11 Pages of Jamie Stories from Hartley With Love
Jamie Paul’s Memorial Storytelling Event
3 p.m. May 18, 2012 at the Seattle Golf Club
As Jamie hath taught us to live: “no fools, no fun”
Close musician friends are flying from San Francisco and Mercer Island to play in Jamie’s memory at Jamie’s Event.
Jamie was predeceased by his sister Jennifer Paul Pelly and his parents Mary Hartley Paul and Thomas W. Paul. His immediate survivors are his wife Sallie, his brothers and sisters in law Thomas (Tim) Cavour Paul and Deborah (Deb) Sheehan Paul, and Hartley Paul and Elizabeth (Betty) Shaw Paul, his brother in law Charlie Pelly, his adoring and devastated nieces and nephew, their spouses and children Kellsey Paul Perkins (Carl and Johanna), Catherine (Katie) Hartley Paul, Mary Hartley Pelly Fitzgerald (Greg, Jennifer and Cate) and Cameron Pelly (Amy, Kaitlin, Morgan and Chase). Jamie also leaves Sallie’s brothers, spouse and children Danny W. Nicholls D.O. Col, USAF Ret. (Luke and Sophia), Leonard R. Nicholls (Sunan), and Sallie’s nephews, their wives and children Michael Nicholls (Kristine) and Ryan Nicholls (Katie, Andrew and Owen). Kellsey Paul Perkins, Patrick Badell and Kyra Planetz are honored and thrilled to be Jamie’s Godchildren.
Jamie always credited his parents and grandparents for everything others thought to be good about him. His grandparents were Governor Roland H. Hartley and Nina Clough Hartley of Everett, WA, and Catherine Mackie Paul and Joseph William Paul of Glasgow, Scotland. Roland left home in New Brunswick at age 14. Catherine Mackie was born in Kilfinan village on the Cowal peninsula in the West Highlands of Scotland. Jamie’s Grampa Paul fought in the Boer War as a scout in the Royal Scots, and returned home to become a Glasgow police detective and First Oboe in the Glasgow Symphony Orchestra. Jamie’s father Tom, his sister Daisy and their parents emigrated from Glasgow to the US shortly after WWI when Tom convinced them their future in Scotland would be limited because the cream of British manhood had been killed in the war. Shortly after moving to Cleveland, Ohio, Grampa Paul became First Oboe in the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra. Gramma Paul had perfect pitch, so Grampa Paul’s oboe reeds were always perfect too.
All who were blessed enough to be with Jamie in the hospital the last three months cherish God’s gift to them of their many hours daily listening to more of his wonderful stories, laughing with him and helping him be more comfortable.
Jamie made available, always and freely to ALL of his friends and family from ages 2 to 102, ALL of his personal caring and attention and ALL of what he called his “depreciating assets”, like planes, boats, motors, wave runner, cars, truck, home, beach, lawn, hot tub, radio controlled helicopters (often flying in formation with Stuart Island eagles), goose chasing bottle rockets and pellet gun, golf clubs, and everything else.
In a crowd, Jamie invariably sought out and befriended anyone who looked lonely or left-out of the group. Lifelong friendships were instantly formed. No wonder everyone loves Jamie. At the Bohemian Grove, Jamie spent two years solving all the problems of life, the world and humankind between 2 and 4 in the morning while camp crawling and musing with an older white haired guy who limped. Jamie knew him simply as Jim. Only after the second year did Jamie learn that his Jim was Admiral Stockdale. Yup, the man who had been the highest ranking officer and toughest guy in the Hanoi Hilton.
Jamie’s astounding aesthetic sense is on display in the design of his home on Lake Sammamish, his home coping porch, office, paintings, photos, wall hangings and decorations, his Stuart Island boat, his Steep Point Cayman Island Ball nine hole golf course, and everything else he cared about. Jamie was somewhat forced to build his new home when the hot water tank in his bachelor pad lake cabin fell through the floor hanging from its pipes.
Jamie always said he “attempted to grow up” on Federal Avenue on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. Jamie and his brother Tim were altar boys at St. Mark’s Cathedral, where their father was Senior Warden for about 12 years and helped save the Cathedral from foreclosure of its mortgage. Summers were lived in T shirts and bathing trunks at Mission Beach near Marysville, Washington, where Jamie learned to water ski, fish, run outboards and propose to every girl under 10. They all accepted. He trained at Lake Stevens (on other peoples’ happily provided tournament ski boats, jump and slalom course) to win regional and national water ski jumping and slalom events seemingly at will. He held the world slalom record for a while. He quarterbacked Lakeside’s league champion football team. He was an accomplished golfer and tennis player without practicing. As he said often: “there are no form points in golf”.
In his high school years Jamie won the Western States Junior Downhill in Sun Valley 3 years in a row, straight down Ridge, then Rock Garden and Canyon. In one epic training run crash he launched off the top of Rock Garden with ski tips crossed, upside down, 20 feet in the air and landed about 150 feet down the hill. Jamie loved telling the story from one of those years about his tending bar at age16 in the long-gone Pago Pete’s watering hole in Ketchum wearing his junior racing bib tied around his waist. Pago Pete’s had been created by Pete Heiser from an old whorehouse, featuring knock-off Trader Vic drinks and decorations with sawdust on the floor. Pago Pete Heiser was a classic, even if he did come from Issaquah (where his father fabricated truck tailgate lifts), graduate from Lakeside and work as a cameraman filming Easy Rider with his close drinking and carousing buddies whose names you all know as the stars in the movie. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064276/trivia.
At Western State College Jamie was an NCAA All-American on the Alpine ski team, was a member of the US National Ski Team and regularly beat all of his US team competitors whose names are well known in the media.
He placed 3rd in the 1966 Aspen Roche Cup Downhill starting 84th – an impossible feat for anyone else. Every knowledgeable racer and coach knew the US coach played favorites by assigning such a late seed to Jamie. The next weekend he won the Vail Trophy Races Downhill beating all European and US national team racers. The Head ski rep wouldn’t loan him a pair of that year’s hot Head downhill skis, so Jamie raced on a pair of 3 year old reconditioned Head Vectors. He knew he was going to win, so he sanded the Head logo off the underside of his ski tips the night before the race so the logo wouldn’t show in media photos taken under the biggest-air bump on the course. One US Ski Team/FIS official groused at the finish gate that “it must have been the wax” (for Jamie to have won). Ex US Ski Team star Chuck Ferries knew the truth and replied: “it was the skier”.
Another winter Jamie foreran one of the last Harriman Cup Downhill races ever run in Sun Valley, straight down Ridge, over the top and a few turns down Rock Garden, cat track under the lift to Roundhouse Slope, hard fall-away left on the top of Exhibition, a few turns down Exhibition followed by a crushing transition at the bottom. Jamie’s time beat every top racer in the race including European teams led by Karl Schranz and Jean Claude Killy. The US coach prevented the timers from disclosing Jamie’s forerun winning time. Of course, the coach’s seeding of US team members had prevented Jamie from competing in the race itself. Whenever asked why he never made the US Olympic Ski Team, Jamie replied: “you don’t understand; ski racing is a social event”.
Jamie broke his leg training in Wenatchee a week or so after he won the Vail Trophy Races Downhill, and returned to Western State the next September at 220 pounds (up from about 160). Sven Wiik, his college ski coach, didn’t recognize him at first and then suddenly reacted with this famous line: “oh Yaymee, it’s going to be a long Fall for you”. Sven was right. Jamie told many stories of fun times with his “informal” Luftseben college “fraternity” and their auxiliary TKD (tap a keg a day) “sorority”, most of whom remain lifelong friends. Fun included Luftsebens trying to find, and TKDs hiding from them, the daily keg while it was being emptied.
During college Jamie learned to fly aircraft in Gunnison, Colorado, taught by crusty, legendary aviator Rocky Warren. Rocky and Jamie flew many photo survey flights around the Mountain West and Southwest in Rocky’s Beechcraft Model 17 Staggerwing. They were buddies.
Working for K2 after college, Jamie helped design and market the K2 water ski with his close friend Dave Calapp. A side cut in the tournament ski’s tunnel required a gorilla to hang onto the rope in turns around slalom course buoys because it was the only ski that didn’t skid sideways. Of course marketing K2 water skis required Jamie’s presence at water ski tournaments, so he got back into shape and did quite well in Men’s II division competition.
From Dave: “It was only with Jamie’s skiing ability and input that we were able to refine it to make it work. A mutual development for sure but he gets credit for the critical element. Jamie was great with product as you know and could really feel small differences in design. That Model Four Experimental was the only slalom ski capable of carving the tight turns required at short line rather than slide them and has never been duplicated to this day!
Jamie also had a great feel for the marketing image and helped get the right photos to promote the product. More than once he insisted that I get in the water with his camera just past a slalom buoy on the course so I could get a unique shot as he rounded the turn flat out! He was so good that we never worried about what would happen if he missed the turn! And sure enough the unique 8 x10 photo used as the back of the first K2 water ski trade show booth drew crowds to the booth as Jamie predicted.”
In Jamie’s K2 travels he met a water ski competitor whose family owned a liquor store, actually a distributor warehouse in the San Francisco Bay area. Before leaving to return to Seattle, Jamie backed the K2 truck up to the warehouse and they proceeded to fill it down to springs on axles with “breakage”. The breakage lasted Jamie and Tim for years when they lived together in their apartment at the old Casa de Lago on Lake Washington in Leschi and snaked each other’s girlfriends.
As a K2 racer chaser ski service rep in Europe, he coached the top US Women’s Downhill team members in secret at their request so their dilettante US team coaches wouldn’t know. Tom Kelly of USSA taught Jamie a lot during their driving and carousing from race to race, but luckily, not everything Kelly knew.
Starting in 1974 Jamie and his brother Tim owned Power Distributing, distributing diesel fuel injection equipment in the five Northwestern States including Alaska. Jamie was loved and respected as an industry leader and seer, a marketing genius and former Board member of the Association of Diesel Specialists.
Jamie flew his Cessna 185 floatplanes N777J (triple seven Juliet, a famous old Ketchikan high-time, stripped-down, fast, former commercial floatplane with a belly pod) and N1102G (one one zero two Golf, with Robertson STOL conversion), fished from his own design low gunnel, overpowered aluminum outboard, socialized in the highest and lowest society and spread pixie dust around Stuart Island and the rest of the BC Coast and inlets. For years Alaska Airlines pilots reported air turbulence using Jamie’s simple gauge: 1, 2 or 3 knuckles up the nostril.
The following is just a rumor, you understand. There was one famous flight with Jamie as pilot of a Cessna 185 tail-dragger from Sun Valley to Seattle where the plane on its very own somehow flew between the stands at the annual Hagerman, ID rodeo with Jamie and Alex Murray mooning the audience on both sides. The aircraft owner and tail number must remain confidential, security clearance required, due to unknown statute of limitations. For belt, suspenders and jock strap protection, that tail-dragger is not among those described in these Jamie Stories.
Jamie bought his first floatplane in 1972 with his brother Hartley and NYC/Darien, Connecticut, close friend Bob Shields. N5203E (five two zero three Echo) was a 1959 Cessna 180 on strait floats named “Mart’s Buns” (another Jamie Story in itself). They obviously, simply had to own a floatplane to make sufficient weekend use of their (and brother Tim’s) initial (1972) 1/11th interest in the Machine Shop property located just North of Kellsey Pt. on Stuart Island, BC (58 acres, + - 2,000 ft. of waterfront). In 1977 Jamie moved to our Steep Point cabin and property on the NW point on Stuart Island, owned with his brother Hartley, Bob Shields and Marr Mullen. Steep Point is the cabin on the first point South of Arran Rapids, which divide Stuart Island from the mainland in the mouth of 45 mile long 1,000 feet deep Bute Inlet rimmed by peaks up to 11,000 feet at the head of the inlet.
Jamie’s first forays up the BC coast started in 1969 in our Dad’s 16 foot OMC tri-hulled, square-bowed, yellow inboard-outboard with his brothers Tim and Hartley and Hartley’s ever-enthusiastic and ever-forgiving wife Betty. Minstrel Island and Knight Inlet were reached after trailing the boat for 9 hours from Seattle to Kelsey Bay, with beer cans rattling from side to side on the floor of the back seat until there were so many cans piled up that they stopped rattling going around corners, launching the boat in the morning and running the overloaded boat up Johnstone Strait with the bow pointing to the sky pounding into monster waves created by a strong Westerly wind slamming into an outgoing tide. Canadian Customs turned the car back once when we had to admit we had 12 cases of beer for the four of us (24 cans per case).
Jamie and his brother Tim both quit their jobs (from K2 and Seafirst Bank, respectively) in 1974 and moved up to the Machine Shop for the summer. Along with many locals, they sold their sport-caught salmon to the cash buyer barge at the old Stuart Island “Landing” to buy gas, food, beer and booze and pay bar bills at the Landing. They had Jamie’s Cessna 180 on floats and Tim’s 25 foot Seabird inboard outboard cuddy cabin boat for traveling to and from the pub, visiting highlife and lowlife friends, fishing, crabbing, setting and pulling up prawn traps, collecting oysters and muscles and digging clams, in that order of priority.
They hosted the one and only ever Full Moon Party at the Machine Shop, BYOB. All the local hippies and dropouts brought their own “somethings” to smoke alongside others from higher society. All the local fishing guides contributed their own special color. One of the youngest (living with his parents next door) spent about 30 minutes running in a continuous circle through the kitchen door, the living room, and diving headfirst off the porch rolling forward onto the lawn, around and around, observed by his very strict father looking down from the headland. It could even have been the first time then 14 year old Tommy Thompson ever got drunk. No description of that party could ever do it justice.
Jamie and Tim befriended Lloyd Grey, a really nice guy travelling the tourist anchorages with his old converted Canadian forestry boat with a big sign “Mechanic” strung between masts. After many lovely evenings coping and dreaming on the cabin’s coping porch (where one copes with life), they tore apart the Machine Shop’s diesel engine to get the electric generator running. Jamie flew the pumps and injectors to Seattle Injector Co. for reconditioning. The woman at the counter said, “you must be Tim Paul’s brother”. Tim had been the company’s banker before he quit Seafirst. You guessed it. Jamie, Tim and Hartley bought the company, now called Power Distributing. Jamie, Tim and their crew in the company worked very hard to build it into the successful business it is today. Tim no doubt still has had a hard time forgiving us for taking him away from Stuart Island.
Jamie and Sallie took many great ski-to-eat trips to Europe, Sun Valley, Aspen and Tahoe with his childhood Federal Avenue next door neighbor and best man John Baxter and John’s wife Kay, Jamie’s Bohemian campmate Phil Chapman and wife Sally and Jamie’s brother Hartley and wife Betty. Jamie’s favorite was the 30 mile alpine circle skiing from lift to lift among villages and resorts and pubs in the Cortina area of the Dolomite Alps. Trips to St. Moritz skiing with Suvretta House guides Rudi Cadisch and Mirco Pietrobelli were really special, staying in the Schweizerhof Hotel looking down on the roof of their deceased heli-ski and Grove friend Gregor Gut’s “Gut Clinique” trauma hospital where the Shah of Iran used to keep a room “just in case”. As usual, on the Aspen trip one of the Aspen ski instructors our host had retained (to enable us to cut lift lines) prevailed upon Jamie to teach the instructor how to make skis turn properly, again having to demonstrate in secret behind the trees away from anyone connected with Aspen. The instructor had grown up in Denver hearing stories about Jamie’s ski prowess and already knew the Aspen ski school’s methods were simply not right.
Jamie Stories
“Stick with me baby, you’ll be wearing diamonds the size of horse turds and farting through silk.”
Every morning each year in the last two weeks of July Jamie golfed at the Alister McKenzie-designed nearby 9-hole Northwood golf course with his Whoo Cares campmates, Phil Chapman, Jeff Qvale, brother Hartley, Roger Maltbie and others, and many guests including regulars “used-to-be” tour pros Ron Cerrudo and Jim Wickers. Our own special Northwood Rules allow improving your lie within an electric cart length. One day with ladies playing down both flanking fairways, Jamie elected to relieve himself discretely on the left rear tire of his golf cart. His cart driver, John Roberts (Jamie’s brother in spirit and one of his closest friends), got the high sign and started to drive their cart forward. Jamie proceeded to spray all over the cart, his Bermuda shorts, his legs, his shoes and everything else. Campmate Bobby Herbeck, LA comedian and screenwriter, immediately raised the alarm from Hartley’s cart: “nurse, nurse, he’s out of his bed again”.
One lovely summer day Jamie preceded about six of us walking through the woods to swim in the Russian River. When we arrived at the river Jamie was nowhere to be seen. Half or three quarters of an hour later, when a few of us happened to drift toward the downstream far-side edge of the swimming hole, Jamie suddenly dropped down on top of us in a cannon ball. Like a cougar, he had been perched for almost an hour on a huge tree branch hanging out over the river until we got within range. More recently, on Jamie’s second trip carrying bags up the path from his plane to the cabin at Steep Point he spotted a huge pile of remains of a half-devoured seal that had not been on the path his first trip. There had been reports of a cougar on the island, so he ran to the cabin hoping to find a gun while scanning all around the ground and woods to be ready if the cougar attacked. Each time telling the story later, he made fun of himself for having forgotten that cougars hang out in trees.
At last can be told somewhat publicly, a classic Jamie Story that he schemed up in the early 1980s. One lovely sunny morning in the woods Jamie mixed and poured monstrous, psychedelic mushroom milk shakes for the chairmen of two Fortune 500 companies, managing directors of investment firms, major stock brokers and various other big boppers and captains of industry. The results were quite predictable, psychedelically colorful from the recipients’ point of view, and of course hilarious. They have never ceased talking about it. Jamie often induced those being inveigled to join in his fun, saying: “trust me, I know a doctor”.
Jamie knocked everyone silly with his skiing talent and crazy humor on heli-ski weeks in the Bugaboos, Cariboos, Monashees and Kootenay mountains with his brother Hartley, Marr Mullen, Buzz Birkeland and the rest of the infamous “Cariboo Powder Ski Team”. On one run down Pigeon Glacier in the Bugaboos the tails of Jamie’s skis sunk slightly into a crevasse as he skied around the guide on the right instead of staying on the left as instructed. Frank Stark, the guide, in his Swiss accent said: “Cod Ham you F ing guys are a self-guide’n group”, and that just started his litany of praise for the intelligence displayed by the group. Frank was famous for landing his Super Cub at Calgary International Airport with sparks flying from the skis he forgot to crank above the tires, announcing his presence to the tower with his one-of-a-kind Swiss accented radio call-in: “Calgary, Calgary, this is Frank, I’m com’n in”.
After skiing down Warm Springs at Sun Valley on sunny spring afternoons all the hot skiers used to go to the Creekside bar and restaurant to relax and drink beer on its huge outdoor deck. Many times Jamie would arrive and immediately check-in his credit card at the bar. A few minutes later waitresses would bring out trays and trays of 50 or 100 Cuervo Gold tequila shooters, round after round, as Jamie’s treat for everyone on the deck whether he knew them or not. Jamie’s party COMMENCED.
A few years ago driving through the Blue Mountains, La Grande and Baker Oregon on the way to ski in Idaho, Jamie spotted an Oregon State trooper way back in the distance. Jamie stopped to receive his ticket for driving 90 to 95 mph on compact snow and ice in his black Audi A6 Quattro for the 10 or so miles the trooper was trying to catch up. The cop kept talking and talking. Jamie stopped wondering why when a second trooper pulled up and got out of his car quivering like a leaf in a windstorm. Apparently the second guy had been trying to catch up with Jamie for 40 or so miles. Jamie received his second ticket, both totaling about $700. Just after Jamie got the car back up to 90, Sallie happened to mention something to the effect that spending $700 on tickets had not been such a good idea. Jamie replied: “I think $700 is a great price for an hour and a half of pure pleasure doing 95 on compact snow and ice, compared to last year when we paid $700 for only a minute and few seconds going less than 80 on the bobsled course at St. Moritz”.
In a bar after a ski race in Utah, Jamie and his college ski team buddies decided it was a brilliant idea to drive to Sun Valley to ski. Next morning they woke up in Jamie’s black Chevy Malibu station wagon, the “Grunt Bird”, with frost over all the windows and no idea where they were. Jamie looked out after scraping a hole in the frost to see Sun Valley’s Baldy Mountain. A shred of sanity intruded, and they immediately started driving back to Gunnison, Colorado, hoping to arrive in time for Monday classes. They did think it was pretty funny when the attendant at a gas station where they stopped to refuel in the middle of the Nevada desert said: “I was wondering whether you guys would come back to get the credit card you left here at 3 a.m. last night”.
Jamie used his Grunt Bird in the early 1960s to commute between Seattle and Wenatchee Junior College that he attended before moving on to Western State in Gunnison. Prescient as he was, in the early 1960s Jamie had installed four-point seat belts and shoulder straps in the Grunt Bird. The Grunt Bird also had a governor that caused it to stop (going both East and West) to visit Sweet Pea’s bar in the old 1880s Skykomish Hotel en route over Stevens Pass. Those seatbelts came in handy one night when, dodging Tulalip Indian Reservation cops, he backed the Grunt Bird over a rockery at Hermosa Beach to land on its rear end with head lights searching the sky. He doused the lights, explained his predicament to the lady of the house (who was a close friend of our parents), and somehow got away with everything, again.
That story reminds of the night Jamie left the Snorting Elk at Crystal Mountain with friends after skiing. He was driving his father’s Olds convertible fast with (of all things) open bottles in the car when a state trooper did a 180 and flipped on his “smokey advertis’n” lights to give chase. Jamie stepped on the gas, rounded a corner, drove off the road into a field of snow and doused the lights. They all threw the bottles away as far as they could, and ran away stumbling and falling in deep, wet snow. Cop never did find them. It took a lot of time finding all those bottles, though. Got away with everything, again.
At Wenatchee JC Jamie met and moved in with a new friend named Russ Wohlers, living in the basement of Russ’s Dad’s home in Cashmere. Jamie taught Russ how to ski and introduced him to Seattle and Russ’s wife-to-be some years later, Chooch Beaupre. Starting from a somewhat ski beginner level for Russ, Jamie had a lot to do with Russ’s becoming a Class A racer in about a year. Russ went on to create the outstanding Ray’s Boathouse seafood restaurant in Seattle with a couple of other guys. Following Jamie’s lead, Russ now has his own float plane and his own cabin on a BC lake somewhere East of Ketchikan, Alaska, surrounded by great fly fishing rivers, mosquitos and grizzly bears. Jamie never did fly up there to visit, preferring salt water and no grizzlies.
At Western State Jamie lived with a bunch of incredibly compatible, mutually diabolical crazies in the infamous M frame chalet at Crested Butte Ski Resort. The ski area kept its downhill race course run fairly well groomed and closed off virtually every day for their downhill race training. They commuted 22 miles to classes in Gunnison each day, once or twice using barbed wire fences in the snow on both sides of the road to keep them going in the proper direction (whichever direction that happened to be at the time) while also scratching itches on the sides of their vehicles. Even new scratches didn’t show much on the Grunt Bird or on Jamie’s classic old rattletrap round nose, round rear windows, tan Chevy pickup truck with wood floor in the bed used to transport all the boys’ and girls’ motorcycles and an occasional keg or three.
Another Western State story from PJ Jenick: Our house was known as "The Ruby Street Monastery"...the site of many fun indiscretions for sure. We had a cat that threw up a hairball while snoozing on Jamie's pillow...it looked like a turd, so Jamie upon discovering this went to the cat's box and took a dump in it...causing the cat a great deal of distress in covering it up...!
When Jamie was in military service, he concocted his very own aid clinic in the back of a truck where he dispensed Jamie-style medication to his fellow grunts in the form of head phones playing Jamie’s carefully mixed tapes of the latest greatest bands and singers. He especially loved everything Roberta Flack ever sang.
Some know that Jamie also had a reclusive little friend he named Jerome Bag. Jamie never met Jerome in person. But Jamie knew for sure that every night after Jamie had neatly folded his clothes and hung coats and pants properly in his closet, Jerome was the little fella who snuck in, rumpled up and put dirt on all Jamie’s clothes and then tossed them all over the room and floor. Jerome’s alter ego was the clothes fairy.
Jamie loved to “entertain/terrorize” uninitiated Steep Point guests by serving cocktails at 2 a.m. in his outboard boat with the motor off turning in circles in the whirlpools while drifting down the rapids next to Gillard and Jimmy Judd Islands under the full moon during monster 16 foot flood tides.
In 1982, Jamie’s and Hartley’s elbows-locked (Jamie upside down, Hartley standing) pants down double inverted moon from the grass between runways at the Campbell River BC airport caused quite a commotion in the cockpit of John Myers’ Cessna Citation at rotation. The pilot and passengers were returning home to LA full of fish and Jamie Stories after five days of inlet, lake and mountain float flying, fishing, swimming and picking oysters in Desolation Sound, and storytelling at Steep Point. John test-flew the first rocket plane (at Muroc) and was Jack Northrup’s close friend and chief test pilot for 20 years in the 1940s and 1950s. John’s passengers included some major aviation history: Chuck Yeager, Rear Admiral Ernie Christensen, USN Ret. (then Cmdr. of Miramar Top Gun), Zeke Cormier (twice Blue Angels skipper & bombed Tokyo), Zeke’s wingman Ed McKellar (then head of San Diego Air & Space Museum) and a few other absolutely wonderful aviators. THAT was a very special Jamie Week. Jamie had them all slipping, sliding and “skating left”, hands in the rear Hans Brinker style, on dish soap he had poured all over the linoleum in our new Steep Point kitchen then under construction still empty of cabinets and counters. Jamie loved to tell close friends his tale of slapping Chuck’s hand away from the controls as Jamie was banking to land in Stafford Lake snuggled tightly between two ridges rising up about 4,000 feet.
Another Jamie double inverted moon was presented a few years later (with helicopter pilot Gerry Nel upside down on top) as a prayer to the snow gods for snow at Mike Wiegele’s Blue River heli-skiing operation. Their presentation occurred in front of 150 “admiring” guests in a public restaurant across the highway from today’s fancy Wiegele lodges before they were built. Their double inverted didn’t bring snow, probably due to bad karma created by two orthopedic surgeons from Wyoming (billed by themselves as the Rape and Pillage Ski Team) who were at the same moment pressing their B-A’s against the outside windows of the restaurant naked except for their crimson capes. The Wyoming boys were there with Courtney Brown’s Blue River Trauma Society, a group of US Ski Team docs conducting their annual medical seminar heli-skiing.
First sentiments from Jamie’s friends around the country
Jamie understood me better than anyone. I loved the guy. A life well-lived. In the words of your mom, via Jamie, "remember who you are and whom you represent". Wow! We loved him! I can’t think of a sadder day in my life than Thursday when we lost Jamie. Fortunately for me and countless others, he left a trail of memories and experiences that will keep me smiling for as long as I live. Jamie has been such a source of joy in my life and the lives of many of our friends. Good will, humor, intelligence and a great sense of history, family and proportion was always central to what Jamie brought to the equation. He was full of energy, gregarious and a joy to be with.
Jamie was without a doubt THE MOST WONDERFUL GUY IN THE WORLD and I felt so fortunate to have him as such as special friend. The World has definitely lost one of its good guys. He will be missed by many and never forgotten. I don't care if I saw him tomorrow or a couple of years from tomorrow, it always made me feel happy! Just seeing him made you feel good. He just had a way about him, whether it was his grin, or just some kind of aura about him, I don't know. He was such a GREAT GUY!! He was a great guy and a wonderful friend. The world is not as bright without him but we are all better because he graced our lives. Jamie was a good man, and I shall miss him terribly. What a bummer. He was the best. He was such a great guy - always a smile on his face.
All my life, especially now, there have been very, very few people who can make me laugh…and Jamie, God love him, always had that facility… in abundance. And he and I never exchanged an unpleasant word or look. A rare friend indeed. What a special person Jamie was. Jamie was a superstar. We will all miss him for he was a wonderful guy. I miss Jamie already. He was one of those friends that you always felt good after spending time with him. High spirited people are always missed the most. I think of Jamie as one of my real heroes.
We can't think of anyone who will be more missed. Our girls will always see him as "king" Jamie, who played princesses with them up at Stuart Island, who read them stories, and showed them how to use the binoculars. I always had enjoyed and respected Jamie since meeting him in metal shop at Meany Jr High School. That was 1957 and I watched him move up the ranks in ski racing in the early sixties. Boy did he take off. He was one of a kind. I feel very honored to have known and spent time with truly the greatest guy in the world. We all loved him and will treasure his memory. A very sad day. I grieve with you, and for you; and judging by the calls I've gotten today, I am not alone.
Jamie was the perfect host whether it was evening meal, time at your house or a flight in his plane always willing to spend time. Jamie was street smart and that is a rare quality and I always respected him for that …. He will be missed on so many levels. I have used much of his good counsel during my career. A true tragedy and a short-changing of a life that was so appreciated by everyone I know who knew Jamie, including me. His passing stirred all sorts of memories and emotions in my mind, and frankly tears of remembrance of days gone by we shared with Jamie, over a long period of life. He was a very special guy. He was a great guy and would give you the shirt off his back.
They made only 1 of those wonderful people. I wanted to remember Jamie telling Beattie to “shove it”, chasing “what’s her name” at the Aspen Red Onion, Pago Pete’s and The Attic. I know he is doing very well now, skiing and partying. He was a great person. I will always remember him in “my” way and miss him. That smiling face, and lots of subtle jabs and jokes. We even talked about some funny stories about my mother chasing Jamie around the house one night at a party at our house. He was one amazing athlete! I’ll never forget playing tennis with him!! …. which of course wasn’t one of his main sports at all!
It broke my heart today to hear about Jamie. Jamie could make me laugh till my guts hurt and was full of kindness, intelligence, bigger than life and so much more. I loved watching him ski that day in Whistler – pure poetry. I suddenly feel older and darker, because I feel that, with Jamie’s passing, we all became older as our perennially young friend is gone. Some moments with Jamie I will never forget, as he was very creative in finding ways to enjoy life. I always loved Jamie and will miss him deeply. One of the reasons for going to the reunions was to see him. Jamie will always be alive in my heart and I will see and hear him in my mind.
My brother and I want to name a [private Idaho hunting property] duck pond in his honor and we have a few ideas. We have one more angel up there watching over us now. It's going to be so great when we go over the bridge & see everyone on the other side again. A positive, great guy that we will all miss. The world will be a lesser place without him. He was a great person and will surely be missed by everyone who ever had contact with him and felt his energy, compassion, wit, and love of life. He left his mark on all people he knew! One of my aunts said she had agreed to marry him when they were little. My dad called him one of his idols growing up.
We sure had a lot of fun, at Western, in Crested Butte, water skiing at Blue Mesa, or whatever. I'm sure it's the same with everybody, but he was one of my favorite people on earth! It's hard knowing I won't see him again. So sad, Jamie was truly one of the NICE guys. Jamie was always a gentleman, even in the wild days [at Western]. I was at Western from 65-70 and skied a lot with Jamie and did some really "crazy stuff”, but we were who we were. He was the best! We will miss him terribly. As good a guy as ever lived and a better friend than most of us deserved! I remember him as such a vibrant full of life character with a story always at hand. Stuart Island was a great canvas and we painted many memories that I will cherish. We all loved Jamie. There wasn't a sweeter man.
There will never ever be another man like Jamie. He was such a joy to be with. I have so many fond memories and they will be with me forever. My heart is broken, and he wasn’t even my brother. Such a kind and sweet man. Jamie leaves a hole in everyone's heart that will never be filled. I write this as I wipe away the tears. He was as good a guy as I've ever met.
More Jamie Stories
Please, everyone, post and continue to post more and more Jamie Stories on his website as they come to your mind as long as you live. Jamie Stories will heal and educate all who knew him, and all who will get to know him with your help.
Thank you, God, for giving Jamie to us for sixty-six years and 103 days.
I love you, Jamie. No fools, no fun.
Hartley
May 1, 2012