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Licky
Mountain climber
California
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 15, 2008 - 01:15am PT
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The Feds have come forward with their sterile info as a result of my Freedom of Information Act Reqeust (FIOA). Yosemite was by far the best. They gave me just what I needed to get the time line of all the events into place.
More interviews are set up for next month.
I have found the guy that was responsible for determining if the plane was air worthy to fly to Texas for its modification from a WWII fighter/bomer to an executive aircraft. Since there were only 17 of these planes made, he remembers it. His brother was a pilot for one of the companies that owned it right after the war.
I also found the chief mechanic for the plane after it was modified and sold to the Republic Steel Company in Ohio in the 50s. After all these years, he too remembers the plane and its querks. I guess it was a real hot rod.
Since the cat is out of the bag regarding the plane type, if you are interested in seeing the only flying version of this plane, or older photos of it, do a Google on "Howard 500". Enjoy
And for those that knew Jack Dorn, he's figuring into this book as well. He had a colorful past before arriving in Yosemite. His family has a hell of a story to tell regarding the events following his death.
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Sep 15, 2008 - 10:36am PT
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Don't worry, there will be a large print edition...
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Licky
Mountain climber
California
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 15, 2008 - 09:24pm PT
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In a couple of weeks I'll be interviewing and old friend of Jack Dorn's. I'll be talking to another guy within the drug organization. I'd have done this earlier, but its taken this long to locate them. Next month I'll be spending a day with Jack Dorn's brother.
I'm still waiting for the DEA to send me their files.
As for the lake. The plane landed in the deepest part, about 60 feet. They drug it (no pun intended) tail first to the shallow end of the lake so they could cut it up and air lift it out. The left wing was ripped off during flight and its engine was found a few miles away in 2002.
I'm sure you guys would hate to read a book about something like this that was incomplete.
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Sep 15, 2008 - 09:35pm PT
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Take the time it takes, my last (1st) book took an extra 18 months, after my deadline. No problem. But we Are (mostly) climbers, so you can't expect us not to poke a little good natured sheeit your way, every so often... we're just filling the muse role.... kind of a pie in the face kinda thing.
Lemon meringue?
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Wonder
climber
WA
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Sep 15, 2008 - 09:35pm PT
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Yep Licky, we're just chillin' anytime we'll be ready throw on some more Pink Floyd will ya.
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Licky
Mountain climber
California
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 15, 2008 - 11:05pm PT
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I'm thinking that I ought to drag this out until all of the players can't remember where Yosemite is. Then I can pump out monthly news letters that I could offer for sale. Hum....I can see a late night infomercial. Maybe use Yelling Billy from the Oxy adds.
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sidmo
Sport climber
general delivery
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Sep 17, 2008 - 03:05am PT
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rittle licky - just got hip to this thread and didn't read it all yet, i'll have it done soon - forgive me if this was covered earlier, but i had to post if you're still taking posts. please allow me to posit this: did anyone else notice some abnormally bad luck befalling some plane moguls after the scores? things like microbuses slamming trees after crowding the seat . . . and worse. i'm old, bad memory and all. but its rekindling some disturbing stuff - we all thought things were going great. everybody was happy. within a year no one wanted to hear the word "plane" it seems. it was a life lesson in the danger of greed, as my parents, teachers or the damn church could never have taught me to such effect.
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Licky
Mountain climber
California
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 17, 2008 - 04:14am PT
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I can appreciate free association, but I have not a clue what you are talking about. I'd love to hear what you have to say, just turn on your filter
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sidmo
Sport climber
general delivery
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Sep 17, 2008 - 03:44pm PT
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not sure how filter works - ok, here's more vague recollections - the plane was for many of us, our first brush with unlimited wealth (or so it seemed at the time) - someone remarked about yabo eating in the MR instead of scrounging trays in the caf - well there was way more than that, without insulting guys who got by on so little (and guys, like yabo, who were so talented we couldn't even carry their chalk bag deserve to be remembered for what they did on the rock and not how they fueled their ascents) - it was a seismic shift in attitudes that occured subsequent to the plane - and more than new tents in camp 4 - a lot of climbers who were around at the time weren't just in sunnyside - many of us flew under the radar in cabins and dorms even without jobs (and sometimes even without girlfriends) - we were exposed to a good bit of risk as we operated under the nose of LEOs and the few federales downtown - to be seen was to be noticed, and many of us lived undercover but lived well - my personal vice was taking chances by eating at the ahwahnee every day - but everyone knew why we could do that all of a sudden - and the shift in tastes was more than gastronomic - gold lumbo was replaced by white line fever, and french wine with handmade labels - spent a few hundred bucks in chinatown once on korean ginseng - there was a comprehensive shift in consumption habits, and some of us weren't the better for it - but i learned lessons that i needed to learn, as i alluded to in my first post - when real wealth came later in life, wealth that was self-perpetuating and not just like living in a town where everyone hit the lottery at the same time, i was better able to resist temptation, or at least moderate it - imagine if some of us had been given credit cards before we learned (from the plane) how to handle wealth?
i shudder to think - but onto the negativity - we honestly believed that: A/ some of us took too much (were greedy), and B/bad luck followed those good-guys-gone-bad
now i'm not into the naming names thing - if my cryptic references to the vw van at the garage in the village with its head stoved in between the headlights don't ring a bell about a subsequent death and the miraculous recovery of a leg i'd rather not elaborate in this forum - but another loss was far from home, in the east bay and grisly like a bad movie - all of a sudden our idyllic life in the valley was shattered by obsene wealth, followed closely by equally obsene greed - that's apart of the story that needs to be told as well - for every frugal hippie that bought land and settled down there was another who developed a nasty habit that lingered on far longer than the sudden wealth - to me, that was the sad thing about it - we were happy and broke, and then wealthy and frustrated by concerns that never existed before - anyone who danced at cedar grove on a weekend night must remember all the trips outside and back in - hell, we might as well have been at studio 54 instead of down the road in midpines, except we still dressed like climbers - some habits are hard to break and we learned how hard after the plane - i hope i'm both making sense and not making sense, if you were there you should understand at least some of this even if viewed through the narrow perspective of sunnyside - there was a lot of money spent on things other than gear, although we blew a ton on gear/gadgets too - if you look at what just happened with the mortgage crisis you can see what damage sudden wealth/credit can do to people with weak wills - don't get me wrong, i had my fun and don't regret it, but as my friends gradually developed problems they never had before the plane i gained a healthy respect for honest poverty
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sidmo
Sport climber
general delivery
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Sep 17, 2008 - 04:27pm PT
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no i wasn't referring to the black book rumor - imean, that didn't fly in '77 - "mafia" dudes in expensive suits and italian loafers hiking the falls trail? c'mon, that was a bit dramatic
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sidmo
Sport climber
general delivery
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Sep 17, 2008 - 04:30pm PT
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and if you don't buy the karma angle, that's cool - i just thought joints that caught fire halfway down indicated some underlying dangers at the time, so perhaps i was hyper-sensitive/paranoid - maybe i still am
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Wonder
climber
WA
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Sep 17, 2008 - 04:41pm PT
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sidmo, I,m really glad you spoke up. Being on the fringe of this whole story I'm really glad I wasn't in the middle of it all. There are alot of memory's I wish wouldn't remember.
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sidmo
Sport climber
general delivery
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Sep 17, 2008 - 05:34pm PT
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i can dig it, bro - i've been trying to figure a piece of this tale to include in a fiction piece, but unsure whether it would be lost on a general audience - it's impossible to get normal people to understand why we hung out in the valley at all - now i play disc golf and folks don't get why we throw frisbees in between trees - instead of working harder and getting wealthier - i can't tell them why gold don't shine for me no mo
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sidmo
Sport climber
general delivery
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Sep 18, 2008 - 11:36am PT
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you're right - it wasn't all bad - or all shake as an earlier posting stated - the term "center-bale" was coined to describe the A grade - product that was essentially unchanged by the crash - and the wet did dry over a few days in the air, but it was cold that winter, and a heat source helped immeasurably - why some didn't notice or care that they smoked fuel was their business, but i felt the gods of karma dictated that it was a sin to pass the tainted product on - the greed factor was strong for others, it seemed
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Licky
Mountain climber
California
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 19, 2008 - 12:17am PT
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Rok...I was just thinking about how the black cloud might have started when the pilot decided to fore go the needed repair to the engine and make the trip anyway.
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Licky
Mountain climber
California
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 19, 2008 - 01:51am PT
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Oops....did I let slip another goodie? Ratz...
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Strider
Trad climber
one of god's mountain temples....
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Sep 19, 2008 - 04:20am PT
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I am curious Licky,
Have you found any information from one source that directly contradicts what you have heard from another? Meaning, guy one said that x happened at y time and guy two said that z happened at q time? I guess what I am asking is that after so long, is everyone's recollections coming together or has time and age taken it's toll and some people differ greatly on their recollection of events?
I have got to say, the story reported here seems very intriguing and I am very curious how it will come out when it is published. I must also say, I am glad I was not part of that time and events. It seems that it was the best of times and it was the worst of times...how would I have made my choices, if it were me? Who knows, who knows....
One thing I have learned from my time posting on internet boards is that you become accountable for what you say. So when is this book gonna hit the stands Licky? Do you have an editor, a publishers, a general release date? You started this and I am going to try to help hold your feet to the coals... =)
Thanks for an awesome story so far.
-n
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Licky
Mountain climber
California
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 19, 2008 - 04:37am PT
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Strider...there have been two types of stories that you refer to. One is the blatant false stories. "I was there" when the person wasn't there and can be confirmed by formal, multiple reports that they never participated in which ever event they claimed to have been. That includes the wild goose chases that I have been on only to find the same result. The other is where people have been telling their story for the past 30 years, embellishing as they go. In many cases they fill in the blanks with what seems to make sense. For what ever reason, they hold to these versions of the story making it very difficult to seperate the wheat from the chaft.
If you read my earlier postings on a projected publishing date you will see that one of the reasons why the book isn't completed is because of all of the contradictory info that comes out. I check out each story, no matter how off beat it is.
The other reason is more info keeps coming my way. I'm interviewing two more next week and another the following week.
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mojede
Trad climber
Butte, America
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Sep 19, 2008 - 12:44pm PT
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How much was the chair worth?
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mojede
Trad climber
Butte, America
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Sep 19, 2008 - 02:30pm PT
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Where's the missing 7th chair?
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