Contracts Matter

 Insurance

by Ricki T Thues

I am sitting in Craig’s garage being fitted for my first skydiving video camera helmet. It is a plastic helmet with a sheet metal enclosure for my Sony Hi8 video camera. Mounted to the front will be a Canon EOS Rebel SLR still film camera.

My head is draped with plastic as Craig blows foam between my head and the helmet. The acrid smell is overwhelming. A slight pressure presses against my temples. This helmet will fit snuggly and solidly to my head.

Back home, I mount the video camera into the enclosure and close the rear access door fastened with a bungee. The still camera mount snaps in with a satisfying click. I drill a hole for the articulating ring sight and bolt it into place. The ring sight is circle of plexiglass with a dot painted in the middle. In freefall I will line up the dot with the center of my subject to center the frame of the video. 

You can discover your dominant eye by forming a small circle with the fingers of your hand. Focus through the circle with both eyes on some object. Close one eye. If the object stays in the circle the open eye is dominant. If the object jumps out of the circle the closed eye is dominant. My ring site is mounted over my left eye because I am left eye dominant. My left eye is for targeting and the right eye is for depth.

The helmet is not comfortable. Putting it on drags painfully over my ears. It is stable and always sits on my head with the same orientation, but the constant pressure from the blown in foam is annoying.

Today, I am at the gear store at the skydiving drop zone. I bought some soft foam pads from another helmet manufacturer. I remove the blown in foam and glue the pads into the helmet. The fit is snug and comfortable. The pads allow for a slight shift of the helmet on my head, but when I tighten the chin strap it is stable enough to hold the frame of my video camera still.

Manifest calls my flight: “Otter number six, 20 minutes.”

Having geared up I board my airplane with the 4-way team I am filming. On jump run I open the helmet access door and turn the video camera on. The beep of the camera echos in the metal enclosure. It is on. I press the hand trigger for the still camera and hear the satisfying click of the shutter. I close the access door and latch it with the bungee. Ready.

Red light. My team opens the airplane door. Green Light. I climb out onto the rear camera step, held against the wind with the hand peg. The two floaters of my team swing out, clutching the hang bar, poised on the outside of the airplane. As the other two teammates take grips from inside the plane the rear floater bobs up and down yelling, “Ready! Set! Go!”

I hesitate slightly and peel off the airplane with the 4-way. Extending my camera suit wings, I hover over the team as they perform their first few maneuvers on the hill. Reaching terminal velocity they continue to turn points. I keep the gyrating skydivers in frame centering the ring site dot on the team.

Eight points, nine points, ten points…

The team suddenly lets go, turns and flies way from each other, seeking clear air to open their parachutes.

I hold my position in the center and slowly turn one 360 watching the team track away. I wave off, reach back for my pilot chute and throw it into the wind of freefall.

As my main parachute deploys the main lift risers strike the back of my helmet. The bungee has come loose and the metal access door has swung open. The helmet is instantly wedged off my head and thrown in front of me, hovering surreal. I reach out to grab it, but in that moment the helmet drops away at 120 miles per hour. My parachute opens fully.

A bizarre thought occurs to me. I can cut away my main parachute, dive down to the still falling helmet, grab it, then deploy my reserve parachute. 

“That’s just stupid,” I say to myself.

Instead I watch the helmet fall to the Earth, landing in a puff of dust. I fly my parachute to where it landed. As I walk over to the helmet I see that it is smashed. The plastic helmet is in two pieces. The metal video housing is crushed. The camera inside is smashed. The still camera is missing.

About ten yards away is my Rebel still camera, face down in the dirt. I walk over to it. It seems intact. Is it possible that the camera survived a 3000 foot drop? I picked up the camera and all the glass optics pour out of the lens onto the ground. It did not survive.

But I did survive. On reflection I realize that had I not replaced the ridgid blown in foam with soft foam pads my parachute might have torn my head off. I was lucky in spite of losing $1000 worth of helmet and camera equipment.

The next day it occurs to me that my home owner’s insurance covers loss of personal property. Personal property, however, is only covered due to certain perils listed in the policy. In my policy these named perils are fire, lightning, explosion, vandalism and aircraft, among others.

I do some research and contact my insurance agent.

“Hey John, this is Rick. I’ve got an unusual claim I want to run by you.”

“What happened Rick?”

I explain the loss of my camera helmet and equipment.

“I’m not sure that is covered,” said John. I can hear him shaking his head over the phone.

“I think it might be. My homeowner’s insurance covers loss caused by an aircraft. Webster defines an aircraft as, ‘… a vehicle for traveling through the air.’ By that definition my parachute is an aircraft.”

“Submit the claim. Let’s see what underwriting says.”

The next day I submit the claim complete with my damage caused by an aircraft argument. Three weeks later a check arrives for the amount of $1000. I call up John to thank him.

“I went to bat for you Rick. Underwriting resisted at first, but your argument was sound. They did tell me that the company will be considering excluding damage caused by a parachute from future policies. I think they will call it the ‘Thues clause.’”

Today I am at the gear store buying a new carbon composite, streamlined camera helmet with no protrusions to catch on my parachute. Tomorrow I will purchase a new Sony digital video camera and a new Rebel still camera. I look forward to filming my team next week.

Luck

 Luck

by Ricki T Thues

Propitious knew a lot about luck. He was impulsive. Dead reckoning was his typical modus operandi.

One winter day Propitious was playing ice hockey with his friends on the neighborhood lake. They had swept a rink off the ice and set traffic cones at both ends as goals.

A long, cross-rink pass came skittering toward Propitious. He skated to an intersection, raised his stick and swung, hitting the puck solidly. The puck flew inches above the ice only to be slapped aside and out of bounds by the goalie.

Propitious kept skating hard, chasing the puck toward the middle of the lake. He sped up noticeably as he and the puck raced away from the rink.

“STOP! COME BACK!” yelled his fellow players.

“The ice is thin out there!”

He skated even harder, overtaking the puck. He threw his skates sidewise into a sliding hockey stop. A rooster tail of snow and ice fanned out in front of him. He stopped the puck with his stick. As he slid to a stop, he heard a quiet cracking sound. Propitious smiled and skated the puck back to the rink.

His friends greeted him nonplussed.

“You sure are lucky,” said Alvin.

Naqid said, “That was a pretty risky move.”

“There is no such thing as luck,” said Propitious, slapping the puck over to Alvin. “I have been skating this lake for ten years. You can see where the ice is thin because the snow becomes thin on the surface.”

When Propitious saw the puck deflected by the goalie he kept skating hard toward an intersection with the puck’s course. He assessed the speed and trajectory and saw that he would intercept the puck just shy of the thinning snow.

His analysis avoided the need for luck. His timing and the cracking of the ice showed that he was lucky after all. 

Luck is found on the edges of every plan. It is that area where anticipation falls into the unknown.

Naqid shook his head with incredulity. 

Propitious said, “Let’s play.”

He skated into the middle of the rink, eager to receive the inbound pass from Alvin.

Contribution on the topic Retirement Matters

 

Eye on the Goal

by Ricki T Thues

 

Years ago I worked with a fellow trade show exhibit builder, Ray. We were journeyman cabinetmakers. 

Ray was about 20 years older than I. We worked in the same shop at the same pay.

One day Ray threw a party for his shop friends. His house was in Norco, California. Norco is a suburban equestrian town in Riverside County. Ray owned a 3000 square foot house on 2 acres. It had a barn and horse paddock which was home to four horses. The back of the lot adjoined an undeveloped hillside. It was like living in the country.

At the time I lived in an 800 square foot Spanish style house in a bad neighborhood of Santa Ana.

I told Ray that I thought he and Gail were the luckiest people I knew. What a nice house. And they owned horses. I told him that I could never live in a place like his.

Ray said, “All you have to do is keep your eye on a goal and it will come true. Just give it time.”

I remember going to my high school friend’s parents’ house in Cowan Heights, Orange County. The Heights is a ridge of hills that overlooks the OC basin. At night the city lights stretched as far as the eye could see. There was the Crystal Cathedral. There was Disneyland. The lights of 3 million people twinkled like a surreal starscape.

I set my future house goal to have a view like Cowan Heights.

Over the years I traded up from house to house until I acquired an equity suitable to buy a retirement house outright. Plan A, B and C for retirement was to not have a mortgage.

When it came time for retirement, for more than 5 years, my wife and I looked far and wide for a property. It had to be an hour or less from a major skydiving center (our lifelong hobby). The house would be on some acreage. It must fit into the equity budget we had accumulated. And it had to have a view.

Nothing we saw checked all four boxes.

While driving east of Temecula one day Zillow popped up with a few houses in a rural gated community. I followed a car in through the gate. Inside the community we passed a lake, an equestrian center and a private airport. Three miles from the highway on the top of a western ridge was our house. 

The house is one hour from our favorite skydiving center. It sits on 4 acres far from any traffic. It fit exactly into our budget.

My wife and I stood in the front yard and looked out over a valley which is the Cahuilla Indian reservation. 360° around us were seven mountain ranges. It is a view that does not stop. At night the stars in the sky are like the lights of Orange County.

I smiled and nodded my head. My wife looked at me and said, “I could live here.”

Ray was prescient.

The Color of Kindness

 The Color of Kindness

-- by Ricki T Thues

Quindnes walks along the bright spring lane of his neighborhood. He nods to neighbors and shakes the hands of some. His smile is as brilliant as his paintings. His paintings are drawn from his smile.

The painter enters his ivy covered pid-a-terre. It is his studio where he creates his art. What he does is not easy, but he performs his work with ease.

Quindnes is a master of kindness.

He applies his pigment to a pure white canvas of love.

Selfishness he sketches with black shadow, a framework for the abstraction.

Warming the darkness he splashes violet into the shadow with the cool spring of romance, a brightening of the black.

With the moodiness of indigo he further brightens the shadows with solemn reflection, an opulence to the rich truth of dark reality.

Blending dark blue into the shadows introduces a stoic reliability to the scene. It will make the viewer blue with the sadness of their memories. It is the artist’s empathy. Lighter blue evokes the ocean and the sky. It suggests the promise of freedom, a voyage and a flight of joy.

The painter mixes cadmium yellow with ultramarine blue. Green leaps from his pallet. Reflections on the edge of darkness promise the energetic calm of nature. Crisp counterpoints are the emerald juniper of life.

Where is the light? It’s rays are there in the yellow castings. It is happiness and warmth, the color of sunshine. Like summer, the wings of canaries and the fresh cleansing of citrus, it restores.

Orange splashes on the surfaces of promise. Comforting and soothing happiness give depth to the light, clarifying the heading, gently encouraging the viewer toward a destination of peace. It reminds the viewer of flamboyance, creativity and generosity. Then, the brightest neon orange introduces red, suggesting the energy of passion.

The harsh contrast of the remaining shadow is tinted with the red of love. There is a fire in the darkness that promises selflessness, that expresses the passion, that resolves the abstraction. The honesty of warring ideas is tempered with caring and patience. Faith is a courtesy of love.

Some of the canvas still remains uncovered. Its white reminds the painter that he began with purity. He finishes his work with some white edges of light, restating the clean, sharp illumination of kindness.

A rainbow of imagery arches across the canvas. It is the promise of clear, unclouded kindness.

His work finished, Quindnes lies down, his smile soft on his sleeping face.

The Fish Never Had a Chance By Mike and Hannah Freeman

 

The Fish Never Had a Chance

The bow of the ferry slaps the crest of each wave as the boat knives through the open water. . The dads of our group or tribe gather around an inside bar to share a drink while our daughters run excitedly around the deck. We are on our way to our favorite camping trip at Camp Fox on Catalina Island for a long weekend adventure of hiking, kayaking, fishing and roasting marshmallows under the brilliant stars.

Sipping my beer, I listen as the conversation turns to everyone’s excitement to bond with their daughters over hours spent fishing off the pier. I look over at the piles of luggage and notice to my dismay the abundance of fishing poles and tackle boxes. Initially, they hadn’t registered. I am far from a fisherman as I have little interest in a sport in which victory results in cleaning out entrails. We’ll be fine, I think as I bring my glass to my lips again. There are plenty of other things to do with Hannah.

We dock and unload our bags in the weathered plywood huts we will call home for the next few days. Immediately, the other dads in my tribe grab their fishing gear and their daughters and head out to the pier jutting out over the water. 

I’m left standing alone in the hut with my daughter. The silence holds for a beat before she looks at me expectantly and asks, wide-eyed, “Are we going fishing too?” 

Damn.

“Yes!” I quickly ad lib, hiding my panic behind bluster as I scramble to improvise my next move. “We start, of course, by finding a fishing pole.” 

We set out for the pier, my daughter trotting excitedly beside me, oblivious to the chaos unfolding behind my Adventure Dad veneer. 

Where do I find a fishIng pole? I ask myself as Hannah beams with blithe anticipation.  On this island there are no fishing pole stores. I doubt there's even a fish sandwich in this camp. What am I going to do?

“Let’s walk along the beach and look for one,” I say to Hannah to buy time and hopefully come up with a miracle plan. Panic-driven thoughts machine gun their way into my brain:  Maybe I can distract her and look for shells; maybe we can spot a whale or some porpoises swimming by; maybe a dead fish will wash up on shore; oh dear God, let something happen.

We walk along the beach, hand in hand, looking for something…. anything. After several quiet minutes the miracle happens. A bamboo pole roughly seven feet long lies on the seaweed along the shore. I pick it up and show it to Hannah.

“Here we are! This one’s perfect!” I announce with false courage. I pull out my Swiss Army knife with a great flourish and hollow out two small holes in the skinnier end of the bamboo pole — a channel for the fishing line.. Hannah is exuberant; Dad is taking us fishing!

We walk back to the pier where the other dads and daughters’ poles are dangling dolefully over the water. Despondency permeates the pungent ocean air. So far, Mother Nature has failed to produce the anticipated shining core memories of a glorious fishing trip that bonds father and daughter for life. The fish are not biting and the daughters are getting impatient.

I move from pair to pair, asking each of the dads if anyone has some spare fishing line. Glad to be doing something useful, one of the dads snips about 25 feet of line from his spool and hands it to us. Another dad volunteers some weights, and a third chips in with a spare hook. I quickly assemble a Tom Sawyer-esque fishing pole, and we are ready to go. Hannah is now the only girl on the pier excited about fishing.

Now we are only missing one crucial component: bait. Continuing our improvisational streak, we remember the single-portion box of Cheerios still in Hannah’s backpack from that morning’s breakfast. Even the most professional-grade lures aren’t yielding any results, so I’m privately skeptical at best; but at this point, we have nothing to lose, so I slip a Cheerio onto the cheap hook with a shrug. Hannah throws the line and baited hook over the edge of the pier while hanging onto the bamboo pole. The other dads give me a quizzical look, but I don't care: I am fishing with my daughter now! MacGyver Dad saves the day!

Quiet settles over the dock once more — growing resignation from the other girls, and unwavering enthusiasm from my daughter. I think she is the only one who isn’t utterly shocked when a sharp tug threatens to yank the pole from her grip. She yelps excitedly and I scramble to help her bring the line in while the other dads gape at us in total befuddlement. Unaware of the gravity of her words, one of the other daughters turns to her father and says sweetly, “Daddy, she caught one.” Her dad’s wide eyes narrow a bit as he continues watching our improbable victory.

I grab the fish, unhook it, and (with Hannah's gracious permission) throw it back into the ocean. I do not want to clean fish guts this evening, and blessedly, neither does she. Hannah re-strings a Cheerio on the hook, wraps the spare line around her hand, and casts the line back into the water. Silence settles again over the pier, but the air thrums with a tension that hadn’t been there a moment before. Whatever happens next, I can rest comfortably in the knowledge that I have defended my honor as a father and defied all odds to produce the mythical core fishing memory, even as it eluded every other, better-prepared father beside us. My work here is done, I think, certain that the experience has peaked. Time for a beer.

My self-satisfied reverie is shattered when Hannah lets out another whooping cheer. She has another fish! I don’t know who was more shocked by this: me, the other dads, or the fish. As she tugs the line up one tiny arm length at a time, I take in the astonished looks on the faces of all the dads around us. I quickly grab our prize and remove the hook from its lip. Before I throw it back in the ocean, I check and make sure it's not the same fish caught twice. It's not.

“Daddy, she caught another fish!” the same girl from earlier says, her sweetness starting to sour as Hannah’s success proves not to be contagious. Her dad’s eyes narrow further as he fiddles with his high-end lure.

People inch closer to Hannah as she sends another Cheerio-laden hook into the water. A few minutes pass uneventfully. That’s enough fishing for me, I think. We seem to be hogging all the magic of the experience, and I can sense the other dads’ growing desire to nab a single fish just so they can be done with it. 

A fellow father approaches us, his chipper demeanor from before  slumping further into despondence with each forlorn minute. He asks to temporarily trade his brand new fishing pole for Hannah’s, straining to present the offer as a favor he’s giving us instead of the other way around. Before I can say a word in response, my daughter hoists her bamboo pole high into the air. There is yet another fish dangling from the end of the line. 

Stunned, exasperated murmurs echo down the pier. I throw our third trophy back into the water almost apologetically. My sense of triumph competes with commiseration for the other dads as they and their daughters remain just feet away from us, inexplicably fishless. So far, the score is Hannah three and the rest of the world zero.

“Daddy, she's catching all the fish!” a growing chorus of girls complain. A few of the dads lower their heads. I think I hear some soft cursing under their breath as they try to puzzle out the hidden strategic genius of our driftwood stick and breakfast cereal configuration. . One of the dads comes up to me and practically pleads,” I will give you 20 bucks if you let us use the pole until we catch a fish.” Another dad, overhearing the offer, chimes in,” Hell, I'll give you 30 bucks for the pole!” The auction is on.

My greedy daddy side starts to emerge. Maybe I can bribe Hannah with a few ice cream cones, get a beer and still have money left over. But the dollar signs in my vision melt away when Hannah looks at me and asks, “Can I please keep fishing?”

“Yes, of course,” I quickly say as I bury my greedy daddy side somewhere in my back pocket.  The other dad in my tribe walks back to his daughter, dejected but understanding my position.

Once again the hook at the end of the magical bamboo fishing pole held in my daughters hand goes into the water. The hook makes its familiar journey back over the pier and into the water. The anticipation that ripples through the crowd fishing around my daughter is undeniable this time. They are hopeful that proximity to Hannah’s golden Cheerio will provide them with at least one fish that will allow them to go home with honor. No such luck. I am just as incredulous as the rest of our audience as my daughter’s luck holds. While the rest of the dock gets not so much as a nibble, as the afternoon progresses, Hannah brings in a truly absurd seven fish in total. 

The peal of the dinner bell from our campsite reaches us from further inland, and last-minute desperation prompts a resurgence in interest in buying us out of our magic bamboo stick. The bidding war resumes. My greedy daddy side reappears. Dads are getting desperate and are convinced that I have the answer. Hannah settles the deal by saying, ”Daddy, I can't wait to go fishing again tomorrow!”

Though I hide it, I’m just as disappointed as the throng of dejected dads.. We all leave the pier and go to have dinner. Afterwards, there is a brief round of Bat-O-Matic followed by a campfire featuring scrumptious chocolate marshmallow gram cracker sandwiches. The dads are talking about Hannah's day fishing as we get ready to go to sleep in our hut. As we settle in, fathers and daughters alike are abuzz in their bunks rehashing Hannah’s implausible success at the pier. One of the dads asks me where exactly I found the bamboo pole on the beach. I get the sense he would have preferred precise coordinates or for me to draw him a very detailed map. He and his daughter want to head out in the early morning and scour the beach for their own lucky fishing pole.

As I lay back, I’m puzzling over the day too. What are the odds of this happening? I ask myself over and over. Whatever they are, calculating them is beyond my ability, and I’m just grateful for the experience — greedy daddy be damned!

The next morning, one of the dads in our tribe announces that he is taking some of the girls fishing in a small boat and asks if Hannah wants to come along with her magic fishing pole. I encourage her to go, but I try to manage her expectations of a miracle happening two days in a row. The small boat drifts out to deeper water, and I stand on the beach to watch what happens, confident that whatever magic is in that pole has evaporated.

I noticed that the dads and daughters that are just starting to fish off the pier take note of Hannah out in the boat.  It is evident they are hoping that the fish will now bite on their fishing lines since Hannah is far away.

All the way from the shore, I can hear when Hannah lets out a delighted shriek. The other girls in the boat excitedly watch her reel in another fish.  Looks of horror flash across the faces of the dads standing along the pier.  “She caught another one!” one of the daughters cries out.

I am starting to enjoy the show now.  This can't be true, I think to myself. How on earth is this happening again? 

Hannah throws her fishing line back into the ocean and everything quiets down once again. The other dad can clean the fish if he keeps it. I am sensing a commingled spirit of anticipation and dread from the dads and daughters standing on the pier watching Hannah more than their fishing lines in the water.

“I don't believe it,” says one of the dads on the pier. Hannah is reeling in another fish. Dads and daughters start to abandon the pier, looking for boats to go out fishing in. I am still enjoying the show. Greedy dad is still in the back pocket, but arrogant dad is making a guest appearance. Feels like the score is now Hannah half a kabillion fish to the world’s zero, all accomplished using a fish pole made by me!

One of the other girls in the boat lets out an excited yell. She has now caught a fish!  Dads and daughters are hoping their curse is now broken and fish are available to other human beings.

One daughter on the pier screams with delight as she catches a fish. The dad is exuberant!

Hannah is laughing out loud as she reels in her third or fourth catch of the day. Another girl in her boat brings in yet another. This is going to turn into a fish slaughter.

At last, things gradually start to calm down. Maybe the sun is too high, the fish too smart (they do go to school, you know), or the water the wrong temperature. The bell rings, signaling lunch, and everyone comes ashore ready to eat and move on to another activity besides fishing.

The rest of the day is spent kayaking, hiking, and just relaxing. Best camp out ever! I think. And so goes the rest of the weekend. Hannah’s fishing pole and all of its magic feats slowly recede from the daily conversation.

On Sunday, we prepare to leave. As we gather our bags, I glance at Hannah’s pole in the corner of our hut. It will be awkward to carry along with all of our other gear, and lazy daddy whispers, Let’s just leave it behind.

“Daddy, don't forget my fishing pole!” Hannah calls out.  “Absolutely not!” I shout back. Begrudgingly, I pick up the pole and move all of our gear to the ferry boat. The pole makes its way all the way back to our garage where it is stored in a corner and forgotten as lives move on.

A year passes, and we are getting ready to return back to Catalina island for another long weekend. I have forgotten about the fishing pole, neglected in the corner of the garage the past 360 days, but Hannah has not. ”Daddy, please don't forget the fishing pole,” she grins.

Later, I am standing on the beach on Catalina island watching a few dads comb the beach looking for bamboo poles. They have seen Hannah bring hers as did their daughters.

What are the odds, I think, of the magic happening again?  Well, to keep a long story short, it did! But I never cleaned a fish, and the miracle fishing pole now resides in its ceremonial place of honor buried in the corner of our garage.

Story by Mike and Hannah Freeman, November, 2022.