP down, then offer to transfer them to dispatch, which was played by Jim since no one else was available. When the team was paged, the RP asked to speak to ‘whoever was in-charge’, so Jim notified me that since Matt R was not available, I was the ranking ‘in charge’, so the call went back to me now as VP. I have no memory of how the recovery went but that is likely a good thing.
Also, as a sign of the times with growing work and increasing burn out, Jim, Matt and I managed the dispatching of a team by trading off roles as the same person. I ended up writing the post for the dispatch page while I was waiting for a date to arrive for lunch. She understood as I finished it up and handed off to Matt to dispatch, he himself joining the team so Jim took over the monitoring of it.
We started recruiting members for a new defined discipline; CO4x4RnR Dispatchers. The org. posted a request and defined the job; the public responded. Among those who stood head and shoulders above the others was Carleen Smeaton. She was approached and asked to take on a new role, Director of Dispatch. Immediately she took the reins of dispatch as the newest BOD member, initiating training and forming new criteria for sending teams into the field.
The other aspect of the org that went into high gear at that time was to reach out to professional originations, from USFS and BLM to Sheriffs and Search and Rescue organizations. Gilpin Country Sheriff was contacted and USFS Clear Creek Ranger District became a common phone call, establishing how they would like us to deal with off trail damage.
We were working hard to become a professional and responsible member of the Colorado High Country Response community. We knew where we wanted to go, who we wanted to be and by the middle of 2017, the BOD was working feverishly to achieve the goals we set out.
We also started forming common alliances, frequently appearing in public events alongside Stay the Trail, Mile High Jeep Club and On-Trail Training. These co-appearances allowed each of the organizations to be represented by one another and an informal family of organizations formed. Also, Matt Balazs had become president of Stay The trail and I had been asked to join their BOD. These associations helped all, connecting and cementing friendships between the organization, and the off-road community.
It wasn’t uncommon for Matt B, the President of Mile High Jeep Club and me to be at an event manning four information tents side by side. As people would inquire, we would start them at the end booth, Stay the Trail, then move to the next tent, Mile High Jeep Club and reintroduce ourselves as a representative for that booth. Then again for CO4x4RnR and again for On Trail Training, reintroducing ourselves each time. We had a great time, and it was an effective recruiting tool for all.
In order to support and encourage the use of ham radios among the members, and off roading in general, Jim Dixon started a weekly ham radio net. This helped members become comfortable broadcasting on the air and procedure for emergency transmissions.
Seizing on the theme of the year, about ten members of the organization celebrated the three year anniversary of the org, by attending Wilderness First Aid. This was a two day, 19 hour course that set a new expectation for our top tier members. As the attending members saw it, the class was the ‘how to’ training for the First Aid Kits from Outer Limit Supply. This started a push towards first aid training, being brutally taught that most of our recoveries were at least 2 hours from professional medical support.
For me and many others, it taught us to always carry a tourniquet in our pocket when we deployed. I always did after that. It also showed us the realities of the risks we took on and those of normal off roaders. Training focused on bandaging lacerations to keep from bleeding a lot, recognition of a condition that mandated extrication of an injured person and how to assess a person while connected with 911 so they could make the call regarding treat on scene, assist to the trail head or find a flight for life extrication location.
It drove home how far our teams and ROs are from medial support if things go very wrong, and euphuized why we trained so hard. 2 hours for medical support was the standard on most any Jeep trail. We trained with that in mind. Personally, it scared me and shaped how I led many responses.
This training reflected a pattern, as most of those in attendance were either current or future BOD members including two presidents. Our gaze started to shift inwards, learning that we must train to take care of our own in the field remembering, we always wanted to be the solution, not a problem.
That summer also saw the loss of another original BOD member. Dan Arkulary finished the project he was working on, having been the point man on The Edge 4×4 Automotive sponsorship and let us know he would be stepping down. He would remain a member but could no longer commit the time to the BOD it demanded. He wanted to spend more time at home with a growing family. We knew he would be missed but luckily, Jeff Schafer was ready and had the training to step in right away, filling the role as treasurer.
The second half of the year would put us to new tests and the org would take chances to build its professional profile.
Remote trail near Walden. At that time, the greatest unsupported lean for a vehicle we recovered.
As many of our most active members had passed through Skills 1 with On-Trail Training, it became clear that a more advanced skill level would benefit our members. The first Skills 2 class was offered in September of 2017. Among the goat head thorns of the Eastern Planes of Colorado, a full day of hands on work was offered and enthusiastically accepted.
The class included a full day of problem solving with moving targets as equipment was ‘disabled’ in the scenarios, challenging the teams to think and plan for the possible life threatening changes recoveries can experience. Teams used more equipment in complex recovery scenarios as well as made use of very few pieces to accomplish other recoveries. The day offered much more challenging and comprehensive instruction that was a game changer for our teams.
This class came right in time for our first high profile recovery. It was dramatic then and still today. The Radical Hill Recovery started two changes that became more common; scouting and public stories about the work we do. Using the mistakes made and lessons learned both by the requesting parties and the org became a recurring theme of using our recoveries as a teaching tool for the org and the public alike.
The driver and dog survived a 300 foot roll.
Radical Hill off Webster Pass. Red Cone in the distance.
This recovery was also finally picked up, after many outreach attempts, by local news. Radical Hill became our first formal news interview since our first Search and Rescue effort in Woodland Park.
The story garnered the organization a lot of attention and drove many donations to the organization permitting us to no longer worry about being overdrawn. Although we knew attention was a double edged sword, we knew that since we were inventing this form of response organization, publicity would help other agencies and the public alike, understand better what role we were filling in the first response community.
The response team was again among the best we had, with several BoD member and future BoD members on the team. It also demanded one of the first times we had to do major repairs to the vehicle. The most valuable lesson we had was how we used one director of the recovery, managing up to 5 winches through radio commands. All of this was also one of the few times we have executed a recovery with an audience as the event having been well known, rendered the recovery an event to watch.
2017 also saw the formation of a more highly trained group within the organization that was designed to support traditional Search and Rescue efforts and perform stand alone work as we had done already. This team was called Search and Rescue-Emergency Support. Along with this effort came a new BOD member that specialized in high tech communications and tech integration.
After another Jeeping trip in the mountains, much like my drop in at Clear Creek County Sheriff, I stopped off at Alpine Search and rescue, and just walked in. I met Bruce Beckman who was intrigued with our mission and how we were going about it. I asked for an opportunity to present to their members about our mission, in their Skills for the Hills program. Bruce took it to their BOD and they approved. This was a major step, putting ourselves in front of one of the first and most respected SnR teams in the world.
Using several members to present their specialty, the presentation went very well, with only one question that we did not have the right answer for. We were still without Insurance. Jeff Schafer and I both worked for months trying to secure insurance but no one knew how to categorize the organization. Some claimed insurance was un-needed. We knew it was.
The most positive event of the evening at Alpine SnR came in the form of feedback from one of the most senior and decidedly the most grizzled Alpine SnR members in the room. He commented that we kept referring to our responders as volunteers. Based on the work the members were putting in, the training, and the body of work presented, he suggested we start referring to our people as ‘unpaid professionals’. It was one of the most lasting and impactful compliments we had ever received. We still call our members, unpaid professionals today and that compliment still moves me, he being the first peer to call us professionals. Years later, I can still see his face and recall how I felt in that moment.
Another compliment came the following month on what would become a recurring appearance with Mile High Jeep Club. The intention was to recruit members from one of the oldest and the largest Jeep clubs in the nation. It was successful. At the end of the night, Mile High Jeep Club also presented the organization with a check for $500 to help us grow. That donation started a lasting association and cooperation between the two of us.
Also and more valuable, that meeting recruited members who would eventually serve on the board and become some of our most trusted and consistent responders. That affiliation with Mile High Jeep Club nurtured a relationship that led to many years of collaboration and fund raising.
As fall set in, another lesson was learned through a recovery. We responded to a high elevation recovery above tree-line on Kingston Peak. We underestimated what was needed and made mistakes. For the first time, we had to leave a responder’s rig behind; framed out in snow. A storm rolled in before we could return so the determination of the org to get our member rig back became one of our biggest operations ever.
Another lesson we learned was that what can happen, will. As our team returned to recover our own member’s rig and the original requesting rig, we found Cherokee had wandered in and got stuck behind our member rig. The two-vehicle recovery became a three-vehicle recovery. We made a learned choice, and left the original requesting vehicle behind.
Winching took all day, two working at a time with three anchors.
And into the night. With the lights of Denver below, our team worked into their 14th hour.
Until they finally got to go home, with a back-up team at the top of the ice slope ahead, waiting to help them home.
Although the recovery was successful, it was a very long day. The lessons learned from that operation still echo today. We learned to schedule medical support for long term ops at elevation and in harsh weather. We learned to schedule teams for rotated work. We learned to schedule back-up teams in anticipation of need and we learned to reach out to our first responder partners for easier responses, rather than working on our own. We had to mature.
2017 also saw the introduction of another BOD member, to try and come in and lighten the increasing load of the directors of the organization. Jason Strother joined the BOD and the help was very welcome.
By the end of the year, another step was made in insurance, when the org secured a basic level of insurance, still lacking full liability insurance. 2017 saw a dramatic increase in calls, pushing our teams in the field and newly formed dispatchers beyond what they had been. The year showed that we had to plan for continued growth. As we invented the type of organization, we are so there no path for us to follow; we had to invent it. Plans were made, and then adapted in the coming year. 2018, would make 2017 seem easy by comparison.
By this time, my own rig had grown in compliance with the needs of first response. Mine was a decent example of many others who made similar mods. I upgraded both bumpers for stronger recovery points, upgraded my winch and line, improved my lighting including strobes, installed a 50w ham to go with a handheld 5w Ham, both with APRS tracking and kept my high-end side band CB with 5-mile range. I increased tire size to 35-12.5 tires and went through several tires to find the right ones. I carried much more safety and recovery gear than ever before and even a full set of mechanics tools for trail repairs.
Perhaps the most useful change I made was one that carried over from my days in racing. Every 5 missions I would go over the entire vehicle and check for damage or warn parts. I also changed all fluid every year, from axles to transmission. All of this was for one purpose. When I was paged out for emergency missions, I wanted to only have to change my clothes to my mission gear and go. Someone was in need, and I wanted to be able to be counted on.
I know many members who had their mission clothes in a pile ready to be changed into quickly, and carried most of their mission gear in their rigs at all times. Members have invested many $1,000s into their rigs and equipment to meet the demands of service.
I also became known for responding most of the year in a jeep with just a bikini top and tonneau cover. As I rolled onto trails, often leading or last on trail, I wanted to experience it all including the temperatures and wind. My top did however have fold down sides and back so when things got bad, I could buckle down.
Kingston response pulling two people from a stranded vehicle above tree line, who did not have long pants, jackets or shoes.
The year ahead was one that we hoped to stabilize and grow in a professional direction. What we didn’t anticipate was how much demand our growth would place on us.
The start of 2018 came with some of the best news we ever got. Jeff Schafer was able to use a contact to secure liability insurance. For those on the BOD, this was a wonderful turning point. We had been collectively holding our breath, hoping our training and experience would get our teams through without incident until we secured coverage. The BOD was the only real liability path, but this coverage gave the entire organization coverage.
The increase in funds we had received by increased exposure, made possible our first member’s banquet. Although a modest affair that was made possible with the help of a member from the Mile High Jeep Club, it fulfilled a dream the BOD had from long before, to honor and issue awards to our unpaid professionals.
The tables starting to fill for our first member’s banquet. By the time it started, there was standing room only.
The awards in the initial banquet were:
President’s Award (For the member who stood out the most that year)
Dispatcher Award (for the dispatcher who stood out the most that year)
Lott Award (Awarded to the person who spent the most time in the field on recoveries. Named for Bryan Lott, first recipient)
Training Award From On-Trail Training for the most improved field responder.
Donkey Named Jack Award ( for the most embarrassing moment in the org that year)
Also at this banquet, the organization received another check from Mile High Jeep Club, in support of our efforts. At that time, it was the largest donation ever made to the organization and offset much of the cost of the banquet.
Soon after the banquet the year got going quickly. As one of the signs of times to come, the organization was tested by deploying teams on eight missions in 24 hours, four running at the same time. This pushed all the limits we had, and the organization was forced to grow. For the first time, the organization found operational limits, with all active personnel filling needed roles, even with Matt Balazs aiding with dispatching by helping to organize teams. The organization withstood the onslaught and realized we had to become more efficient and prioritize recoveries; even turn some down.
Another event showed us we needed to grow professionally. We had admitted a new member to the BoD who would take on a specialized role. We had been on a roll and liked that people were coming to the org wanting to get involved. But what we didn’t see, was very nearly fatal. This person had their own agenda and seemed to be setting up to take the organization for themself. The attempt to start removing board members was shocking to the group that got along so well.
The brazen attempt to bully a fellow BoD member, that went nowhere except to expose the new BoD member for who they were, showed us immediate action had to be taken. In a separate discussion I stated that the member had to be dealt with as he was not going to stop unless a show of force was made. I stated I would send an email from my own org email, written from my own opinion but copied all other org members openly. In it I simply stated that I would protect the organization and every member from any attack, personal or professional and would sacrifice myself to do so. A newcomer had attacked a friend and threated the org.
What later became clear, after the new member resigned, was that they wanted to turn the c3 charity we had formed, into a for profit company. This infuriated several of us partially because only one of us, Jim Dixon, saw the interloper accurately beforehand. The rest of us had become blinded by our success and we almost lost the organization. We swore we’d never let it happen again.
We didn’t add another board member for a while.
The time had come to finally put the organization on professional footing and move our recoveries to members only. This was not a popular decision among many. It would be the last time we saw some of our long time and trusted members, not liking the idea of paying to work for free. We understood. It was the same model as most SnR teams and the only way we could legitimize ourselves, securing only the most determined to be trained and deployed. We wanted to progress from being good Samaritans, to legitimate first responders and worthy of being part of that community.
From a public relations perspective this was a great relief. Although the BOD was proud of most of our volunteers, our method used to build the organization was not professional and a mere shadow of the organizations we were hoping to emulate. This move was a must, to legitimize our organization and the entire BOD was relieved when we could finally do it.
One of the greatest challenges I had in my PR role was to meet professionals as part of the first response fabric and sell our idea to them. It was my job to legitimize the organization to help it advance and I often worried about taking a wrong step. I sat with Sheriffs, SnR teams and USFS staff who were each part of a proud tradition that had earned respect from public and professionals alike. We were the new idea, new people and I had to inform, educate and market.
I spent a great deal of time managing my appearance including my clothes and what I carried with me when I met these professionals. I also spent a lot of time managing the appearance of my rig. It had become the face of the organization. Managing our public perception started with managing the public’s impression of me. Each of us on the BOD, were inventing as we went.
The most common topic during BOD meetings was; “how do we accomplish that?” Not only would we be inventing the way to execute this mission, we had to teach the public and more importantly first responders how our services fit into the fabric of public service.
In simplest terms, we had to be industry leaders, pioneers and most importantly, a trusted tool that serves the public in times of need. Nothing less would achieve our goals.
Our mission became simple: Improve everyday to better serve our members, teams, deployment partners and public with the service, skills and professionalism they deserve.
At this point I will also offer an insight to the experience many members have. I had my mission clothes folded in a single pile, so it was all in one place. I always straightened and cleaned my gear when I got home from missions. When done organizing and cleaning, I would fuel my rig. My hand-held ham radio would be charged again. Mission notes made and submitted if I was team lead. That was the work. The thrill was when the SMS page would come. The words I sought when confirming my availability was, “Thank you, you are being added to the mission chat”. The thrill … THE THRILL of gearing up and starting the rig in case it had an issue I could notify dispatch to activate a standby member. Checking the lights, set the ham radio to the mission frequency, hit the garage door opener and roll out, ‘ke0nym mobile’.
The even better and more thrilling experience was the restaurants I frequented. They would serve me and bring me my bill right away. Sometimes they would ask me if I knew what I wanted as I was walking in, and have food at my table in five minutes. They knew occasionally I would leave in a hurry, and head out. The staff at the restaurant I paged out from most often would also often offer, be careful! as I would thank them and excuse my hasty departure.
Gearing up, starting the rig, checking the lights and opening the garage door into the dark of night was just thrilling.
Many of the followers of the dispatch page did so, to watch the recoveries unfold through updates. Our final move to operate behind a private page meant the pubic would no longer be able to watch along. From a community standing it was a loss. From a professional standing it was an upgrade. From an insurance perspective is was a must.
Along with dues that covered skills 1 training at the highest level of membership, each member was issued a basic FRS radio for field communications among the teams. Some were also basic ham radios if the member was licensed but it offered a peek inside the world of better comms that we needed the members to invest in.
Another test, and our greatest exposure to date came in Mid-April. Although few people had heard the term before, Northeast Colorado was hit by a bomb cyclone. Our teams were paged and put on stand-by, waiting for a decision from the northeast corner of the state, 100 miles away. After much deliberation among those who have the burden of decision making with lives in the balance, three Sheriff Offices activated CO4x4RnR. Our members rolled out, answering the call.
Five teams of two vehicles plus one SAR-ES team director went north to the Sterling office of emergency management for briefing and orders. Starting around midnight, teams deployed to stranded motorists who had been blown off the road and snowed over. In 50+ MPH winds and white out conditions, CO4x4RnR was given permission to go behind road closures and waved through at active roadblocks, in the dark and barren expanses of rural Northeast Colorado. Centered in the Akron area, teams moved through snow drifts and white out conditions where sometimes only code lights were visible.
The feeling of acceptance in being waved through roadblocks was thrilling and intimidating. We were in the worst conditions we had ever operated in, but we were also on county roads instead of the high country so in many ways, it felt easier.
Teams cleared every vehicle they found and reported on all the truck drivers who were staying with their rigs and loads, even though they had been blown off the road. Our training was paying off as our teams worked seamlessly with incident command. Our preparedness also paid off as we were well equipped to loan winter clothes to many we were extracting.
Much of the night was moving from scene to scene and transporting people to shelters or hotels. One of the most memorable was when we got a call for a vehicle blown off road with an infant inside. My teammate Matt R found their reported location and our path there. The report included that there was a CDOT plow that had slid off the road near the passenger car. Another team was approaching from the opposite side to increase odds of rescue.
Matt and I could see the blue light on the plow truck but were blocked by two large snow drifts. Matt being a father and simply a dedicated first responder, started trying to break through the drifts. He would strike and I would hook-up and pull him back. Go again. I was worried about the potential damage to his rig but we only changed the attack, rather than stop it. We kept pounding the drift until a call came in that another CDOT plow truck broke through from the other side.
Checking in with and geolocating stranded trucks in the bomb cyclone.
The team returned home on an empty I-76, closed to public traffic. The drive down the desolate and wind swept interstate was a reminder of the remoteness that the team and their requesting parties had been in. As the team passed the road closure, we turned off our emergency lights. Passing the mile long back-up in the NE bound lanes, we felt like we were returning to town, victorious. It was humbling.
Over the previous five hours, 13 people and 3 dogs were recovered from the storm. Dozens of vehicles were inspected and cleared. SAR-ES’ first official mission was a massive success. During the night, using 800mhz radios issued by EMS meant other agencies had listened in. This increased our level of exposure to a whole new group, first responders.
Also in a dramatic change of professionalism, the agreement that had been in place since late 2016 with Clear Creek Sheriff office, was lifted. A new policy replaced it. The new plan was when we sent teams into Clear Creek County, our dispatchers would contact the dispatch center in Clear Creek County, notifying them our missions, location and status. Quickly after this, the same agreement was started with Gilpin County Sheriff office. We had officially become an asset listed in the databases for those counties.
In the days following our Bomb Cyclone deployment, the organization was again interviewed by the press, adding to the exposure for the org, and educating the public on our unique mission. The organization stood proud that the first time they had been paged out by the state, lives were saved. It had become clear we were on the right track.
Offically, we had arrived.
The first third of the year had been momentous and non-stop. The growth and complexity that often comes with it was starting to become obvious. Many members were becoming exhausted as the mission count rose quickly. The summer of 2018 would take us to new heights, literally.
But first, I experienced something that I had never anticipated. I went along on the Spring mission to open Kingston Trail. We were escorted by a ranger from USFS behind a closed seasonal gate to recover the rig on Kingston that we could not get the fall before. It had to be cleared to open the trail or in theme with the origin of the org, it would likely have been vandalized. As we came back to the gate to exit with the recovered rig in a flat tow formation, the USFS ranger had to be tail end to determine the trail was clear. What we didn’t anticipate was the huge crowd of off-roaders waiting for the gate to open. I led us through, but people were crowding the road and ATVs and SbSs were moving way too fast through the crowd. The ranger was becoming uncomfortable and stated they wanted back-up. I notified the ranger I was code lit, registered as an Ambulance, so she ordered me to ‘light em up’.
It was the only thing we could do that calmed everyone down. It was uncomfortable for me. It was the first time in my deployments I had used the code lights in motion. The crowd parted and the Side by Sides parked finally. We were finally able to move the flat tow out safely if at all to where it could be towed by a commercial company.
The summer of 2018 that followed was a wild one. It started on Memorial Day, fittingly, with a call for a challenging recovery in Buena Vista’s 4 Mile Area; a roll over. The roll over included a trailer which was a first for the organization. It also affirmed a new choice where we called the non-emergency dispatch number for all operations in any county. Chaffee County was notified of our team and its operation. Memorial Day turned out to be a wonderful learning experience while a large team worked with On Trail Training on the deployment, learning the entire day long. It was also fun.
The Jeep went one way, the trailer the other and our first recovery of a boat!
He was lucky, as he rode it down.
A very proud moment of my time with CO4x4RnR.
Soon after, we had another roll over recovery on Spring Creek, much closer to home and much easier.
Again, only bumps and bruises. For those who are familiar, this was at the base of ‘the wall’.
Four rigs responded, Mine and Matt Radder’s shown
Soon after, we got a call for another roll over this time on Mt. Antero, again in the Buena Vista region. Another call was made to Chaffee County Sheriff with details since the recovery was at nearly 14,000 feet. Chaffee County Search and Rescue North was notified of our mission and the size of our team, in case something happened. Lessons learned from our Kingston Peak recovery were put in action, with a scouting mission prior, a comms plan to work around the lack of cell service and lack of direct ham radio coverage. In addition, we put teams on timetables due to elevation and had an emergency plan for medical issues. It all worked.
The stark and forbidding area was a challenge for the team and working at elevation proved to be one of the biggest challenges. For the first time we had a cross band Ham relay vehicle at 14,000 feet so we could radio to help should need arise. We also split teams to make sure no one was overextended at elevation.
We learned from previous missions and our FEMA training and set up a command post and emergency plans. We all had roles and filled them. We all used our training. Jim Dixon’s rig was relay for hams communication but was also code lit so was in a position for emergency transport if needed. We were trying to think and plan for emergency operations.
This was our biggest deployment to date and had dedicated personnel for comms and vehicle repair. These were growth edges for us and served us in our future deployment designs.
In a far less dramatic step but one that reflected our longtime desire to show our dedication to trail conservation, we adopted the Yankee Hill Trail. This was one of the closest trails to Denver and by far the most frequent destination for our teams.
Mid summer also brought a major step forward for the org. We were asked to present at the Northern Colorado Emergency Management Meeting. This put us in front of many of the region’s emergency managers, presenting to them a mission report for the Bomb Cyclone deployment. We also showcased our strongest aspects and training, highlighting how many missions we had recorded. The presentation was a major success. Team members were awarded challenge coins and a personal thank you from the director as well as applause from the group. The experience was both humbling and rewarding. This appearance also would never have happened without Mike Burnett.
I still have the challenge coin today and carry it with me as a good luck piece.
In August, Co4x4RnR was presented with its greatest recovery challenge to date. A high profile accident occurred again in Chaffee County, on Iron Chest trail. It was the first recovery of the many hundreds to that date that involved the loss of life in the initial accident. The vehicle in question was 530 feet down a slope above St Elmo.
Our first response to a roll-over with fatality. It was humbling.
Three scouting missions were employed a division of labor as well in the form of planning by me and operations headed by Eric Ross in accordance with ICS training that had started in the org. It was also the biggest co-deployment and cross organizational operation we had had. The mission included CO4x4RnR, CORE Trail Crew (then CORE), USFS, Chaffee County Search and Rescue North as well as close communications with Chaffee County Sheriff. The other aspect that was wonderful to see was the outpouring and support our crews received by the locals who became aware of our mission and the initial accident.
The mission became the epitome of the organization to that point. All aspects of the planning and operation worked. It involved over 25 people from the org on the first day and about 12 more from CORE and CO4x4rnR the following day. We also had the support of several others including monitoring via ham radio and medical supervision.
We had over 1,000 feet of line out for the operation which was more than twice that of any operation we had had before.
The on-line story of the recovery, largely because it included the loss and finding of a dog involved in the initial accident, was also the most read and shared story the organization had ever had at that point. We became nationally known and started receiving donations from across the country. Another news story also followed, including stories in several papers.
The dog was found but had to be coaxed back to her mom, with treats and encouragement even after found due to the trauma it had experienced. The Dog had mild injuries and dehydrated but a local vet in Buena Vista provided free medical intervention. Finding the dog was a great outcome for the day we had nothing to do with but happened while we were there. The loss of life on the initial accident was obviously unfortunate, but it serves as a reminder how the activity we love, can also be deadly.
Samantha, Bentley, the responding MD to the original accident in green and friends who came to aid in the search.
This operation was a watershed moment for the organization. All the growth that so many had pushed for and worked many 1,000s of hours to build came to one event where we shone brightly. Planning and operations took over and coordination with CORE and USFS made everything possible. Medical staff on scene and monitoring by Chaffee County Search and Rescue through our Ham relay station brought all our training to the front.
Jim and I also experienced great support from the Buena Vista KOA as they cut our fees in half for our two nights stay and opened the kitchen 1.5 hours early to feed us before we deployed. They wouldn’t let us pay for our meals. We also had many people watching the operation from the ground in St Elmo through telescopes. Everything came together and we were at our best. It was an amazing two days I hope I never forget.
The second day was handed off to CORE taking the lead with CO4x4RnR and CORE members filling the labor needs to bring the rig down the mountain. They had volunteers from as far as Texas. The entire off-road community lent a hand on that one.
CORE led the second day bringing the rig down.
Due to the exposure the story received our story of the recovery was due to be featured on Good Morning America. The day before this was to take place, we were preempted by the unfortunate passing of Senator McCain. This would have been an amazing experience for the org, but it was not to be.
This summer and fall did however demand a very busy public appearance schedule and filling enhanced roles in some of off-road’s biggest events. The organization led trail groups and provided ham communication-based coverage for Set Them Free and was on-call for All4fun with Mile High Jeep Club. 14er Fest in Buena Vista was also supported by trail leading and comms monitoring.
The organization saw the need for further in house training while also asking senior members to take on additional outside training. Internally, the organization started offering and asking senior members to attend driver and communication training as well as leadership training. Externally, senior members started taking FEMA 100, 200 and 700 level classes on-line and attending wilderness first aid (WFA). These were required for the SAR-ES team since they would be the most likely members to co-deploy in multi-agency deployments. They were strongly encouraged for the rest of the membership.
That summer also saw the stepping down of one of our early BOD members, Jim Dixon, due to both exhaustion and frustration. The pressures of administration of such a fast-growing organization were taking tolls on dedicated members, causing internal friction, fracturing of roles, friendships, trust and responsibilities. I was needing to take more breaks away from the org and even then struggled with demands still reaching me electronically while over 1,000 miles away.
Late in the summer of 2018, we took part in cross training with Park County SnR. On Trail Training instructed Park County on driver skills, CO4x4RnR members helping with demonstrations. Park County returned the favor by training some of our members in navigating skree fields.
The last part of the year offered further validation that our work was worth the efforts of all the unpaid professionals in every role. With the increase in profile, came further inquiry from other organizations and agencies.
The organization was contacted by a reality show producer tied to Deadliest Catch. She was seeking subjects for a possible new show featuring the modification of trucks for special purposes. She became aware of us from the Iron Chest recovery. Although the interest was flattering the BOD knew that such a presence would forever change the organization and we would deviate from our mission. We respectfully declined the interest.
September also brought a request from El Paso County Sheriff to aid in a search effort for a missing man. Two teams were able to deploy to assist with the search effort. Teams secured the search perimeter, scouted remote roads and transported dog search teams into the back country. We also offered to carry equipment and personnel closer to search area to increase time on scene.
Although the search was unsuccessful, we were proud to lend a hand in another organization’s efforts to save a life. We learned more from the effort, and also faced one of the realities of SnR work; that two of the three possible outcomes are not favorable. For the first time from direct involvement, our members had to deal with those unfavorable outcomes. We had grown professionally, and were growing emotionally.
Also in September, we were invited to Alpine Search and Rescue’s Fair. This event showcased the services that were used and available to the people Alpine served; the public. We shared a stage with one of the most honored and professional Search and Rescue groups in the nation.
On theme with many of the events of the year, we received a call from a family who was convinced their loved ones were lost or stranded while hunting in north central Colorado. Although not officially activating us, the sheriff briefed us on road conditions and closures in the region, agreeing on a plan for deployment.
As it turned out, the family was right but unknown to anyone at the time, the couple had already started walking out cross country rather than on the road from their hunting camp and reached near the end of their physical and emotional resources. They had reportedly already made good-bye recordings since they felt their situation was desperate. Fortuitously, our team found the pair within an hour of reaching the hunting area, returning them to town for phone calls and medical assessment.
The fall brought with it continued cost from the many hours of work required to get the org. to that point by many people. After three years and likely 5,000 hours, I chose to step down from my PR and VP roles, becoming a BOD member at large to reduce my stress. Jeff Schafer assumed the additional role of VP. I agreed to fill outreach roles when needed and writing for the org.
Soon after, a new BOD member was added, Kristal Florquist, who filled the role of secretary.
The multi-agency deployments of the year started efforts to provide our members with ICS 300 training. This was not an on-line course and demanded in person two day instruction. At the end of 2018, those classes started. We encouraged all of our members to attend, scheduling several classes. Alpine Search and Rescue made their meeting room available for the training.
The year also ended with over 200 combined recovery and SnR missions. Even our most seasoned and dedicated members were becoming exhausted. The accolades we had received helped a great deal, but members had to start going on self-imposed stand-down to keep from wearing out. Some of the most active were asked to stand down by management, to keep from losing them completely.
2018 brought us to new levels of professionalism which is what Matt Radder and I had set out to do a couple years before. We wanted to bring the org into the professional ranks of the established SnR teams in the state, even if we were an outsider. We knew our mission was needed and we were the organization to fill that need. We wanted to reach a level of operation that no one had ever envisioned when we started. By the end of 2018, thanks to the work of 100s of men and women and over a dozen BoD members and dozens of dispatchers, we had come to a level that rivaled any SnR team in the world. We had grown fast. Maybe too fast.
Colorado 4×4 Rescue and Recovery Search and Rescue Emergency Response door badge.
The year started with urban SnR training where for the first time, SAR-ES members were issued state credentials based on professional qualifications and background checks. This initial issuance was a major step forward, having secured endorsement from Northern Colorado Dept of Health, stemming from the blizzard deployment the year before and a great deal of help from Mike Burnett.
The start of the year brought with it the second annual banquet. It also marked the loss of another BOD member, Jason Strother. The pressures of the organization, and the predictable and well documented and researched issues that come with organization founders, hit us as well. Our close friendships were not immune. The profile of the org had reached a point where we were our own biggest burden. In January of that year, I resigned my BoD position, no longer understanding the changing goals of the org from an administrative standpoint. I was frustrated and being closed out of discussions I should have been part of.
There were back-channel discussion clearly taking place and after so many year and hours, having been there in the start, I felt very unwelcome and frankly, in the way. I left the BoD, proud but exhausted, looking forward to simply leading missions.
It was also around this time of year that the organization went live in WebEOC, a state database of resources available to first responders and emergency managers for contact and deployment. This was one of the greatest honors the organization had ever had. We were available to any emergency manager in the state if our resources met their needs.
The pressures to succeed and the allure of the credit for that success was becoming overwhelming for some members. The workload of the BOD members was also increasing and smothering, although the number of BOD members was decreasing. At this point, Matt Radder was the lone founding BOD member.
The Spring brought a wonderful fund-raising effort that brought in more money than the org had seen in a single donation. This pushed the organization forward financially and put it on even better financial footing. Even though the organization was growing and becoming hard to manage, financially it was on the best ground it had ever been on.
March also brought another BOD resignation, Carleen Smeaton. She and Ryan Bentley had brought the dispatch team into modern efficiency and worked exhaustedly to keep the number of dispatchers up, to reduce fatigue. She did so at her own expense. She stepped down after a highly successful tenure.
A growing concern was that the public was not being notified of BOD resignations which was not required, but it had been something we had done in the past. All BOD hires and resignations were made public. That had stopped when Jim had resigned. The membership only knew if they attended membership meetings or by rumor.
This distance from the public and the feeling that the org was operating in secret was becoming a common theme and concern among members. In the past when the org was trying to grow, we had the unintentional approach of operating in the open as best we could, so we could be seen as authentic and trustworthy. That work put forth by so many early members was being eroded quickly.
Late spring brought with it another bomb cyclone and deployment. As no storm is the same as another, the formation and effects of the storm were very different than the organizations first bomb cyclone deployment. The winds in this cyclone were peaking around 70mph. It demanded three teams operating in Fort Morgan, Sterling and Julesburg. The trip to the operational centers was so dangerous that four vehicles went off the road from the wind during deployments.
What was likely the worst of the scenario plying out was that most of the team was sitting idle for hours at a gas station in Northern Colorado, waiting for deployment orders. This round about trip was many hours longer than the second half of the team we met up with in Fort Morgan. By my partner and I were in Fort Morgan on our first mission, he and I had each been blown off the road once and were over 12 hours into our mission. Our first bomb cyclone was a resounding success, but this second in theme with the developing year. was an operational mess.
Hard lessons followed.
The visablity in the night did not improve.
Spring also brought with it a great honor. CO4x4RnR was invited to Clear Creek County to receive the Citizen of the Year award as voted by the Clear Creek County Dispatchers for the efforts in their county in 2018. This, was one of our most flattering and personal recognitions; to be seen so valuably by those who take the calls, embodied the vision of the original BOD. It was also a fracture point for some and breaking point for others as so few of those who were key contributors in 2018 were even asked to attend. It became a stilted honor that few even know about today.
Although it is unclear what started the shift, Spring brought increasing questions about operations and management. Many calls and discussions took place between members who were confused or concerned, and former or sitting BOD members they hoped had insight. The members reaching out were most often concerned about the growing distance between members administrating the organization and the membership. The simplest example of this was the second quarter membership meeting was never held. This was not only a violation of trust and operationally a poor choice, but it was also illegal. It started many conversations and concerns were building.
Mission planning.
Although there is a lot of disagreement here, these concerns were forwarded to the BOD through calls, emails and personal discussions. Fault lies on both administration and membership sides, but many members tried to bring about discussion that might answer questions and quell concerns.
I called a friend from the BOD and invited him to lunch. I expressed both my own concerns and those of many who had called me hoping for insight I didn’t have. The BOD member almost walked out. I backed off on my hard pressure and he stayed, but it was clear to me that the only hope for the meeting was to maintain communications to some degree through the growing gulf between what was then, a BOD member and a mere member. When I left the meeting, I was certain that the future of the org was very uncertain as a veil of secrecy had dropped over it.
April brought an unusual recovery that required the help and coordination of several agencies, and put us even more in the public eye. South Table Mountain Open Space Park is a region for foot travel that was trespassed by a vehicle that then got stuck, in a very visible location, right above the town of Golden and their brewery.
Jefferson County Sheriff, National Park Service and CO4x4RnR performed a vehicle recovery on the 20th anniversary of the Columbine shooting which made the crowd that formed to watch the recovery a point of concern for the law enforcement present. Also of concern, was that the vehicle had been vandalized with the likely persons running as the team arrived. Under pressure of working in front of an audience as well as law enforcement and news coverage of the day, the recovery was executed successfully, if not anxiously.
Me filling the ham comms roll on top of Santa Fe Peak, marking the growth of ham operations in the org.
Calls between members regarding growing concerns were increasing dramatically. Some members were leaving the organization in frustration. Some members were turning off pagers and going silent. Some people were reported as becoming angry or offended, others tried to find answers or start discussions. The momentum was already there and only seemed to grow no matter what was being said to appease it. Missions became harder to fill. The organization was bleeding from the inside. For the first time, missions were dropped due to lack of members to fill the teams. One weekend we had several missions but were struggling to fill them. Missions were being delayed. Out of frustration, one BOD member posted on the public page that we had suspended operations temporarily. The post brought the very private slow boil to a rolling public boil.
June brought another milestone where CO4x4RnR demonstrated recovery skills to the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention, specifically their wild-land fire units. This was an arrangement made where they in turn would provide the org with wildfire recognition and information gathering techniques since we spent a great deal of time in the back country. We were proud to demonstrate skills to our first response partners aimed at reducing risk for loss of equipment and personnel. Some among us also wondered if it was all for not as the org was clearly spiraling out of control.
The trail adoption that had started in 2018, was never renewed by Co4x4RnR and thus was silently dropped in 2019. No notification was made to the membership, later learning because it was not known by the BoD. The notifications sent to the org went unread.
Several meetings were held by members who felt it was time to start open discussions to try to promote change or force it. Most had tried to initiate conversations with the leadership, requesting disclosures and expressing concerns about policy that had been abandoned. Several meetings took place first in attempts to solve or mitigate the growing concerns being heard, then to plan a resolution.
The final straw was an attempt by a member to request a financial disclosure that was required by law to be provided. Normally these were made available at the member meetings. That request was denied. When pushed, the Bod stated that the member could come to one of the BoD member homes and view it, but could not have a copy and none would be sent.
With concern over the finances of the org growing, I chose to try one solution. While a BoD member I was one of three members who had access to the org bank account. I went to the bank and inquired if I was still a signer on the account. I was. I asked who else was. There were three of us. One former BoD member, myself. One former org member, and one current BoD member. There was only one person on the BoD with access to and authority over the bank account. I requested the year-to-date finances and luckily they were in order. Some anxiety was relieved.
On June 20, 2019 a petition was sent to the BOD and organization members simultaneously, requesting a meeting of the membership as per the rights outlined in the bylaws. In the interest of disclosure, I was one of the six original signers of the petition. I am proud that I did for I was taught that speaking truth to power is a skill one must have to effect change. The response I received from some of my mission mates and friends was hard to hear.
The petition was not received well by much of the BOD and many members. Many saw it as an attack on the organization from within; a mutiny. Things got very ugly, very fast. The petition requested a meeting of the membership to collectively discuss growing concerns regarding required financial disclosures, appearance of improprieties, required quarterly membership meetings and generally the lack of response to the inquiries and concerns expressed by the members and financial miss-management. Among the biggest concerns was the lack of the membership ability to vote for the BOD members in a dues driven non-profit. Public accountability while running a charity should be beyond reproach. The org money did not belong to the org, it belonged to the public and we were not managing it professionally.
The petition unexpectedly brought about the immediate resignation of the two most senior and experienced BOD members. It was not sought nor was it helpful, but they chose to resign simultaneously. This left only two members on the BoD which for a 501c3, is death.
These events sent the organization into turmoil and a rapid succession of BOD members. Several presidents cycled through the org. sometimes with only days between appointment and resignation. The BoD that turned over almost completely in a couple weeks, struggled to maintain the confidence of the membership and deployment partners. During that time, the petition for a meeting which came with a legally required date to be executed by, was not being met and thus was leading to a legal impasse that threatened the organization’s operational charter and future.
Some members backed away to let those in the middle attempt to resolve it. Some members departed in anger or frustration. Agencies also backed away to see if the organization was reliable, safe and if the organization would survive. CO4x4RnR had many fans in first responders but they understandably stepped back as the organization went through what many later called, growing pains. We were deactivated in WebEOC. The future of the organization was in doubt. Many members, including some of the petitioners considered resigning. One petition signer, Michael Weisman, did resign in an attempt to placate some of the angriest members and push the process forward. It barely helped.
Through many gesticulations, the organization finally landed back on stable enough footing to start to resolve the issues of the petition when Carleen Smeaton returned to the board as VP. Kristal Florquist had ridden out the turmoil and a new BOD member, Ryan Bentley, who had stepped in during that turmoil to help save the organization.
At the time, no one held the title of President so there was no appearance of consolidating power. All sights were on resolution of the issues and empowerment of the membership to ensure the survival of the organization. The downside was that it also appeared from the outside that no one was willing to be in command. Luckily, from the inside, things started improving immediately.
The organization had landed on temporary footing, but a lot of work was yet to be done. As summer turned and recoveries continued, Ryan Bentley kept the organization operational with increasing participation, while Carleen Smeaton and Kristal Florquist set about reforming the organization as quickly as possible. My role was to keep the petitioners informed while a meeting date was set and plans for the organization were started. The three BOD members spent countless hours balancing many people and concerns seeking resolution to right the organization.
The future was still very much in question. The work of 100s of people and their 100,000s of hours was at risk of ultimately failing. Dozens of passionate members worked, determined to keep it going by standing by, answering the page or actively helping to shape the new organization. The second half of the year would be one like never before. I lost a lot of sleep.
Kingston Extraction going into some of the scariest conditions I have been in once we cleared tree line in the storm.
Over the next months after the new temporary BOD was formed, several member meetings took place hosted by Eric Ross. Members could attend in person or virtually. The objectives were for the members to re-write the bylaws to both reflect a member driven 501c3 and to enhance oversight of the future BOD. The foundation of the new bylaws was member driven elections of the BOD as well as term limits and open meetings. Also re-written was my very out of date policy and procedures.
While doing so, recoveries continued. The org worked to make sure that it not only remained operational but dependable. This largely fell on the determined shoulders of far fewer active members and overseen by Ryan Bentley. Those members rose to the top, proving that as long as the call was made, the mission would be met. The missions became personal, members wanting to prove that the organization would not fail. About 15 members carried out most missions for this time, carrying an incredible load to carry the org forward while it healed. I fought with myself and consulted with one of those deploying members, wanting to roll out and help, but felt it could be dangerous as I was one of the two most visible members of the petition signers. Bryan Lott suggested I lay low for a while, while he and others carried the load. It was tearing at me to not roll out in the organizations most needy time. Weeks passed and I returned to my roots of wheeling on my own, escaping the world to the high country and trails I knew like the back of my hand.
As the turmoil settled, North Swan trail brought another roll over. It again asked a great deal from our unpaid professionals. The rollover offered challenges we had not had, trying to rig for recovery with almost no way to redirect. Even the pull-pal would not bite. After three passes in the same trench, it dug a beautiful trench we replaced and recovered. The trail was blocked, and the team was stretched. As it happened, I was wheeling on my own that day in the region and happened to catch the team on the radio off and on. I was not aware of the recovery location as I had turned off my page to avoid my inner turmoil and guilt.
Selfishly I used the technology of my Ham and zeroed in on the location of the recovery. My plan was to park on a ridge and watch my fellow members do what they do best. When I arrived, I found what I had not expected. The ridge line I was hoping to sit on had a growing crowd that was becoming frustrated with the trail being blocked. Also, I was immediately recognized. What happened quickly was among the most uncomfortable series of events I experienced in my tenure with the org.
I was welcomed by the team and asked to help manage the crowd on the hill so another member who had been trying to do so, could join the recovery team. I took on the task. I volunteered to block the road. As time ticked by, a crowd of Side by Sides arrived determined to force their way through, past or over. They had also been drinking. I radioed the team to let them know I had an issue brewing and might not be able to stop the people from coming through.
One member of the team was in communication with the county sheriff who was advising and again I let the team know I was code lit. The Sheriff authorized use, so I did my best Starsky or Hutch impersonation, turned on the lights and talked into my Ham microphone while standing behind my open door with my SAR-ES badge on it trying to look far less scared than I was. It worked, and the crowd dispersed. I felt guilty for the impersonation, but happy I could manage the issue alone. Later, a former law officer on the team approved of the actions, partially because we had approval from the sheriff and because it was getting scary. Also because it worked and he didn’t want me squished.
The recovery was managed by a combination of teams meeting and handing off roles. This was what we had originally learned the hard way on Kinston Peak and worked to perfection on Iron Chest. There on Swan that day, I watched as the lessons learned over many years and 100s of recoveries pushed through the political turmoil and got the job done.
There were very few code lit vehicles on the team, but they had their occasional use and value. I was never comfortable with them, but also glad I had them.
Soon after, Mt Antero harkened us again for a lower elevation roll over. Argentine Pass demanded its own attention for yet another roll over in the tundra area where there was almost nothing to use as redirects.
We also returned to public appearances, having been invited to Colorado State Patrol Safety Fair. This was a welcome invite as it represented an affirmation that we were still in service and fully operational, even if wounded. I filled this role happily, returning to my most prized role. I had been approached to run for president by several members when elections took place, but I felt it inappropriate considering I was a petitioner. I was also still exhausted.
I did though attend all the bylaw planning meetings and the Policy and Procedure meeting hosted by Michael Weisman. Many people had a hand in the rebirth of the org, and without them the org may not have survived. With them, the org was reborn and on better ground.
In early October, we had another high-profile recovery, this time on Santa Fe Peak where a large 4wd vehicle had somehow managed to get over the top of the mountain and down a talus slope beyond the road. The recovery demanded many layers of recovery members. It was an all-day operation that resulted once again in success through creative application of skills and on-the-fly problem solving. Ham communications had become standard and most of the people on the team were WFA graduates. The team executed its recovery flawlessly, offering reassurance that the organization was still in full operational capacity, capable of executing inspired recoveries.
Departing Santa Fe after a very long day completing a mission almost no one outside the org thought was possible. I was so proud to lead that team out, closing a chapter for me and reaffirming my role in the org. No one knew it as I was alone in my rig, but I was emotional on the way down.
After the newly drafted bylaws were reviewed by a non-profit lawyer, an election date was confirmed, and the future was about to take shape. In Mid-October 2019, Co4x4RnR held its first elections.
President – Eric Ross
VP – Nate Mikesell
Secretary – Kristal Florquist
Treasurer – Jim Dixon
Director of Public Affairs – Justin King
Director of Operations – David Reiners
Director of Field Operations – Ryan Bentley
Director of SnR – Tony Trumbly
Director of Training – Kevin Burden
Director of Tech – Robb Hartzog
Director of dispatch – Nathan Voorhese
Director at Large – William Breaux
Carleen Smeaton was retained as Director at large to maintain continuity.
It was the largest BOD the org had ever had. It was also the most diverse in professional background. Several of the new BOD members had worked as first responders before coming to CO4x4RnR. That experience would help the organization regain momentum quickly, as well as credibility.
The org retained a financial advisor, our original treasurer Dan Arkulary, in order to have further oversight and financial guidance to manage the organization’s money. Together, the BOD and the financial advisor conducted an audit and found no financial irregularities and the account was once again, secured.
Along with the new BOD, there was also a new membership structure. Previously there were two levels of membership and cost. It was leveled out increasing the dues from the lowest level, lowering the highest level. What also changed, with opposition from some, was that all our unpaid professionals, not just the SAR-ES team would be background checked. ALL members would be credentialed through the state.
At this point it must be said that without Mike Burnett and his advocacy on the org behalf within his professional circles, the org would not have easily grown past its status in 2017. Credentials and background checks raised the bar for members and helped put us on the same page as many other SnR teams. It drove some members away, which was possibly a good thing. It also gave pride of quality for others. My ID is one of my proudest possessions.
That fall, I had one of my most prideful moments while wheeling. Our windshield banners and door badges were always a point of pride while wheeling as many would thank us for our service. (a term I never felt comfortable accepting but did so, because it was heartfelt by the one saying it) While wheeling with my mother on Argentine Pass, we stopped for lunch at the old townsite. Over about an hour, several rigs came by to ask about the org or simply thank me (the org) for our service to the community. My mother was never prouder of her son.
The organization, even with its abrupt changes in leadership still fielded close to 300 recovery and SnR missions; its largest year ever. The organization landed on its feet, with new leadership and empowered membership.
The summer petition was a shock to most of the members. The outcome of the petition was also a shock. Many members were outspoken regarding the method used to effect change and some of those complaints were valid, some were simply personal attacks. The method used to issue the petition to the membership was highly questioned and criticized. It was not received well by several, not understood by many and some were highly offended. If it had ruined the organization, there would have been a lot of blame to go around. Although an uncomfortable time, it turned out to be one of the best times for the organization as it solidified member determination and gave a structure that would provide a more organic and legal growth.
This account of the year left out some specific details and names but did not shy away from the events that shaped the year and the organization. We lost members who were opposed to the procedure used to bring about change. Far more stood by the organization and its mission, answering the pages and responding to public need. We lost some members who gave countless hours at great personal cost, and one of our original founders. The dedication of none is questioned, but damage was done and trust was squandered. Most members, no matter their personal outcomes, served the organization with dedication and distinction.
2019 was a hell of a year for many. I want to take a moment and name names. Many acted courageously at personal risk to reputation and participation. They deserve recognition. In no specific order: Jim Dixon, Kristal Florquist, Michael Weisman, Carleen Smeaton, Mike Petowski, Justin King, Ryan Bentley, Eric Ross and handful of members who kept answering the page as the org struggled to stay afloat. Without these people, the org would not have survived.
By the end of the year, membership was again on the rise and the organization had worked most of our way back to full legitimacy in the eyes of the first response community. Many of those first response partners that encouraged us in the early days, commended the organization for being courageous enough to evolve, and strong enough to survive. Still others remained leery and reluctant to partner again.
The end of the most tumultuous year to that date, was quiet, calm and full of momentum. The pages kept coming, and our unpaid professionals continued answering the call. The following year leveled out but the org came to deal with the same challenges as the rest of the world, in 2020.
2020 started with the best member’s banquet the org had had to date. The facility was wonderful and the number of give-aways was impressive. New committees worked on both of those and hit home runs. There were many old faces and some new, as the org had been climbing back from the previous year.
The Venue was amazing.
Leadership took stage.
In the first months of 2020, membership numbers rose past that of the previous year and members started virtually attending BOD meetings. A new website was also contracted and the long-maligned comms trailer originally purchased in 2018 was given a budget and a committee empowered to start it. To that point, it had been used as a moving trailer by one of the members, but only twice been deployed although empty.
Also in the first three months of the year, Co4x4RnR was re-activated in WebEOC. The organization was again fully operational. We had also been invited to attend Colorado Search and Rescue Board meetings, without voting status. The lack of an MOU (memorandum of understanding) with any specific county since we work statewide, precluded us from being a full member.
In years past, the winter was our slow season but things had changed. People were now Jeeping all year, even if not getting as far up trail before they get stuck. The numbers rose quickly, even as the snow hardened in the mountains. Winds of change were also coming.
By March the world was looking at a new challenge that no one was prepared for. With COVID-19 arriving, talk of protecting our members was the main challenge the relatively new administration had to face. With the snows of spring about to slam the Rockies, the state isolated, and so did we. We were never officially closed, but would only deploy if we were contacted directly by 911. Many counties were closed to outsiders so we effectively needed permission to operate in the county, so 911 had to refer.
The org was able to shift operations and serve the medical community by delivering PPEs where deliveries were challenging but that was largely the extent of our role in the global pandemic. Like most people in the world, our responsibility was to limit contact with others. It was not a natural or pleasing role for men and women who signed up to serve, but it was the role that was needed.
That was how we remained until late Spring, On May 22 we resumed operations, mostly taking on missions that were a must. All missions were also approved by Sheriff offices before being deployed. As with any year, we were mostly dealing with snow or wet trails at first.
In early June, the organization scouted a dramatic recovery in the Crystal River, drawing a conclusion that experience had born; we refused the recovery. A truck was in the river and the current was high and strong. It posed too many dangers for us to handle. We also had the opportunity for some of the best in the business to assess the situation and they agreed. It was an important demonstration for the org to show, we could admit to ourselves and demonstrate our limits.
This was my last mission in my own rig. The vehicle was already sold and was to be delivered the following day. It was a fitting last for me and my rig as this was one of my first destinations in my original Cherokee that started my off-roading Odessey.
Bitter sweet.
As spring set in, members answered the call for side off recoveries, our most common type of call. We also recovered a Jeep so far off trail that we used our by then comfortable relationship with USFS to manage the situation. The recovery was executed with professional responsibility to the environment and offered an opportunity to also educate the public that happened by.
My last official act in relation to my time as an active recovery member with the organization, member of over 175 missions and leading about 50 of them, was to give away my gear bag to an enthusiastic rising member. I felt it was best to hand it on.
Perhaps the most important thing that happened in the early summer was, we returned to normal operations. Although masks were warn and we were not permitted to carry RPs (requesting party) in vehicles, our first responders were back in service to the community. Our most frequent haunts, Yankee Hill, Kingston Peak and Woodpecker Gulch all called on us.
August brought a new role, and a fun one for many of our members. Not only were we back in operations but some sporting events were able to take place as well and Rally Colorado called for assistance. They requested crews to be the last vehicles down the race course sections and clear any vehicles that went off course. It was a new and low pressure role, that our members were thrilled to fill.
In early September, we received another amazing compliment that was a direct reflection of the hard work, training, professionalism and humility that our members had demonstrated to build the organization. After some Bylaw changes, Colorado Search and Rescue Association approved us as a full voting member. We were the first 4×4 group to receive such status. It was a very proud moment, especially for those who had been around for a long time and understood how long that road was.
One of the concerning trends was that the trend of rolled over vehicles was increasing. The late summer and early fall called on our members, many who were new and being mentored due to being behind on classes due to the COVID regulations, to recover rolled vehicles on some very challenging trails themselves. These operations were completed successfully, and our new members were learning, in the field.
In early October, the organization responded to a dramatic roll over on a trail hardly ever traveled and largely shut down. Peru Creek was not a trail we ever responded to since it was easily traversed by street vehicles most of the way. The side trails, are very different. The vehicle was almost unrecognizable, requiring our skills to both recover it and make it recoverable. It was also a long day above tree line where our expertise again paid off, with no exhaustion or dehydration issues reported.
What had been in the backs, or sometimes fronts of our minds as fall set in, was wildfires. The state had become ravaged by fire and small towns were under threat. As a pre-emptive measure, national forests were shut down. The USFS asked for our assistance in running trails to clear them so they could close the gates and minimize risk. This seemed a small task, but it was done under the haze of smoke lingering in the air and the responsibility of literally, leaving no one behind. Search and Rescue techniques were employed, and more members were exposed to grid searches, off-road trail style. This was a technique pioneered several years earlier when we developed our in-house SAR-ES training. It worked.
Even with areas shut down, not all trails could be gated and the public still got in, and got in trouble with their rigs. Under the watchful eyes of USFS and Law Enforcement, our members effected vehicle recoveries in areas under threat of fire. It was the first time we had to plan to leave a recovery scene if a fire threat arose.
Thus ended 2020, and more specifically, my direct involvement. I stepped away only because I moved away. I followed my heart and returned back east, leaving a legacy I could be proud of. The org. has continued, and members continue to sign on to serve. By the time of this writing there are dozens of copies of Colorado 4×4 Rescue and Recovery operating in North America. Dozens more have tried and failed including three in Colorado. I still got to go on one more mission when traveling back to the state for family, luckily being able to deploy with two of my most trusted mission mates, Bryan Lott and Mike Kotas.
I have lived a blessed life with many honors and moments I hope I never forget. I was asked to stand with my two best friends when they married their brides. I won a tribute race for my sponsor and mentor in my racing years. I watched my God-Daughters graduate and one of them continues to bless me by letting me still play a weekly role in her life. Those top my list but the unique accomplishment on my list of moments, was being a founding member of a first-response agency, we had to invent and took to national notoriety. The best part was the people I was on that journey with. There were many who dedicated 100s to 1,000s of hours to the organization and helped it become what it is today. That journey with them, in the beautiful Colorado Rockies and the gift of those who were recovered trusting us to let us help … I am truly blessed.
First there is the original BoD members: CJ Lehman, Matt Radder and Dan Arkulary.
My early mission partner and the man I ran from a bear with, Talbot Wollaver.
The hard-working BoD members who came in and did more than ever asked in the early years, Carleen Smeaton, Krystal Florquist, Jeff Schaffer, and my close friend Jim Dixon.
The man and woman behind the scenes that worked so hard to put it all together and keep it together at times, Ryan Bentley, BL Hammond.
My very trusted mission mates, Bryan Lott and Eric Ross who are among my closest friends, Mike Kotas, Mike Burnett, Michael Weisman, Nate Mikesell, Matt R again and Jeff S again. I trusted these men with my life more than once, and they never wavered.
Matt Balazs for all the training both officially and not, and friendship.
Bruce Beckman from Alpine SnR who trusted me enough to put the org in front of the best and most trusted SnR team in North America.
Sheriff Rick Albers who trusted me enough to bring us into the fold of first response in Clear Creek County.
Chris Breidenbach for always backing me even before the org existed and following me and others to sponsor the org.
In my opinion, the most influential people in the org and its development up to this time, were Matt Radder, Matt Balazs, Mike Burnette and myself.
This list could not be complete without also thanking all the family members of our unpaid professionals who understand when we page out to help strangers. Those family members are home, often worrying until their loved one comes home, not unlike the family of those we rescue. Without those, our family, this family of unpaid professionals could not serve. So for them, thank you.
Myron Teller Bunger Photo from Lakewood-Colorado, An Illustrated History but provided to that publication by the Bunger/Head families.
This is the best and most complete history of Applewood, Colorado. The previous research that has been done on this topic has been poor. Many sources I have read on this topic, are just plain wrong. The history has been told by people I do not know or were not very connected to the events. I wrote this for two reasons: To set the record straight as best as it can be. And because I am one of the last people who can and the last who can with the same last name.
Applewood was my childhood wonderland; it was my oasis in the American West that was the focus of my summer vacations. What my cousins, sister, and I knew of as the farm was a fraction of what it had once been. The difference I wasn’t old enough to understand at the time was that what happened on our family farm as it shrunk was a success story. This is, to the best of my knowledge and ability, the history of Applewood and its founders in Lakewood, Colorado. I am the grandson of Myron Teller Bunger, the founder of Applewood Mesa Realty and developer of most of the communities in the area known as Applewood.
I am one of the few remaining who have direct knowledge and experience with the history of Applewood. For this work I drew heavily on the memories of my father, Byron Bunger, and my uncle, Parker Head. I also referred to the original plats for most of these communities.
In the shadow of South Table Mountain, surrounded by the towering cottonwood trees that dominated the farm I knew as a child, I was told tales and a proud accounting of the history that was Applewood and Applewood Mesa Realty. This was my grandfather’s favorite topic of discussion with his six grandchildren. The second favorite was a mine he once owned, but that is an entirely different story.
The Bungers were a product of Wheatridge. They invested in education and the produce business with roots in the region that preceded Colorado being a state. My great-grandfather, Fred Bunger, was a farmer and produce seller in the Denver markets. He would buy produce before the sun was up and carry it via wagon to Denver where there was a farmer’s market at Colfax and Cherry Creek. He became known for good produce and fair deals.
While insisting on education for his children, of which there were nine, he advanced the growth of his home community, Wheatridge. He founded the original Wheatridge Post Office and became its postmaster for many years. He advanced the causes he believed in and stood firm as a rare Democrat in a then Republican region. As a result, he was a delegate for the 1936 election of FDR. His dedication to purpose and commitment to education instilled in his children led to seven of the nine graduating college, including two daughters.
My grandfather followed the path of his father before him and became active in the Denver regional produce market after graduating from Berkley with a degree in forestry. Safeway had come to dominate the former open Denver market where his father had prospered, so my grandfather trucked in produce from the western slope and chose to stay in the Wheatridge market. He opened Bunger’s Cellar, a produce stand on West 38th Ave between Upham and Teller. He prospered there until a fire at an inopportune time forced him to take a regular job with the government to pay back a newly acquired loan to expand. That job with the Soil Conservation Service took him and his young family to Clovis, New Mexico.
Although my grandfather was out of the state for the time being he and his siblings would make a mark on the region well into the future. In the decades to come, the Bungers of Wheatridge would make names for themselves in Denver and other regions. My grandfather became invested in Denver Seed and Grain, that at the time was in the LoDo region of Denver; the signage can still be seen on the brick end of the building that remains in the now trendy restaurant and loft region of the city. Following education as a theme my grandmother, Fannie Mae Bunger, was the only teacher in a two room, six grade schoolhouse at the corner of 32nd and Youngfield. My Great Aunt Berness was the first female superintendent for Jefferson County Public Schools.
The family name is also connected to water through two brothers who sat on the Denver Water Board. Howard Bunger worked for the Bureau of Reclamation and helped develop the Howell-Bunger Valve used in dozens of dams around the world while also designing many dams in Mexico. Mills Bunger, also connected with the Bureau of Reclamation, is considered the grandfather of the Big Thompson Project. He also had an interesting time in WWII as a civilian contractor procuring water for the invasion of Sicily.
In the early 1930s, while my grandfather was still working for the government, he and his older siblings, Howard and Berness, bought a farm from a gentleman named Barnes for $8,000, taking a big risk in the early years of the depression. At the time of the purchase, a man named Carl Heisel lived on and worked the farm. In my grandfather’s absence, he was asked to continue to do so but following the direction my grandfather chose. That farm was between Youngfield St and Union Ave, as far North as 20th Ave and nearly as far South as Colfax Ave.
The farm that included the Lena Gulch and water rights from it, was Box 336, Route 6. This complex designation was the address that appeared on my father’s first driver’s license. It would be many years before it became 1800 Youngfield Street, even then a rutted dirt road. That farm was the basis of what would become Applewood in the decades to come.
The farm that would become the basis of Applewood was not an easy one to work. Although the region was well known for farming, especially wheat and alfalfa, what my grandfather wanted to grow was produce. The farm had hard soil. The farm came with an Allis-Chalmers tractor that was able to pull a plow through only some of the soil. My grandfather resorted to using a team of four Percheron horses. That need for horses eventually drew my grandfather into the horse business as well. What eventually came from the farm and all that effort was white celery with no strings, strawberries, and raspberries as well as the staples of potatoes and carrots. The land south of the Lena Gulch grew alfalfa.
Throughout the Depression as the farm was being developed, my grandfather traveled between Clovis and Denver, hoping to leave the government eventually for the farm in the region he was deeply connected to. In the meantime, he bartered labor and traded horses to keep the farm growing in first the Depression and then the war years. Eventually, in 1942 he did come home to the farm, but had not yet left the government. My father, aunt and grandmother worked the farm while my grandfather continued to travel throughout the war years. While telling his family that he was flying to Washington, the plane he boarded was actually headed south to New Mexico. He never disclosed his role in the war efforts, declaring that Harry S would have to come tell him he could tell his story, but until then, don’t ask. We never did again although it would be more or less figured out by my father later.
When purchased in 1933, the farm came with an Aladdin prefabricated home typically ordered from a catalog that used wood blocks and tree stumps as a foundation. There was also a blacksmith building, an assay office, a schoolhouse, and an old home with a root cellar under it. Locally, this collection of buildings was known as Winfield Acres. I was never able to define it more specifically but an assay office that close to Golden meant it had once been a destination.
The old house was torn down before it collapsed and its root cellar was covered over with model A car frames, rocks and sod to form a roof. That root cellar was still there when the farm sold in 1989. Most of the other buildings were torn down other than the schoolhouse that was moved to 15th Dr and Youngfield St, sitting at an odd angle and became a home. The remaining mail order house was added onto at least three times by the time my father was in high school. He himself converted the front porch into a bedroom when he was 12, so he no longer had to share a room with his younger sister. There wasn’t enough money for insulation at that time.
Photo courtesy of Todd Crowe
In those sparce war years and the years that followed, trading continued as a means to do business more economically. My grandfather loved a good trade. We grew up with an odd collection of things on the farm, from rifles to view cameras and a farm truck that seemed out of place. I owned the view cameras and a .22 rifle taken in trade until 2020. One of the other trades is what gave Applewood its name.
One of his trades was for apple tree seedlings. What he chose to do with those seedlings is plant them in a portion of the farm that had been largely unused because the ground was too hard even for a six-horse plow team. That land was between 20th and the Lena Gulch, West of Union St.
The story that follows is one that was retold many times and by many in my youth. In order to plant the seedlings in the hard ground, holes were made with steel digging pikes and then expanded with homemade dynamite. The process became well known in the region as the sounds and even occasional ground shake was impossible to miss. Seedlings were planted in the new holes. The process aerated the ground and enriched it with nitrogen. It took time, but that orchard grew from an unconventional if not effective start. The trees grew and the farm continued to develop.
The nitroglycerine used to make dynamite was later found in the root cellar when I was clearing out the farm for sale in 1987. Of the long list of unusual visitors to the farm, the bomb squad that came out for the bottle of nitroglycerine may be the oddest.
The portion of the farm that became the orchards was slightly over an 1/8 of a section of land. The trees were given a great deal of attention to encourage a high survival rate. They became the cash crop in time. There were also Cherry trees that would bear fruit on a faster timeline and the occasional pear tree.
As the farm transitioned to an orchard, my grandfather continued to work for the US Government, Bureau of the Budget in the Denver Field office. His service to the government eventually ended when the field offices were closed, and the employees were recalled to Washington. My grandfather resigned to stay in Denver, three years short of full retirement with the US Government.
During those years, the farm prospered as the city grew West. My father remembers developers coming by the farm wanting to buy the land. My grandfather turned them away at first, then questioned them about what they would do with the farm, and how. He asked details about their vision for the farm and how they would convert it into housing. He liked some of their ideas but developed his own vision. Building homes was not new to the Bungers and specifically to my grandfather. He had bought land and built single homes, one at a time on Teller Street south of 38th. What my grandfather was envisioning in relation to the farm, was not homes, but a community.
With family experience and acquired knowledge over his dining room table, my grandfather set out to try his hand at development in 1953. The first homes only took the edge off the farm, along Youngfield Street north of Willow Ln. They only built five homes, but they learned two lessons. They could make a profit, which meant it was a viable idea, and the land development was far easier and more profitable than also building the homes. The second lesson he would apply later.
These first homes had no formal name then, but they had relevance. They gave my grandfather a bankroll to take a larger step. He set out to do what the developers who came knocking on his door wanted to do, only better. The next step would begin to convert his farm into his vision.
The true start of Applewood is found on Willow Ln, Applewood Dr,19th Pl and Ward Ct. These homes were largely built by my grandfather using a builder he had put on salary. They are also the original Applewood homes, although not known by that name at the time. The builder was not what we think of today. In those days, a builder owned a bulldozer as well as hammers, and could lay down brick as well as cedar shingles. This meant that everything from road building to shingles was in-house. These homes as well as the first five would eventually be absorbed into the Applewood Hills Community that came later.
This first project was a mix of spec homes and private lot sales. The concept was proving out, so my grandfather transitioned from being a farmer to a farmer/developer. He never gave up his farmer roots though and often came to business dealings in a shirt and tie with overalls and muddy boots. His suits only came out when he was compelled to make a bigger impression and prompted by my grandmother.
Up to this point he had been doing deals over the hood of a truck or the more formal setting of his dining room table where the dealings included sweets from my grandmother’s kitchen. My grandmother had become known for anything made from apples. The farm was also known for raspberries and the even more desired, black raspberries. These business deals were often sealed with a handshake, but my grandfather knew that was not going to be good enough, and the dining room table would not be formal enough. Just as now, there was a lot of paperwork in real-estate deals.
North of the farm on Youngfield was an office that would be the perfect setting to put his grand plans in motion. 2680 Youngfield St would become the home office for Applewood Mesa Realty. It offered enough space for a receptionist, himself and even an agent or two as well as a meeting room.
I knew this office in my youth and enjoyed sitting behind the desk my grandfather used. The office smelled like carbon paper and cigarette smoke. Still today, I have a paper holder and the embossing plates used to seal deals. We often dropped by the office even after Applewood Mesa Realty was almost done developing. It was a local hub of business and ideas. From behind a grand oak desk in his new office, his deals changed the map.
Applewood Mesa Realty would today sound like a real-estate office, but his office was so much more in that era. From that office and the office at the farmhouse made out of the room that was built by my father for his bedroom, great tracts of land were bought, water rights procured, a gravel pit bought and managed, a utility company was born and sold, and a small empire was built on a previously blank swath of the map.
This is a good time to note, that not all neighborhoods with Applewood in the name, were Applewood Mesa Realty developments. Soon after the Applewood communities took off, there were other builders who adopted the name for their own developments. The name was never copywritten.
As a child, I often walked the streets around the farm. I felt at home there and a permanent connection to the community. It was an important place for me then, offering me a place I felt I belonged and would always be welcome.
Later in my 20s when I lived on the farm taking care of it while it was for sale, I used the tractor to clear the driveways of snow along Willow Lane across from the farm, so residents didn’t have to in the morning. I did so, because I felt my grandfather would have asked me to, were he still alive. I learned the meaning of community there.
The homes on those first four streets cut out of the farm taught my grandfather the business of real-estate development. He took his time and tried to streamline the process and costs. He built around trees and saved as many of the fruit trees as he could. He wanted to maintain the beauty of the lots with mature trees and still harvest them until the properties were sold.
The four streets would take a couple years to play out, but the process allowed him to go back to the same bank he struggled to pay back after his Bunger’s Cellar fire and ask for another loan. His credit and reputation gave him access to a loan that would make the next step possible.
His vision was one that would mix the traditions of the west, with modern expectations of convenience and style. He was moving beyond the vision of the developers that used to stop by the farmhouse. He would build a community unlike any he knew of. The Applewood Ranchettes would soon become a reality.
Around 1959, with a loan secured by a proven business model, additional land west of what is now I-70 was bought from Roe Everett. This land would become The Ranchettes. The concept was that the home lots would be more open and have access to bridle trails with the area zoned for horses. This concept was in line with the 1950s-60s fixation with western culture on radio and TV. The Ranchettes were almost exclusively a land development project for Applewood Mesa Realty, with a set of convenances to keep home designs consistent but unique. The land was bordered on the east side by an airstrip that my grandfather hated due to the noise and a dramatic plane crash that occurred there. A couple of my family members were there after the plane had crashed and had to endure the slow loss of life due to the then, very rudimentary rescue services available. It left a lasting mark on the younger of the two family members who witnessed it.
This crash that made local news was the last straw for my grandfather, so he worked with Jefferson County to have the airfield closed. This eventually became a Hutchinson homes project because the owner of the airfield refused to sell the land to my grandfather.
While developing, my grandfather chose to lay down streets along elevation lines when possible. He preferred winding streets for the feeling of intimacy as well as single story homes so people could age into them. He also felt they were more in harmony with the environment. His vision worked and sales were brisk.
The Ranchettes were opened in stages. This meant that there was always work to be done in development as well as sales. My grandfather managed the development, and my great uncle Mead (named after relative Elwood Mead of Lake Mead fame) came on-board as a sales agent. My grandfather also dealt with the politics of city building. To do so, he became a player in local politics. This put my grandfather in a position like his father. He found himself in the heady world of politics as a fund raiser for John F Kennedy’s presidential campaign. His fund-raising efforts in Colorado garnered him an invitation to the inaugural events. He was also approached to run for office but turned it down.
The business model was sound, but the business was not so sound for family relations. The relationship between Mead and my grandfather was soured by working together. This strain was one that carried many years and I think both regretted. It was not the last of the family to struggle with the visions of my grandfather.
The Ranchettes were not on the city water grid. Consolidated Water that provided the water to western Denver didn’t and had no interest in going west of Youngfield. As a result, my grandfather ran an ad in the Denver Post for many years offering to buy water rights in the Mutual Ditch. Together with a very deep well my grandfather located via water-witching, The Ranchettes and eventually The Mesa was well supplied. To manage this water supply, Applewood Utilities was founded and run by my father Byron for several years.
Eventually the rights and the well were bought by Consolidated and service was provided by them. Consolidated didn’t want the customers, but instead wanted the water rights. Even though the well was no longer his responsibility, my grandfather had us grandkids check on the well cap. This vigilance and sense of responsibility continued to his death. When I lived on the farm in 1986 and 87, I continued to check the security of the cap on the well.
While developing the land in The Ranchettes, the main source of sales was to builders who would either build homes on spec to then sell, or to offer land to customers and build a custom home for them. One of those home builders was Phil Riddell. He bought a lot at a time and designed homes usually on spec. He would then sell them and return the money to develop another lot. In doing so, he had several dealings with Myron Bunger.
This was a terse business relationship as the two men had very different personalities. They were both businessmen, but with very different ambitions. Phil was soft spoken and methodical. He didn’t rush anything, and he did things his way. That last trait is the common trait between he and Myron and partly why they clashed. The reason I know Phil so well, is he was one of the two witnesses to the plane crash, he and his daughter. She would eventually become my mother and Phil my maternal grandfather. My father was also at the plane crash site and that was the first place he saw my mother. Even through his fading memory, my father still remembers seeing my mother then, but they didn’t meet that day.
The next development my grandfather had in mind would be the namesake of the company, Applewood Mesa.
Applewood Mesa, as the name implies, was the vision my grandfather had from early on. It became what he was known for. The land was bought from several sources including Roe Everette and another farmer named Travis. Not all the land was bought at once, so it took many years to play out. Eventually The Mesa would include The Ranchettes and bound by Hutchinson Homes and the new I-70 on the east. The North boundary is 32nd Ave. The absolute south boundary is 20th Ave and the west boundary varies due to Travis developing his own remaining farm but is more or less Indiana St and the rise of South Table Mountain.
The large rock at 32nd Ave and Crabapple Road was placed there by my grandfather. The road was designed with a median to specifically accommodate apple trees. The home on the west corner of that intersection was the model home for The Mesa. It was a Medallion Home which meant it had very modern electronic features for the day, as if a model for the future. This home is very similar to another special home built in Applewood Glen. They were both designed by my father, Byron Bunger.
Other homes on Crabapple Road near 32nd were model homes for builders hoping to build homes on land sold by Applewood Mesa Realty. Some of them featured other futuristic design features for the day. They drew a great deal of attention in the region and were featured in the Post and News.
One of the most unusual things that I grew up being aware of without fully appreciating was that my grandfather wanted young families to be able to afford homes. He also wanted diversity. As the developer, he often wrote loans for the homes or lots when banks refused for financial or racial reasons. Redlining was standard practice in those days. As a result, he carried many notes on homes for many years until he was forced to sell most of them to a bank since he was not federally insured. He managed to maintain considerable control over the loans by requesting an appointment to the bank’s loan committee as part of the deal. He only watched over his original loans.
He personally kept notes on three homes that struggled to pay most often so they would not be foreclosed on.
One of those homes was on Willow Lane near the farm. The woman that owned the house was rather sick so my grandmother would look in on her and bring her food. To prevent my grandmother walking down Youngfield St, my grandfather put a gate in the farm fence along Willow Lane. Later, after the woman passed, her family who inherited the house helped look after my aging grandparents using the same gate going the other direction. The mortgage for that house originally written around 1960 was paid off around 1996. My father by then was the holder of the loan and he wanted me to watch as he signed off the loan, the last official act of Applewood Mesa Realty.
While the Mesa was being developed, the seedlings had long since become grown trees. The apples grown there were Northern Spy, Red Delicious, Red Rome, McIntosh as well as a few others including trees that were grafted to grow apples perfectly suited for cider but were otherwise disgusting. Some of those same trees still exist today. My grandfather developed his own apples, but never patented any. Some of those trees on the lots from the original farm, still bear unique fruit today.
There were many stories retelling my grandfather’s ability to move a straight ladder around an apple tree by ‘walking’ it. He stood it straight like stilts and moved it around the tree to not have to climb up and down the ladder to pick a whole tree. He had a canvas tube connected to his belt that he dropped the apples into, sliding down with resistance to keep from bruising. On the ground they were collected by a second person, often a kid he paid to help out.
My father never developed this skill being more academic than athletic like Myron, so he used a more conventional method but for many years, he would scale ladders leaned against apple, pear and cherry trees. Some farm hands that would come north to the farm for picking season also developed the walking ladder skill, but it was another largely unique thing Myron was known for.
There were cherry trees planted among the apple trees, and they had their own stories involving nets, ladders, magpies and my grandmother’s deadeye shot with a .22 rifle taken in trade. Later it also included a family dog that would retrieve the magpie and drop it in a trashcan.
My grandmother born in 1900, grew up with mostly brothers. She would often go with her father and brothers to hunt rabbit in local fields around their home in Trinidad. The men would be dressed in hunting attire and my grandmother in her gender appropriate dress. After a usual largely unsuccessful effort to hunt down dinner, they would finally give in and give the gun to my grandmother. Within a short time, they could return home with dinner in hand.
This skill never left her, but the later targets became magpies whose quest was cherries. They would find ways under the netting covering the cherry trees and have a field day. From the back porch of the house and a dog by her side, she would take aim with a bartered .22 rifle and drop the aggressor birds. Her dog would then retrieve the bird and drop it in a metal trashcan we learned to not open as children.
Harvest season was also a time when people who were struggling to make mortgage payments, could work for my grandfather and pay off back debt. Much of his harvesting staff was either his residents or families from Mexico who came up many falls to work on the farm. It wasn’t a large staff but about 10 adults and sometimes their children helped out.
As ‘The Mesa’ put my grandfather on the map literally, he used the attention it brought him to develop other land he already owned. The land developed to that point had mostly been owned by himself. The projects that followed would be family projects.
While Applewood is most often connected to The Mesa, most of the other projects were from the original farm or near it. Applewood Glen was 20 acres and co-owned by Bunger siblings Myron, Howard and Berness. This was developed while The Mesa was still being sold through the office on Youngfield St. Applewood Glen included Winfield Dr, Union Dr, Union St and W 18th Dr. These homes and sites were sold from about 1965 into the 1970s.
Winfield Circle was also developed at the same time as The Mesa. It was a small project based on land bought when the pond at Youngfield St and 16th St was built. It had tentatively been called Winfield Acres but is actually block 9 of Applewood Heights. The land was solely owned and developed by Myron Bunger. I knew this loop road well in my youth, having played in the Lena Gulch only feet from Winfield Circle. My cousins, sister and I spent a great deal of time playing in the Lena Gulch we simply called the creek, often drawing the attention of the residents on Winfield Circle.
The creek was included in our perception of the pond on the farm. The pond was man made by my grandfather, twice. The first attempt didn’t work but the second one did and the pond is still there. I learned to fish there and watched the ducks. The best part of the pond and creek was when young ducks grew up there. We cousins called them ‘yellow fuzzies’ and watched them for hours.
Mother ducks would lead them around the pond in circles, building their muscles and skills. The pond drained through a pipe to the existing Lena Gulch below it. The yellow fuzzies would occasionally be caught in the drain’s pull and down the five-inch pipe the fuzzies would go to the creek below. Mom would make a racket and eventually retrieve her lost child. Sometimes when my cousins were there, they would catch the yellow duckling and return it to the pond with the mother duck making the loudest racket you ever heard.
After hearing about these events, my grandfather put a screen over the pipe so that yellow fuzzies could not fall through, so the duck nursery became safer, and we kids would watch over them anytime we were there. As I lived on the farm as an adult, I would often lunch on the bank of the pond with the ducks standing station looking for any scraps that may fall or be tossed in their direction. The last time I left the farm, the last place I said good-bye to was the pond and creek.
Applewood Heights is south of Lena Gulch and was developed in the 1970s. This original filing included Youngfield Dr, Whippoorwill Dr and W 15th Pl. but it later filled in east to the Lena Gulch. Other than Winfield Circle, Applewood Heights was co-developed by Myron and Mills Bunger, again being sold through the office on Youngfield St.
Mills Bunger developed land North of 32nd St spanning from N Zinnia Ct to Braun Ct. These were sold through Applewood Mesa Realty, but I am not aware of a formal Applewood name for the community.
Applewood View and Applewood Shores north of 20th Ave, are not part of the Applewood Mesa development but my grandfather helped them become a reality through Applewood Mesa Realty and its resources. Applewood Knolls was not connected to the Bunger family.
Applewood Hills is a small development south of 20th, including Xenon St, Ward St, and an extension of Willow Ln. This was part of the original Apple Orchards and absorbed the original four streets built earlier as well as the 5 test homes along Youngfield.
Applewood Hills and Applewood Glen as well as Winfield Circle are part of the original two section farm bought in 1933 and soon after. The development of these lands formally ended my grandfather’s time as a commercial farmer.
Also in the late 1960s, Myron Bunger bought a tract of land north of 20th Ave west of Simms. This small tract includes Carmel Dr and was one of the few developments in the area for a long time.
Through the 1960s and 70s, these Applewood communities were built on overlapping timelines and in differing combinations of siblings as investors. My grandmother was also a signer on almost all Applewood Mesa filings. My grandfather wanted to ensure that if he passed away, all his business dealings would remain within family control, and she would be taken care of.
Almost all of the Applewood developments that I know were products of Myron Bunger and Applewood Mesa Realty, was west of Simms, east of Indiana St, one community just north of 32nd Ave and north of Colfax Ave. This region is often referred to as Applewood Valley, a name my grandfather would have liked.
In the heady days of Applewood Mesa, more help was needed. Myron hired an attractive dark haired receptionist. Although my father had seen my mother before, walking into Applewood Mesa Realty as a normal daily act introduced him to my mother. My mother Linda only worked there a short time and was replaced by another future family member.
Phil Riddell worked on other projects in the area that did not include Myron. Phil Riddell designed the strip mall on the east side of Youngfield, north of 20th Ave. The Riddells eventually left Golden and moved to Fort Collins and there, The Riddell Brothers made their own mark on that town, building homes in Terry Shores and their own keynote development, Hill Pond. I find comfort and familiarity there in Fort Collins, but Applewood is where my own family germinated. Turning north on Youngfield from Colfax, always feels like coming home for me.
By the 1970s, Myron Bunger’s eyesight had been ravaged by macular degeneration. The shrinking of his farm allowed him to still work what I knew as a child, even while blind. His degraded sight only slowed him slightly due to the help the help of the office manager June Mallory who came after my mother. She became his driver and paperwork organizer. June would bring papers for my grandfather to sign, using her finger as a prop so he knew where to sign. She looked after my grandparents as well as me when I lived on the farm. No history of Applewood or the Bunger side of my family could be complete without her. She was an angel to most, even if the occasional source of jealousy for my grandmother.
Around 1970 in order to raise the profile of his communities, my grandfather built a home to enter into the Parade of Homes. This was the other home in Applewood designed by my father, Byron Bunger, and still exists today in the Applewood Glen area. This home and its reception in the Parade of Homes raised the exposure of Applewood to a new level.
It was also intended to be the home my grandparents would retire to once the farm was fully developed. This never happened and it was eventually sold. It is also one of most beautiful homes I know of.
The history of Applewood was written in the shadow of South Table Mountain. When I was a child, we would drive up to the top of the mountain via a trail at the end of Old Quarry Rd. On the land he owned on top of the mountain, we would build a fire and make smores while my grandfather recounted his most ambitious idea. His plan was for six ranches on top of the east end of the mountain. The homes would not be large but be beautiful, befitting the view.
This project would have produced addresses that would be among the most desired in the city, then and now. I have no memory of the name of this project, but I do recall an artist’s rendition of the idea. That rendition has been lost to time. The land was also lost when the county stepped in and forced the sale of the land to stop the project. This was hard for my grandfather to take and a source of anguish for him until his last days. He didn’t mind not being able to build the homes as much as the tone of the battle itself and the powerful local family backing the effort. The county made him feel unwanted, and by extension, Applewood.
My own lasting memories of Applewood are magical ones. My sister, cousins and I used to sell my grandfather’s produce along the side of Youngfield Street during the summers in the late 70s and early 80s. Sweet corn was the cash crop, but it was the raspberries and black raspberries that literally stopped the traffic. Those last acres in the middle of Applewood were nirvana for me. I learned to drive on a tractor there and later built my first two racecars on the farm as well. The farm was the center of the Bunger universe in Colorado for decades, but with my grandparents passing, it started to fall into disrepair. I was the last Bunger to call it home.
My father and aunt tried to donate the property to the county if they would make it a park with a plaque remembering my grandparents, but the county refused the plaque. My father and aunt both felt the refusal was residual from the battle over South Table Mountain. I do as well. It would have been nice for our family to return to and visit, having no home of our own remaining in Applewood.
We ended up selling the land to a wonderful couple, eventually building their own dreams on the farm that started so many others. Appropriately, they were architects. The old farm is gone, but a beautiful home sits on its foundation in middle of the community my grandfather created.
The Applewood Mesa Realty office building remains but was later occupied by another business for longer than my grandfather occupied it. I dropped by in the early 2000s and the new owner let me remove the windowpane with APPLEWOOD MESA REALTY painted on it. I still have it.
Although I have cousins still in the state, I am one of the last family members bearing my name to leave Colorado. Applewood has had several prominent residents, but my grandfather would be much prouder of the diversity of the homes and residents, the very slow turnover, as well as the pride that is still obvious in his community. He wanted to be a successful developer but ended up building a legacy. He would be very proud of the ranking Applewood holds in the Denver region and that even in the 2020s, there are still original residents that bought their home from him.
While researching this project, I spoke with several residents who told me they remembered my grandfather. A few spoke of his vision and professional yet friendly demeanor. One also recalled his reputation as a businessman. All spoke with respect and left me with both insight and pride.
My grandmother once taught me, success brings both admiration and adversaries. She told me, building anything means you have to push your vision forward while any who cannot see it, resist it. “Doing the right thing isn’t always what others want done. Your grandfather would have rather failed trying to do what he envisioned, than succeeded by accepting mediocrity”.
One of my lasting memories of my grandfather is of him sitting in his easy chair in the living room while we grandkids looked at a map of Denver on the floor. He asked us if we saw Applewood printed on the map anywhere. When we excitedly pointed it out, he beamed with pride.
I have written a great deal and do so usually with music. The music takes me back, evokes or brings forward the feelings from so long ago. Like so many, I love music. But as a product of coming of age in the 80s, I love many types of music. It made me wonder, if I were to mark my life in music, what would the playlist be?
I was born in the evening shadow of the Rockies. Student housing at Boulder was my first address. So, in the beginning there was John Denver. I had no idea how his first line would be so prophetic for me…
Soon after, like most of us there was a dearth of personal music but there was the music of our parents. Mine got married in the 60s and in my formative years I heard many songs from that era that originated in Laurel Canyon…
And the melodies of a simpler time, echoed over and over in my youth and teens, challenging me to not forget there is a way to live, simply. It was a skill I lost when I truly learned what the sound of silence was. It is slow destruction…
Then came my own era, starting with the first artist whose music I stole from my mother…
Coming of age, like most, was a tough time for me. Things were falling apart in my life, and I understood none of it. As a way of coping, like all teens, I found music and the power of feeling like they were singing about my life. About me. This wasn’t the first album I bought, but it was the amazing third. I actually still remember buying it…
Journey helped me get started in my own music and of course, the greatest era of music. What followed was amazing.
It was an innocent time for me, even if my music wasn’t always as such. But the best thing was, everything was possible, and likely…
AND, we partied. One of my books features a lot of music. The reason is, I was 17 and like any, I had the world by the tail. MTV was in its prime and we signed on.
Then, I fell in love.
The years that followed were filled with music, but it took a decidedly different tone. I was racing by then and the music was the backdrop. Anger hid in aggression and auto racing gave me an outlet for the energy…
And the distinct sound of my 90s by a band on the edge of destruction, pun intended, and a singer closer to deep mental issues than most yet the closest I have ever seen to the immortal Freddie Mercury…
Even though my life was moving in high gear, my inner life was yearning to slow down. I was losing myself while I found myself. I sought peace in my violet world through seeking a personal philosophy…
I struggled with loss and a feeling of being on the wrong path, having destroyed the right one. I felt my life was leading nowhere. Mostly I was aching for what I knew was already gone for me yet having to keep living without it…
I was learning I had to absorb the losses I felt and find a way to not just survive as I had been but thrive on what was left over after the damage…
For years I tried not to hate myself. For years I tried not to self-destruct or hurt anyone else. I ran from women who loved me, thinking I was not worthy of their love if they only saw how broken I was. I felt the best thing I could do, was distance myself from those who cared about me, to protect them from the damage I often brought to others …
For years I lost myself. I left my sport and lost my passion. My life became bland and I questioned my meaning and value. Then I found a friend that more than anything, reminded me how to have fun. and to keep living.
I recovered and went back to school, finding a place to land professionally for the first time in my life. I found myself, through leading a team helping others. I listened to this each day as I walked to work. In the end, they helped me too…
Then I found my time again through service. I found my soul and a purpose. I found a measure of peace and helped change the world…
And oddly, the past came back in a new way for a more edgy world. I don’t know that I fit in the world, in fact I know it is not my world anymore, but I sought my place and my role, while enjoying the reinterpretation of my own past…
Then it all came full circle.
The adventure I am on has many possible outcomes but for the first time in my life, ever, I am making plans as a couple, rather than solo. I am learning to think for us, for the first time…
In the end, I will return to the beginning. I may not die in the shadow of the Rockies, but the last song played in or for my life will be John Denver, again.
“I have always had an opinion that much good might be done by keeping mankind in good humor with one another.”
As stated above, Washinton Irving’s goal was not so much to become Americas first recognized author but to entertain and make laugh. However, while England was still bruised from the beat down the colonists gave them in the last quarter of the 18th century, they still discounted most things American in the first half of the 19th century. Washington Irving was not among those things. Irving was the first quality American author with international recognition. Although he spent a great deal of time in England, he was distinctly American and proud of it.
As an author, Irving had a foot in two different camps. One of his most socially valuable works is a massive biography of George Washinton. His national pride compelled him to record the nation’s history to some degree, knowing that if not done, it would be lost. In this respect, he did his best to provide a very readable and entertaining history of the father of his nation.
His biography was not written in a formal way, but in a familiar tone with a serious nod to ease of reading and entertaining. This is the flair that connects the biography to his other works. He knew writing doesn’t have value outside of providing a record, if it doesn’t entertain. And entertain he did.
Although a formidable project that was respected, his Biography was not the first step towards respectability for American authors. Creativity became the future for Irving. His first commercially successful work was a caricature still in the theme of history, A History of New York. It was a tongue in cheek work that mocked the Dutch influence on the region. Ironically, this first success was under a pen name that may have the longer legacy, Diedrich Knickerbocker.
Although most may not know of the literary work today, it was successful then and the fictitious author became a symbol for the state. It’s not a fluke that New York’s basketball team is the Knicks.
His next work, The Sketchbook, was his opus. This work offered many stories on many different subjects, most of which found their own fame. This work also became an international success while he was in the diplomatic corps in the court of St James. His international success validated him as an author and gave identity and validation to his young nation. He truly had become a diplomat.
The Sketchbook gave us many stories and characters but the most influential likely was the introduction of so many English Christmas traditions that we know today. His writing became the conduit from Europe to America so many connections that immigrants and their decedents wanted as their own. These writings essentially became a reference source for new Christmas traditions.
From that perspective, Washington Irving’s influence is still with us today, if we recognize Christmas or not. So many of the traditional tropes and images, came though his Sketchbook. More on that can be read here, https://5280nup.wordpress.com/2015/12/25/multcultural-christmas/
What also came, was The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. This of course influenced Halloween and has been the subject of so many adaptations and references. This one ties to another writing here https://5280nup.wordpress.com/2018/10/31/all-hallowes-eve/
The less influential Rip Van Winkle was also contained within The Sketchbook. Although lesser-known today, it was a very popular story in the day and abroad. He helped shape the perception of American icons and it has been said the description of the main character helped shape the image of Uncle Sam.
His Christmas traditions, Halloween bending Sleepy Hollow and image influencing Rip Van Winkle and international and national identity defining work, was all published under the name Geoffrey Crayon. As fun as it may be, this was not the origin of the name of our childhood’s favorite art supply.
Another way Irving touched most of our childhoods, is through piracy. He helped build the lore that we know today. Most of what we know about pirates, is false. Most of what we love, and most familiar tropes are more fiction than fact. Irving, wrote a wonderful story, Kidd the Pirate. Being a real person Irving didn’t invent Captain Kidd but he did help invent the fiction of the real man. Kidd is the only known pirate to bury treasure, which was only once and only a few feet deep, but Irving took hold of this, and used it as a metaphor.
What few who seek buried treasure know is that the idea of burying a treasure, and the seeking of it is often a metaphor for seeking the devil and the sins that come from indulgence. Irving used the image of seeking and digging to great effect. Notice digging a hole goes down and leads to fortune and thus sin. More information on Captain Kidd and even the influence of Treasure Island can be found here: https://5280nup.wordpress.com/2016/02/22/the-power-of-piracy/
Irving’s next work, also touched on the theme of seeking buried treasure as a metaphor for sin come to the front in his work, The Devil and Tom Walker. This story goes even further to influence our perception and proliferation of the seeking of lost treasure. Of course, that quest is supported by the finding of treasure in logical places like sunken ships but other than the one trove Kidd buried, and someone dug up the next day, there has never been any found other than random discoveries of random loss. Maybe that’s good news for us and bad for the devil but Irving’s influence is unmistakable.
Irving’s next work, The Devil and Tom Walker only further solidified the pirate tropes and their connection to Captain Kidd. The influence of Washington Irving is impossible to measure. He can be found in ads for modern products, referred in modern literary and filmatic works and for most, unknowingly. One man who sought to make people laugh, have entertained billions over the years and influenced an entire nations identity as well as at least two holidays.
Washinton Irving is one of the most referenced writers in modern times, even if not understood in the reference. He invented or helped shape some of our favorite social tropes. It does help that he was there in the beginning of our nation helping to form our national identity, but part of being in the right place and the right time, is also being the right person.
When I set out to understand the war in the Pacific, three questions stood out for me. Halsey and his task force 34 decision because I am a fan of Taffy 3. That work is found here https://5280nup.wordpress.com/2021/10/29/culpability/
The last, was why the whole mess started in the first place. Why did the war in the pacific start and include us. The simple answer is because Japan attacked. Yes. Obvious.
The next slightly more in-depth answer is the oil embargo. That’s not enough.
The slightly more in-depth reason does though hit on the most common theme of wars, natural resources. Japan was all about natural resources. After living in near isolation for much of recorded history, several forces pushed Japan into the industrial revolution. As their culture changed, their economy changed and grew. They went from a more local agrarian and feudal type system, to one of industrialization and capitalism.
Rarely when a nation starts to grow, does that nation accept that growth being limited. For Japan, they needed material. Raw material. Natural resources. They were resource limited as soon as they entered the industrial revolution. The most common ways to acquire the resources needed, is trade for them or buy them.
Japan did buy much of their needs, but they were draining their economy. They were still isolationists and didn’t develop foreign trade to fuel their industrial machine. Eventually, their economy could not feed their industry. The issue was that they were draining their economy by purchasing resources that didn’t aid in the production of goods that can be traded so the purchases were a total loss, economically. Where the resources were going, was into their war machine. They had won a war against Russia only a few decades earlier, which is a very rare occurrence. They had a nation that had never been invaded or even threatened directly. They were feeling their oats.
In the area of natural resources, not only was Japan dependent on the US but had competing interests in China. The US had been developing relations with China for a time, and they had shared interests in trade. Japan wanted in.
The beginning of any war goes back in time well before the first shot and casualty. It is often said the first casualty of war is the truth. What can also be said is that the last casualty of peace, is diplomacy. This is where the US failed for a very long time. When Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931. Although the US politically condemned Japan, they did nothing substantial to support China. They also did nothing to inhibit Japan. Publicly they were hard on Japan. Privately the US did, nothing.
So, while the US was condemning Japan for their military actions against a nation they had formal relations with, the US was also selling the raw materials needed by Japan to build their war machine. In simple terms, the US condemned Japan’s military actions while profiting from and supporting their continued efforts to build their military.
War was not a favored topic with the US. They saw the worlds issues that were clearly brewing, as other people’s problems. Many were still smarting from the effects of The Great War and the depression was raging. It was understandable that a US population that feared for their jobs and security would not want to help the world solve their issues.
Meanwhile, Japan murdered and raped their way through regions of China throughout the 1930s. WWII, was already on a slow simmer in the Pacific, even if not obvious then. I would say a strong argument could be made, although not my goal, that the first shots of WWII were in Manchuria.
At the dawn of the 1940s, Japan was becoming far more bold and taking more land. This is also where we go back to their previous world stance and embrace their Asian isolation world view. They developed the idea to bring all of Asia under one umbrella and push the western world out. This is a nice way of putting it. They wanted the resources of all of Asia since most of Asia was far behind western technology and philosophy and thus easily manipulated and resource rich while not industrializing. This was obvious by the number of British, French, and Dutch colonies in Asia.
Japan wanted to displace the western colonial overlords from Asia. But this wasn’t their true goal. They wanted to remove the Western overlords so Japan could replace them. They wanted to bring all of Asia under one overlord, Japan. Japan wanted to be the Western style colonist of Asia and secure the resources needed for their own national interests.
The timing was very deliberate. By allying with the axis powers, even if largely informal, they were able to share a common enemy. All the colonial overlords in Asia, were fighting for survival in Europe. Their resources were being spent in the west, so the East was ripe for the taking. Japan was there to do the taking.
They felt and later showed that their aggressive combination of old war theory, and modern technology was a combination that no other nation had, and no one had a direct answer for. Much like their informal ally Germany, they were bringing war to the world in a way that had not been seen before. They easily overwhelmed China as they took their early steps into a global war, driven by their need for natural resources.
What they needed was free, unfettered access to oil. After the China invasion, American oil exports to Japan were reduced to what Japan could pay for in cash, rather than on credit. This slowed their import, dramatically.
Copper was also a need that came from the US. It was cut off. These were available elsewhere but the one resource that really cut deep for Japan, was scrap metal. Other nations in Asia not being as industrialized could not offer the scale of scrap the US could. Oil was not cut off, but the strain was hard on Japan.
1941 brought negotiations to ease the embargo, and efforts seemed to get close to a resolution. Japan was close to stopping their war actions in China and to reinterpret their alliance with Germany and Italy for more favorable trade relations.
This was how it looked on the outside. There was some truth to it but not nearly as much as the US and the world thought. The negotiations were real, but the scenes in Japan, there was a power struggle with very different ideas for the future of the nation. While all this was going on, plans for war never stopped.
The plans for war meant that their need for resources also never stopped. Their easiest foray into new territories was French-Indochina. This region we now know as Vietnam. When Germany conquered France, French-Indochina came under their control and Nazi Germany granted permission to Japan to invade; so, they did. This eased some of the stress from the embargo but didn’t solve it. Roosevelt cut off all oil exports and froze all assets of Japan’s in the US and any subordinate nations.
As a result, Japan turned their sites south and planned to invade Brunei. The nation was oil rich so both England and the US were interested in it. The US only needed it so Japan couldn’t have it. Other nations needed it directly. Japan wasn’t interested in negotiations. They felt it was cheaper to take it by force.
Japan’s efforts to find compromise with the US were torpedoed. The Japanese Army ultimately didn’t want to abandon their efforts in China and knew if left to their own choices, Brunei would strike a deal with another nation for their oil, likely the US. The Japanese Prime Minister started plans for a broad invasion of Asia.
The walk up to war for Japan, did not include submitting to anyone. Although the nation was still populated by simple hard-working people with great personal pride as Japanese, the military and especially the Army were fanatics. Submission as was shown in their method of war, was not in their vocabulary. So, their guise turned south.
The real issue then became those western power’s colonies. Singapore, The Dutch East Indies and The Philippines were in the way. The British, Dutch and Americans were the problem. Holland was already swallowed up by the war. Great Britain was already resource dependent on the US and unable to support her colonies in Asia. Their positions would be weak and could not be reinforced. Their naval powers in the area were limited and isolated. The Americans were once again the problem.
This was a recurring theme. As shown there had been issues between the US and Japan for over a decade but the US position was never a real threat, until Roosevelt moved the US Pacific fleet from the US west coast to Pearl Harbor. Until then, Japan felt that the US was bluster and posture, but never action. Japan did take this act as provocative.
It was meant as provocative.
But the US also hadn’t expanded on this act very quickly. Their further outposts such as Wake and Midway Islands were only dots on a map with little ability to threaten Japan. Their forces were purely defensive, but still provocative. The US presence in The Philippines and Pearl were the issue. The Japanese sphere of control was incomplete and not unfettered with the US presence.
When Japan needed to expand south from Indochina, the step would be their most provocative.
Japan knew that Great Britain and her colonies would respond. Japan knew that expansion south would provoke a response from the European allies as well as Canada, Australia, and likely New Zealand. The next move would demand Japan push even further south, to confront or contain Australia. In order to go south, they had to neutralize Singapore.
This is where we have to take a leap of faith instead of history. I can find no record to address several questions I have but there is structure. Simple geography is easy to understand.
This move south, would put a great military threat behind them and between them and the home island. The US forces and MacArthur in the Philippines, if the US decided to act, could cut off their Army from direct Naval reinforcement. The next move Japan desired to make, had to make, had to be thoroughly considered.
The posture of the US had been clear. This is where some say that Japan chose to attack the US because we were clearly going to attack them if Japan attacked the European outposts in Southeast Asia.
I disagree.
France had territory in Southeast Asia. France had been lost to the Nazis already and the US did, nothing. When Japan took their Asian territory, the US did, nothing. When the Nazis invaded and took Holland, The US did nothing. When Germany attacked and threatened Great Britain, the US did, nothing. If The US was perfectly willing to adhere to their isolationist stance as the homelands of these colonies were attacked and, in most cases, invaded and occupied, I see no reason to believe the US would respond differently if Japan attacked their colonies. The US stance was clear.
The US also showed they were unwilling to substantially respond to the invasion of China. China was not a protectorate of the US, but they had close economic relations with them. When Japan invaded, the US essentially did, nothing. Not only did the US not do anything militarily, they continued to support Japan’s war machine for a time.
I see no evidence that if Japan had attacked British and Dutch colonies and interests in Southeast Asia, and yet done nothing to the Philippines, we would have responded militarily. Almost all of Europe was at war and the good guys were losing. Russia at that time was losing. North Africa was occupied. Scandinavia was a mess. In response to all that, militarily the US had done nothing.
Southeast Asia had never been shown to be more politically or economically valuable to the US than Europe. In a twisted view, it could even be theorized that if Japan took over the sphere they wanted in the Pacific, the US would have a wealthy trade partner in Japan. They were waging war which consumed resources. The United States could make a lot of money by sitting by and maintaining relations with a growing aggressive trade partner. Of course, we had a trade partner in them before and we let that be lost. Our actions also dictated that they would be less in need of our resources. Politics is about positioning leverage. Rarely, is it about morality.
As I leave that stance for a moment, I’ll explore the idea of two other theories.
The US was supplying both Great Britain and Russia with war and economic aid. Germany was fighting both of these nations. It would be within Germany’s interest for the US to have fewer supplies to send to these nations. One way to do so, was to force the US to need them for herself.
Many understood the potential of the US as an arsenal. I doubt Hitler was one and if he were told, he would discount the claim. He may have felt that if the US were fighting Japan, there would be a dramatic reduction in war and economic material for German enemies. Regardless of production capability, there is always a limit.
The idea that Germany would provoke Japan to attack the US in order to benefit Germany is possible. Japan and Germany were allies but not firm ones. Japan had representatives in Berlin. There were German politicians in Japan. There is, however, no record of any such request being made by Germany. Japan never claimed this after the war which would seem likely if it had happened.
If it had happened in spite of no records of it, there would have to be some return on Japan’s investment. For Japan to attack the US would be expensive. It would likely be far more expensive to attack the US than many other nations in Southeast Asia. Japan needed to invade to gain the war materials and basic economic supplies like rice. Adding the US to Japan’s expense log for Germany seems unlikely unless there was a quid pro quo. There is no record or sign of one.
Another theory has a title and some pages dedicated to it. The idea that Russia wanted Japan and the US to enter into a war so they could securely move their Siberian armies from Russia’s Eastern border and use them in defense of Moscow, makes sense. The theory demands that Russia was concerned that Germany’s ally Japan, would attack through Siberia. One issue with this is that Russia had signed a non-aggression pact with Japan. In theory, there need not be a concern to guard against. The counter to this is that they had had the same agreement with Germany and Germany had broken it.
I feel this could have been a real concern but again, no proof.
Another issue easily identified with this theory is that by November of 1941, before Pearl Harbor, Russia had pulled most of their troops from Siberia to defend Moscow. Russia had already decided they could leave their eastern flank open. In reality, moving their armies from Siberia to Moscow was a move of desperation, so it was not done because they felt Japan was not a risk, but that Germany was an immediate risk.
Here is the rub. It could be argued that in doing so, Russia needed assurances that Japan would be too busy to invade through Siberia so a war with the US would be perfect. Russia did have formal relations with Japan. They had ambassadors. Is this theory workable, yes. But again, in post war Japan while many men were facing war crimes tribunals, no one offered this buck to pass.
There is also a logical roadblock as well. Russia had been receiving US aid through the north Pacific. Freighters had been passing close enough to Japanese territories that they could be watched. A war in the Pacific could very easily cut off these freighters or the US could decide they could no longer spare the supplies. Russia was in desperate need of the supplies.
Based on this, I discount the theory that Russia had influenced the Japanese attack on the US. I don’t throw it out completely but there is no evidence, and no one tried to claim it in post war testimony. In the immediate post war cold war posturing and excusing, the US likely would have disclosed that fact if they had proof, to turn more public opinion against Russia. They didn’t. Ironically, even after the start of the war, the freighters didn’t stop crossing the North Pacific. They simply changed to Russian flags and crews. That non-aggression pact was held by Japan.
Most of the aforementioned words offered to this Russian conspiracy for forcing the hand of Japan is based on the naive or outright treasonous actions of an American in FDR’s administration, Harry White. There is enough evidence to know that he passed information to Russia. Either ignorant or spy, it was done. However, there is no real proof that he did so to push that agenda nor that the information passed became the basis for Russian actions to push Japan into a war with the US.
Japan was not subservient to Russia, and felt themselves to be superior to them. They would not blindly or subjectively act on Russian desire. They also had no reason to trust the Russians and have shown no evidence they did.
I find the theory poorly founded and nearly impossible to have been carried out.
If Japan attacked the European colonies, outposts and territories in Asia, the US had shown they would not resist. They showed they would stand by. They demonstrated they would not respond, other than politically. The only difference between the US position before Pearl Harbor and a perceived one if Japan had moved on European colonies is that the US had no more sanctions to impose on Japan. There is no evidence that the lack of political options would lead to military ones.
The war in Europe at that time, showed no reason for Japan to worry long term about a stance of occupation and subjectification of Asia. Some say Japan attacked the US because of the perceived concerns about trials for the actions of the Japanese Army in the territories and nations they had conquered or occupied. War crimes could not be a concern of a nation from a nation they are not at war with. International tribunals were not, and are not a common event and again with he direction of the war in Europe, of virtually no concern.
Also, you do not start a war to eliminate the risk of losing a war.
Not only had there been no risk prior to Pearl Harbor of reprisals for their actions, but starting a war with the US is one of the few ways to make that concern a real one.
I find little evidence and little logic to support the idea that Germany spurred Japan to attack the US.
I find no evidence that Russia spurred Japan into attacking the US.
I find no evidence that Harry White had the agenda or ability to push Russia to spur Japan into a fight with the US.
There is also some distance to be traveled with the idea that the US themselves wanted the war. Its not secret that FDR wanted to enter the war in Europe. He had stated so and tried to do so several times. Some could claim that the sanctions and complete embargo on Japan were designed to provoke Japan.
As previously mentioned, moving the base of the US pacific fleet to Pearl Harbor was also provocative even if logical as well. One could easily look at this and say, what else could we have expected? And in fact, the US had been watching for signs of an attack for months before Pearl Harbor.
The problem with the US trying to provoke Japan, is that it wasn’t a guarantee that it would bring the US into the war in Europe which is what FDR wanted. This is demonstrated by the US declaration of war, that only included Japan, not Germany or Italy. It is unknown if the US would have eventually declared war on the other Axis powers if Germany had not done the deed themselves.
The US took a provocative stance in the Pacific. This could be interpreted as tempting Japan. Still, even if it were, it doesn’t determine Japan’s fate or their choice. Power lies in choice and Japan still had choices other than to attack. They made their own determination.
I find little logic in Japan’s choices to attack the US. Therefore, when logic doesn’t travel the distance, psychology may help close the gap. Some additional distance towards that choice to attack that was made, can be found in the psychology of the nation and their relations with the US.
Japan was an arrogant nation and one that felt they deserved what they wanted simply because they were superior. Much like their distant cousin in war Germany, great leaps of logic were made to justify their claims and conquests. They also seemed to become drunk with their waring perception of superiority. It can be easy to feel superior when defeating other nations. Logic might temper that attitude when understanding they had far superior ability to wage that war.
Defeating a lesser force should not be cause for confirmation of superiority but Japan seemed to take it as such. This spurred them on and helped them perceive themselves as destined or ordained. In simpler terms, they were convinced of their own superiority and destiny.
Possibly, this well documented arrogance of that era spurred them to believe that the threat that the US posed in the Philippines was easily handled, if attacked. That threat could be eliminated and thus that possibly hostile force behind them as they moved into Southeast Asia, could be eliminated and the Philippines could also be claimed. The Philippines was a great resource.
In order to attack the Philippines, thus attacking General MacArthur and the US Army, the US Navy in Pearl Harbor would have to be dealt with. The Japanese seemed to feel the US Pacific Fleet could be eliminated.
Perhaps the best way to understand the reason I can find is that the perception of Japan’s that they wanted and deserved their Asian Sphere in the pacific, and convinced by their conquests to that point, they felt that sphere had no room for the Americans and the Americans could be removed along with all the European powers. Japan in its terminal arrogance, felt that the Americans could be pushed around, just like everyone else they had attacked.
In their defense, this perception was well supported.
The attack on the US was driven by logic, history, recent war experience, and the psychology of superiority. Japan felt that the US would back down and not want to fight because we had not shown this desire. It is justifiable and logical.
What could not be measured and perhaps not even known by Americans in the day was how they would react to being attacked. Today it is easy to look back and question what the Japanese were thinking, “How did they think we would respond”. I find that as Monday morning logic. I feel that the American response, more specifically the American public response was likely somewhat surprising even to Americans.
On December 6th, 1941 overwhelmingly most Americans were against the war. This conclusion was likely based on the perception of us choosing to go to war with Germany or that far east backwards nation of Japan which we had equally arrogant perceptions of superiority over. This tilted perception of isolation was biased by the assumption of us volunteering to wage war. I doubt many Americans considered the idea of being pushed into war; attacked.
In the end I feel that the reasons for Japan attacking the US is close to the common perception that we would not choose to fight or fight long if attacked. What is lacking in that argument is the why attack at all and I think it really comes down to two things; the Philippines and Pearl. If we had not been in the Philippines, we likely would not have been attacked at all. If we had not moved our Pacific fleet to Pearl, they would not have attacked our pacific fleet, but I feel that our forces in the Philippines would have been even more likely attacked.
Japan would not have attacked our fleet if it sat in San Francisco or San Diego. This was far beyond their operational range at the time and likely would not have happened. If we did not move our fleet to Pearl though, I feel that all of our territories in the Pacific would have been attacked and occupied, including Hawaii.
So, my conclusion about why Japan attacked is somewhat pedestrian and far more common perception than my other two writings on the war in the Pacific. I do feel that Japan was justified in their assumption we would not respond determinedly if attacked at Pearl. But I feel that the actual reason for the attack was our presence in the Philippines and thus being inside their desired Asian sphere. This was enough for Japan and in their defense, they did quick work of all they attacked in the opening months of the war.
If their and likely our own perception of our isolation stance were correct, the Pacific would look very different today. So would Europe.
If the US had forces in the Philippines and not in Pearl, I feel Japan would have attached the Philippines and soon after taken Wake, Midway and possibly Hawaii and it would have been a very different war.
If the US had moved their Navy to Pearl but not had any forces in the Philippines, I feel that Japan would not have attacked the US at all, and we would not have responded militarily as Japan moved south, conquering Asian nations including the Philippines.
If we had no presence in Philippines nor any Military presence in Pearl, Japan would have attacked all of Asia and we would not have responded militarily.
So my conclusion is, Japan attacked the US because of our presence in the Philippines and how it was not part of their planned sphere of Japanese domination in SE Asia. In other words, we were attacked because we were the preverbal fly in their ointment.
I was lucky enough to be a part of a golden age in motorsports. Not THE golden age, but the 1990s. I attended racing school in 1989 and spent the next thirteen years behind the wheel of amateur racecars. Other than the amazing times I spent in my team, what stood out was the amazing racing I watched on TV and in person. Through my life I have been lucky enough to see racing in person from the Tyrrell P34 to the last era of diverse open wheel racing and the last truly unique NASCARs. I was there when Indy car racing was more attended and watched than NASCAR and Indy cars were even faster on some road courses than F1. I’m old.
What came after in the early 2000s, was a slow decline into monotone technology and the regulation of innovation at a level that the sport had never seen. I hate it but, I also understand. The teams and engineers have exceeded tracks and human ability. This was because racing technology was invested in at a level never seen before.
What I had wondered was, when did the brakes start to be applied to auto racing technology and thus speeds.
First, a look back at the high-water marks in some of the major forms of the sport. These allow us to understand that there was a decline, and from when.
The fastest NASCAR qualifying speed ever set was in 1987 by Bill Elliot at 212.809mph at Talladega Motor speedway.
The fastest over all speed ever set in an official closed course event, this excludes NHRA and Land Speed cars, was set on October 28, 2000 when Gil De Ferran set the mark at 241.428 at California Speedway. This is an average speed.
Arie Luyendyk qualified at Indianapolis at a speed of 239.260 in 1996. The reason this slower average speed is worth noting is the difference in the tracks between Indy and California Speedway. California Speedway has sweeping moderate banked turns. Indy is known for its rather flat and sharper than typical turns. This means Luyendyk was likely going about 245mph on the straights. This was in 1996.
These marks stand out and cover a broad time span of about 13 years. Technology came a long way from brute horsepower and basic aerodynamics powering Elliot’s Talladega run to the far more technology driven run by De Ferran.
These marks will also likely never be exceeded by human occupied racecars. The limiting factors in speed are two-fold, with one aspect ruling all. Insurance has set caps on speeds, which is based on different tracks and their ability to protect drivers and fans from accidents. The other, is humans themselves. The watershed event for the future of motorsports came on April 29, 2001 at Texas Motor Speedway with Champ Car open wheel racing.
Concerns came early for the speeds at the track were very high, and some small bumps made the track harder to drive. Testing showed average lap speeds as high as 225mph and trap speeds as high as 228mph. The more concerning was sustained Gs in the corners exceeding 3 Gs.
Qualifying for the Firestone Firehawk 600 event at the track was seeing average speeds of 233mph and practice was seeing speeds as high as 238mph. These speeds were driving up the 3Gs of sustained cornering force testing was experiencing. Accidents drove up the G numbers to 113Gs during impact.
As high as that number is, it was not the real concern. Two drivers reported to the Champ Car medical director Steve Olvey, being dizzy and disoriented. These drivers later identified themselves as Tony Kannan and Alex Zanardi. Adrien Fernandez reported to the press on his own of experiencing these same symptoms. Max Papis reported that while driving his car he was unable to discern the front stretch from the back stretch. Race official Chris Kneifel reported that numerous drivers had lost their balance after exiting their cars after practice or qualifying.
All of the named drivers were veterans with many wins and championships among them. Dr Olvey, himself was a veteran of motorsports medicine with a 25 years of experience, reported he had never heard of these symptoms from a driver, much less in numerous drivers in a single event.
The key problem was found in the data recorders. The drivers were seeing sustained 5Gs in the corners which at that track, was up to 18 of the 24 seconds that made up a single lap.
Patrick Carpentier went to the medical unit after qualifying to have a sore wrist attended to and casually reported that he struggled to walk a straight line after qualifying. Other drivers reported the same. In the end, 21 of 25 drivers reported tunnel vision while driving more than 10 laps and being disoriented after qualifying. Tunnel vision is one of the precursor symptoms of blacking out.
The problem was clear. It was already understood in the military that the drivers were exceeding the body’s ability to endure sustained Gs without blood loss to their head which was impairing cognitive function. Fighter pilots use G suits that push their blood from their legs to their upper body to sustain higher Gs but for much shorter times, typically only several seconds. These suits would not work for the longer sustained Gs, even though lower for the racecar drivers.
In 2001 at Texas Motor Speedway, one of the human body’s limits was found. NASA and fighter pilots all over the world had experienced the limit the Champ Car drivers had found. The sport that had been driven by technology pushing limits, had found a hard limit. The human body had dictated a change in auto racing, but this wasn’t the first time other forces had dictated slowing cars down.
The first known limit I know of, imposed on major motorsports takes us to France and the FIA.
During my years of racing, friends would sometimes ask me who I felt was the best drivers in the world. I would always say, World Rally Championship (WRC) drivers. (second and third being World of Outlaw drivers and then F1 drivers) The most amazing era of WRC racing, and in my opinion the history of auto racing, was the Groupe B era. This was an era like other amazing times in other forms of motorsports where horsepower was almost unregulated, and 4 Wheel Drive was permitted. At first the 4WD option wasn’t pursued since it was too complex. Then came Audi.
The extreme horsepower and amazing cornering forces of rally racing was too much for 4WD systems before Groupe B was introduced but Audi set to work on making it reliable. In 1982, the world of racing evolved. Audi came forward with their new Groupe B Audi Quatro. This started an arms race that for the next four years, drove the sport to a breaking point.
In 1986, the battle for speed killed three spectators and injured 30 in one accident. Later that year another accident killed two participants. FIA, that regulates WRC realized that the open road format they used in rally, could no longer contain the nearly unregulated cars of Groupe B, so the Groupe was canceled. Groupe A was introduced, and production-based cars became the standard, limiting technology to a large degree and thus speed.
For the first time, a major motorsport said, we must slow down.
The injuries and deaths that had happened were not the driving force behind the change. It was the fear of more.
In 1955 at Le mans, an accident killed 84 people. The cause was not the speed as much as there being almost no safety measures at the course to protect the spectators. This was standard then and persisted for a long time after. Improvements came, but slowly and only after deaths and injuries of drivers.
However, the demise of Group B was the first sign of the times that came to all motorsports. The discontinuation of the classification and introduction of Group A was the start of the closing era of motorsports technology development, and thus speed. The Gods of speed and their era were coming to an end.
As mentioned above, the top speed for NASCAR came the year after the changes in WRC. These are unrelated forms of the sport so one didn’t dictate the other, but it was proof that Groupe A, was not the downfall, just the first major step. That top qualifying speed by Bill Elliot at Talladega though was another step. His speed record still stands today because NASCAR introduced restrictor plates the following year, limiting the horsepower and thus speed of NASCARs on that track and Daytona.
In 1987, NASCAR decided we must slow down.
Through the next fifteen years even though WRC had slowed down and NASCAR had mandated limited horsepower on its two fastest tracks, racing in general was on a wild streak. Trans-Am was in its second golden era with more brands and teams than ever before. They had a wide range of competitors and ways to make horsepower.
Meanwhile NASCAR was finding more speed in their lower speed tracks that were not restricted and Atlanta Motor speedway became the mecca of speed for them. Open wheel Indy style cars had experienced a split it never recovered from in this era when the IRL (Indy Racing League) was formed, and Champ Car continued on out of the original open wheel series called CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams). This split all but killed the sport.
Before the split, the technology in CART was amazing. It was a true arms race, and everyone benefitted. After the split, there wasn’t enough money to feed that arms race in each series separately so both sides suffered for a long time. Champ Car ended up with most of the high money teams, so the arms race somewhat continued there.
This led to the event in Texas and the events that made it one of the most unusual races in auto racing history. As a result of the human issues involved in the event, the race was first postponed and then canceled.
Tracks like Le Mans all improved and are better today at containing the cars should something happen. WRC still runs great risk considering the public road format they use (closed for the race) but the change to Groupe A has proven to be the difference they needed. NASCAR has gone through many changes and continues today to find ways to offer close racing without exceeding their track’s ability to contain the cars, as dictated by insurance.
In the early 2000s, I worked in amateur and professional technical inspections at events. It put me on the front lines of the arms race in several series. Pro Spec Racer, Pro Spec Miata and the SCCA World Challenge Series. It’s the World Challenge Series that taught me a lot. There were so many different cars that had to be balanced for performance, ranging between high horsepower heavy cars to light lower power cars.
The benchmark model was the one with the least modifications. All the others got modifications to keep up with the benchmark car. The money was serious, and the manufacturers were very involved. This means that the rules were strained and exceeded. I know this because it was our job to catch it. Each race brought new scrutiny and exploration and sometimes restrictions. Each season brought new rules outlawing or defining a new way found that year to get around a previous rule.
This rule pushing is the backbone of all racing. F1 and more famously NASCAR and CAN-AM have been famous for it. This meant that the rules had to keep expanding to try to contain development. This means the rule books got thicker and thicker and harder to enforce. When I was racing, I raced under a set of rules that were written by the efforts of my predecessors. One of the greatest points of pride for a racer is when there is a rule in the book that was demanded by their creative efforts.
NASCAR and their rules enforcement is a great example of this. The rule book became notoriously cumbersome, and the cars became incredibly complex to enforce those rules on. The cars themselves were relatively simple in the grand scheme of racing but that simplicity was pushed by the amazing money invested in the sport in the 90s. Never before had the arms race in NASCAR been so broad or well-funded as it was in the 90s. The answer, was their infamous Car of Tomorrow (CoT) that eliminated so many of the areas of innovation by blanketing them in generic regulation. The cars were not liked by the teams or the fans. They were phased out but not forgotten.
The primary thing that wasn’t forgotten by NASCAR was how much easier it was to enforce rules on the cars. They craved this ease and also saw an opportunity to manage costs. With the CoT, there was a new set of rules leaving behind most of the rules needed to regulate the previous cars. This also, theoretically, meant there would be more competitive racing and NASCAR craved that.
NASCAR has the advantage of racing only three models of car that have been pushed into such similarity on track, they can be covered in many universal rules. For other series with many models of car in many different forms, they have to regulate each model separately. These rule books are called ‘restrictive’, limiting what each model car can do, almost individually. In these rulebooks, each model of car had their own evolution of rules based on individual model development.
An easier to enforce method developed in the early 2000s, the permissive rulebook. This lists the changes allowed to be made to all models, then restrict performance of individual models with intake restrictors and minimum weights. The key is to keep the permitted modifications to a minimum. This makes the rules easier to enforce, and as a natural by-product, slows all cars down. The byproduct of a permissive rule book is that development is discouraged, and speed is limited as a result. The balancing of the cars slows the faster cars down, to the performance limitations of the slowest. Rather than technology and competition pushing the front of the field faster, the front of the field was to be slowed so the back fo the field was more competitive.
Their decision was to slow the cars down.
The ultimate expression of this evolution is spec racing. This is where most motor racing came to in the 2000s including Indy Car, NASCAR, and to a certain degree F1 with such restrictive rules the cars all look and work very similarly. F1 got there by a different path. They so regulated innovation that the combination of 100s of engineers on a team and very little room to innovate, has led to almost identical development.
Even as you look to lower classes, Late model stock cars are essentially the same under the skin. Sprint cars no longer have a wide variety in chassis designs. Endurance racing only differs in engines and mostly in name, not significant design. Even amateur road racing in the US is dominated by one brand and largely one model, Mazda MX5.
Starting in 1986, the world of motorsports inevitably set a course to slow down. Motorsports used to be about ever faster speeds and cornering performance. The cars are no longer reaching for greater and greater speeds. They have been forced to embrace the more out of less formula which under restrictive rules and insurance policies, means not more out of less, as much as the same speeds out of less.
The massive investment in auto racing in the 1980s and especially the 1990s, drove restrictive rule books to the breaking point. The creativity and technology in development of even lower speed cars was dictating the resources of each racing series. The money in auto racing was at an all-time high with return on investment growing proportionally. The cars were becoming too fast for the tracks. The cars and tracks were combining to become too much for the human body to endure. The natural product in the end, was the different forms of motorsports finding technological, financial, facility or driver limitations.
As a result, we will see an evolution in technology across auto racing as hybrid and full electric cars introduce new technology. But those new cars will be driven no faster than now. The insurance, facilities and most importantly the human body has already demanded, the cars slow down.
When I was young, I rode my bike all over the local park and explored the fort that was almost hidden in the woods. It was a mysterious world in ways, even though it was well known. The fort dated back to the late 1800s but was never used in war. Its job was simple, together with its much better-known mate across the river, Fort Washington, Fort Hunt’s job was to protect Washington DC from ships approaching from the south via the Potomac River during the Spanish-American war.
So hidden in the woods was a fort slowly being overgrown and flooded. Its past was losing the battle with time. Having never served in war, it was not worth the upkeep, so the park was the only means of preservation; kids climbing over the walls and picnics held on the fields behind.
In The Great War, its guns were stripped out and moved. It’s glorious service to the nation was to become less of a fort.
But oddly, in WWII, it served. It served with distinction, and by some accounts, infamy. On that ground, clandestine services were rendered and the Geneva Convention was ignored. The pastural fields I knew as a kid just south of Washington DC, served from 1942 to 1946 preventing attacks, and even helping to launch new technologies that sent us to the moon. It also helped POWs escape and communicate from deep inside axis lands. The fields that were later occupied by picnicers and traversed by the likes of me, used to be barracks and a lab.
Those barracks were staffed by many young Jewish men who had fled Europe and the Nazi sickness infecting it. The barracks had chefs and recreation officers and a moral officer. The residents were POWs. The residents were the most valuable POWs the US could find. Sub captains, radiomen, higher ranking fliers and any scientists they could find. They lived there, unofficially. They lived there, unknown by anyone including the Red Cross. They were anonymous.
They were also treated very well, so only one was ever killed trying to escape. None succeeded. Few tried. Over the years of operation, well over 3,000 POWs passed through the barracks, passing information to the young Jewish officers they often talked down to and joked about in their native language.
The POWs were talked to. They were entertained. They were fed well and treated with respect. But they also lived in barracks that were bugged and listened to by transcribers, all the time. Living among them were spies and sympathetic POWs. They didn’t know, their families didn’t know they were alive, even if a third of the way around the world.
Other than the POWS being unknown and unofficial for up to nine months, the camp’s very design was also a violation. You could only ask a prisoner their name, rank and serial number. At PO Box 1142, they asked for their entire operational history. Although a seemingly small violation, the camp’s design and purpose was to go beyond legal limits.
At PO Box 1142 also called Fort Hunt unofficially, the most valuable known US POW camp had been built and operated in near complete obscurity. The information they got from their prisoners gave insight to the sub operations in the North Atlantic. They gave locations of secret projects. They offered insight to weapons and operational strategy. They located installations on maps and described their weaknesses. The code name for this portion and operation of the camp was MIS-Y.
The results of the efforts at PO Box 1142, helped free the north Atlantic, possibly help identify Peenemunde and influence plans for the invasion of Fortress Europe.
In a totally different part of the same ultra-secret facility only miles from the White House, artisans and craftsmen designed and built escape and communicate kits to be sent to allied POWs overseas. They designed normal looking objects that could function as a tool, combine as a kit or provide information in code all while being able to be hidden in plain sight. All of this, was unofficial on any record that outside operations could access. The kits built at PO Box 1142, were also never sent by the Red Cross, so as not to cutoff that access or challenge the Red Cross’ neutrality.
Starting in late 1942, the kits were sent by humanitarian organizations the allied nations invented for the purpose. In reality, it was all originating in a separate segregated part of PO Box 1142, called MIS-X. The MIS-X operation, also referred in the facility as The Creamery, had no contact with the MIS-Y operations.
The efforts of the artisans and craftsmen would be useless unless the recipients of the aids knew they existed. This meant there were two additional layers. Among the artists, were cryptologist operating as well, to help educate the allied POWs on the aids on the way. Allied officers slated to fly over enemy territory were often briefed on the kit’s existence. In time, allied POWs knew what to look for. In a weird way, think Hogan’s Heroes and The Great Escape. The aids they had were more fact than fiction, originating in MIS-X, from specialized training offered as the war progressed or their own ingenuity. Together, these tactics helped to connect allied POWs with hope.
When thinking of objects intended to help a prisoner escape, it is easy to get ridiculous but in reality, the fantasy isn’t far from reality. British and American inventions included shoe maps, compasses masked as collar studs, razors that were magnetic, hacksaws that were small enough to be concealed in a pant leg, Gigli, or surgical saws covered as bootlaces, and perhaps the most outstanding disguise, the escape boot.
The escape boot looked like an ordinary fleece-lined boot with a strip of webbing around the ankle, but hidden inside the top of the lining was a concealed small knife, used to cut the strip of webbing and separate the leggings from a pair of respectable black walking shoes. The knife was also used to slit up the seams of the leggings to two halves of a fleece-lined waistcoat all waiting to be sewn together into a civilian disguise.
MIS-X working with MI9 partners in England created high tech and intricate devices in ordinary, mundane items. MIS-X disguised radio sets, money, maps, compasses, and other contraband hidden in cribbage boards, Monopoly boards, playing cards, and even baseballs. These supplies were first bought from local stores to PO Box 1142, and modified.
In order to better disguise the covert nature of the mundane objects, eventually MIS-X agents worked with the original manufacturers to acquire their separate parts, and assemble the object in its modified form. To further protect the covert tools, they were then sold to the cover organizations from stores all over the nation. These mundane and local objects then started a secret life of world travel. The games became famous after the war, and highly collectable objects. They seemed too crazy to be true, but they were.
Even before the US entered the war, the interrogation methods the British were using to such success was interesting to the OSS. They sent over agents to learn. They learned new methods and a new philosophy. Interrogate through trust, not intimidation. The War Department decided even then, in October of 1941, they needed to establish highly specialized interrogation operations, primarily at that time aimed at German submarine crews that were ravaging the North Atlantic. The Army was charged with this, and the Navy agreed to feed them prisoners. Although it didn’t become official until December 18th of 1941, these decisions were made before we were in the war.
The camp was operational in months after a top priority status was given to the construction, then hidden in the woods off a scenic drive to historic Mt. Vernon. Situated on the former land of our first Constitutional President holding the highest military rank in history, The War Department set up camp. It operated into 1946, when it hosted its most famous POW, Wernher von Braun. In an effort to stay in the states after the war, and to stay alive, he spilled the beans willingly and thoroughly.
Other notable residents of PO Box 1142, MIS-Y, was intelligence officer Reinhard Gehlen and the famous commander of U-515 Werner Henke. U-boat commanders were able to supply the allies with technological improvements and tactical information for U-boat operations. It is impossible to know how much this information changed the course of the war.
One of the most useful methods used by MIS-Y to elicit information was to take the POWs on field trips. Although they didn’t know where they were, they would be shown the prosperity and abundance of goods in the states. They were shown this, to prove that the US was not suffering by staging a war on two fronts and would inevitably win once all their resources came to bear on their enemy homelands. Most POWs after that, offered intelligence to elicit more favorable treatment until and after the end of the war.
These tactics were not all successful. Although many prisoners were deemed high value and likely had a great deal of information, not all turned. Those who could not be, were released into the general POW pool and likely sent to middle America to a standard POW camp.
The camp was able to be kept secret by the same means it was lost to time. They hid it in plain view. By the end of the war over 400,000 POWs came to the states so many towns realized they had POWs in the area. The olive drab busses that moved to and from the camp were thought to be and often told to be, POW busses. The camp was not secret. Its purpose and the clients it kept, were.
Those secrets endured for decades. The staff at the camp were told from the beginning they could never speak of the operation, or its purpose. That reminder was offered again at the end of the operation, after the last order was issued. Destroy it all. They burned and bulldozed the camp, and its contents. The companion paperwork that referenced PO Box 1142 was destroyed or classified. The existence of this site was not to come to light.
The reason it did, was the efforts of a National Park Officer in modern day Fort Hunt Park that had heard small pieces of information from elderly visitors about the covert history of the park. He looked into it and started asking people if they would tell their story. Some didn’t. Some did. Most had already passed.
Some of those who did speak, did so because of the news that had come out about the work done in Abu Ghraib. They were mad. They were frustrated that the work they had done, had been forgotten and classified and thus not able to offer far more honorable tactics than the ones being employed by the modern intelligence community.
They spoke, because the work pioneered by the British and further developed and employed by PO Box 1142 was very effective. These men felt that there were better options. Feel as we may about speaking, they served with honor and held their secret until they felt the secret was no longer serving the nation.
Today, most of these men are gone. The only hope of learning more is the declassification of more material that references the camp and its operations. Today, there is greater understanding of how we had found success in the largest war in history. But also today, there is nothing more than an odd and out of place guard tower in a park filled with kids, bikes, Frisbees, a restored Fort Hunt and now, a plaque and flag commemorating the people who worked and lived in the camp, so little is still known about.
When I return to my childhood roots, I’ll return to a POW camp I didn’t know I had been to before. I’ll take a moment to remember the men who in spite of their life in terror in Europe at the hand of Nazis, befriended Nazis to help win the war. I knew growing up the land my house sat on used to belong to George Washington. I knew growing up so close to the nation’s capital I was surrounded by history. I didn’t know however, how often I played in and among history.
I have written a great deal about myths and legends, as well as conspiracy theories but in all my writing I have largely side-stepped the most obvious for people that know me. I have a fear of Bigfoot. It started when I was a child. Although I have not been a child for a long time, I still have much of that fear; rational or not. Most of the time, it’s dormant. Some of the time it is a curiosity. Occasionally it is very real.
I know the shows and the industry of it all. It’s one hell of a business. It is BIG business. I won’t watch the shows that focus on bigfoot. One series addressed it in one series of episodes and did ok, for a while. I liked Survivorman. I respect Les Stroud. There was footage in the series of shows about Bigfoot that were just silly. It was not what I expected from his body of work.
One TV show is the origin of all this interest for me. ‘In Search Of‘ was a show based on exploring myths and legends that were, well, mysterious. The staples were all there. Loch Ness, Bermuda Triangle, Pyramids, and of course, Bigfoot. Also, Leonard Nimoy, narrating only made it even more creepy. I saw this one episode, when I was young.
Here is the gist of it all. I am scared of bigfoot. Since I am scared of bigfoot, it must be real. The fear is real so the animal must be as well. It’s simple as that for me.
So, leaving that child behind, is there any truth to Bigfoot? Let’s look at the information.
The pool of information on Bigfoot is vast and comes in ever increasing broad and disconnected ideas. This in and of itself is not a good sign there is understanding of the creature. There are no definitive edges of the information on Bigfoot. It is all over the place from the ubiquitous footprints to claims of scat and even skeletal remains, recordings of vocalizations, photos of nests, claims of woodland structures built by BF, claims they are aliens, shape shifters, time travelers, a CIA conspiracy or CIA protected, able to sense electronic devices, Skinwalkers, bent trees as territorial markers, celebrity presenters and of course, the more modern version of footprints, video/images/film from big and comic book super hero shaped and simple distant shapes but by the most ubiquitous and most recent are blurry and out of focus images needing circles and arrows and paragraphs to describe the larger portions of the beast.
We’ll start with the most ubiquitous over time; footprints. There are so many people that have admitted to faking them that it is a great example of how evidence has been faked. It also shows how easily they can be faked, by so many. If many have done it, it cannot be hard to pull off. The propensity of even reputable people who have stated that they have faked footprints brings all into question. Most I have seen are themselves pretty questionable.
Just as a fun point of reference, some humans have some pretty big feet. Not many! But they are out there…
The other very common body of evidence is photos and video. Ironically as we all know, they are blurry. There is a great skeptic that addresses all such manner of things that refers to these blurry images be they video, movie, photo, film or digital, as blobsquaches. There are even T-shirts you can buy that make jokes about it. I may buy one.
Let’s get real about the images offered. There are almost no images that show much of anything. There are a lot of out of focus images. There are many videos that look as if they were shot while doing jumping-jacks. In an age of ubiquitous cameras of high quality, auto focus and image stabilization, clarity seems to be lacking. Clarity seems to be almost impossible. Think of the UFO thing; same issue.
Growing up, after my days in Illinois, my family had a cool collection of photos just pinned to a corkboard. They overlapped and most were just snapshots. One of them was taken when we were camping in the Rockies. One of those images, I always swore, contained a Bigfoot. My father denied it. Some friends agreed but I assume they agreed to support me more than believed it.
Belief isn’t proof. Here is a simple example to that point: An image or direct witness of a man looking Like Elvis in 2003 does not prove his death was faked, and he was working in a Dairy Queen in Schenectady, New York. Proof must be plausible and fit in with known information that is supported by known truths. I have a friend who claimed and still believes today that claim. She is sure. She cannot be convinced otherwise.
The previously mentioned Les Stroud showed some halfway decent images, both still and video in his series about Bigfoot. He also showed some amazingly clear claimed images of Bigfoot faces and that was where he lost me. They looked TOO good. I felt they were faked and that’s when I left since I didn’t want to believe he would fake them.
There have been other compelling images I have seen over the years as well. One that always stood out to me, was video of what appeared to be a family or group of Bigfoot that were walking through a clearing on the far side of an interstate, taken from a traffic cam. It was also as can be assumed, distant. It didn’t offer proof as much as it simply seemed compelling. Ironically, I cannot find it anywhere anymore. Maybe it was disproven but that usually doesn’t slow down these videos.
There are also many, many, many witnesses and stories. A big percentage of these witnesses are not direct, but second hand or more. All those must be dismissed. Those that are firsthand, who can say if they are accurate or honest. I’d like to assume and usually do that the report is honest to the best of their knowledge. I have witnessed things others would not believe so I have only told them to a few. My seeing is not proof of anything. I even witnessed a ghost with another person seeing the same thing at the same time. Still doesn’t prove anything.
Were horrible witnesses. We SUCK. I will simply say that I believe that people believe what they have seen. I believe what I saw. But I know that doesn’t mean it existed then or now.
When we talk about Bigfoot there is often claims of experts. There are no experts on bigfoot. You cannot be an expert on something not available to you for study. When we study something, we are determining it scientifically by observation. When considering just the given physical information we have on Bigfoot the range of information doesn’t define anything. Foot casts differ a great deal, as would be expected from a large population of animals but there is no consistency over time other than more and more consistency with known primates as the technology to make such prints has come available.
If we only take video, there is also little consistency other than general color and appearance. Behavior is all over the range as well as physical appearances. Again, this is consistent with a large group of animals over a great range but the appearnces of them have also paralleled the evolition of technology.
If we return to the Patterson/Gimlin film, the range of suits available at the time were consistent with the one in the film. The ones in Planet of the Apes were not the epitome of the product then, they were made for ease of repair, easy on/off and to ‘breathe’ as much as possible as well as a mind to cost.
The images of Bigfoot in the few videos people offer have usually gotten better, as technology and broadly available video editing has improved. This is a telling reality.
As I have said, I WANT to believe even though proof would spell the demise of the big guy. They would become the most hunted animal in the world, immediately. The field of study that is bigfoot, must try and be consistent with science but it is an outlier and flaunts science until someone claims ‘scientists’ have claimed or stated this or that. My father was a scientist. He used economics, engineering and math to make national security studies. I knew someone who was a neuroscientist. I also knew a pioneering asphalt engineer with a degree in geology from an elite school. Scientists all, and none could determine anything about Bigfoot. Scientist is a trash term.
Let me put it bluntly… I could show my father the P/G film and he say it was obviously fake. There you have it folks, a scientist with a PhD said nope, its fake. I did just that, and he said just that. Case closed, right?
Information must not only at least loosely support a claim to be considered proof but also must start to link with other evidence. It also must exclude other explanations. If I leave three apples on a log in the woods, them disappearing is not evidence of Bigfoot. A camera showing them disappear in the night, is also not evidence of Bigfoot. It is evidence something took them. Or someone. Maybe Bob the cameraman was hungry. You get my point.
The leaps of logic in the search for bigfoot and in reality, the fight for the belief of bigfoot do not help the argument or search. 90% of those showing a search or even proof are absurd on the face of it. They offer anecdotal evidence and then ridicule those who don’t believe. I want PROOF, not anger, exclusion and elementary research. Yet, the claims continue.
People claim you could parade a live Bigfoot down Broadway, and many would not believe. I agree.
The best thing about the Bigfoot phenomenon is the fun of it all. Like any child soccer game, there are many who take it entirely too seriously. We cannot prove there is no bigfoot. As of yet, we cannot prove there is. That is the long and short of the issue.
I have been to a few facilities that claim to offer evidence of Bigfoot or at least show what evidence there is. I have enjoyed some of them. I have been impressed by only one of them. Expedition Bigfoot in blue Ridge, Georgia is impressive. It doesn’t really offer any evidence, although it claims to. A line of scat in their DNA lab is clearly as fake as the DNA lab it is in. To my knowledge there has never been any discoveries that offer DNA. Even incomplete or unknown DNA does not mean, Bigfoot anymore than it means a peach.
The beauty of the Bigfoot story is there is room for everyone until you become insecure in your belief. if you are confident and comfortable in your belief, either way, you are comfortable in others having their own belief. Thise who become aggressive or more often demeaning about someone else’s belief, tells me they are insecure in their own.
I’ll address the gold standard in the study of Bigfoot, Patterson-Gimlin.
The best known and among the most profitable pieces of evidence is the famous film of Bigfoot crossing a creek in the Pacific Northwest in the US. It is impressive. It has been scrutinized, digitized, stabilized and either vilified or anointed.
It has been claimed to be proven real. It has also been claimed to be proven fake.
The best investigation of it is a crappy book by Greg Long. The Making of Bigfoot, is a strain to read but not because it is poorly researched but poorly written by not only an amateur , but someone who apparently refused an editor. The story as told by many who were there or were direct relations with Patterson tells a very different picture than the frequent story heard.
I’ll give an example that is documented in this, and many other books:
Roger Patterson for all his failings as a provider and man of character and integrity, (these are well documented, so this is not an indictment) was determined to make some money for his wife and give her a better life. He had tried to get a movie made about bigfoot and failed in his efforts with Hollywood fell through. He made a short film himself as an example of the possibility. The stills are well known.
After a failed attempt at a movie, he was determined to make his own of the real deal. There was not any film of bigfoot known to exist. He only had reports of tracks and plans to go. He rented a camera, brought horses and at least two men set off to California and within days, came back with the film. In a Kodachrome canister he had what would become for the next 50 years at least, the only accepted footage by many, of bigfoot. None before or after had done what Roger Patterson had done in days. In the days that followed what is reported is that the film was flown to a processing lab and by the time the men got back home, the film was developed and ready for viewing and marketing.
Although no one could recall where the special film that could only be processed in a few locations in North America was processed, it has been done over a weekend when none were open after being flown from the area even though there are no records of the flight. The camera rental time and location is known due to the camera shop having to sue Patterson for its return. The suit has many holes in the story as claimed in the day. There is no shortage of stories in the town where Patterson lived to go along with the effort to make the film.
But again, if the suit were paraded own Broadway, many would not believe.
The original film, which would have the processing location and date in it, is missing. The only known film are duplicates, all in Ektachrome duplication film which can be processed much more easily. Great efforts were made to profit from Bigfoot by Patterson, with very mixed results.
In short, there is far more information to support it being fake than real. Since Bigfoot has not been proven to exist and does not fit into known and accepted academic information, the burden of proof is on the ‘real’ community rather than the ‘false’ community. There is almost nothing that strongly points in a true direction.
I love the bigfoot mythology. I am but one voice with a skeptical eye but wanting heart. I find very little to hang my emotional heart on other than my childhood fear. But we all have fears and create and cherry pick information to justify that fear. The bump in the night cannot be in my head because that makes me crazy so it must be a monster, or mouse, or the wind or a ghost … We will cherry pick what we want to be true in the lack of any real proof. I find very little to connect that fear to. I emotionally wish the big guy was real but can find nothing to help me think he is. Other than my childhood fear.
5280nup 