I Died But I Got Better: How a Dozen Brushes With Death Transformed My Life

By Lance Von Prum

"I Died But I Got Better" is the fascinating and entertaining life story of Lance Von Prum. He portrays his fantastic adventures in a humorous fashion all his own. His casual conversational style not only makes you feel as though you're at the pub together, sharing a pint, but will keep you smiling and chuckling to the end. His numerous experiences include almost dying or nearly being killed a dozen or so times and his humorous descriptions reveal the insight gained from looking death in the face and then having your life handed back to you. Lance's charming one-on-one style makes you feel like a part of the story as his clever descriptions paint vivid mental images that put the reader in the moment. Many of Von Prum's claims are near unbelievable except for the dozens of his personal color photos and slide images that corroborate his story. He says that you just can't make this stuff up and has no need to fabricate or embellish.

"I'm a shy extrovert. I love to make people laugh. I just happen to have done so many interesting things and end enjoy relaying my adventures in a humorous style that can make milk squirt out your nose, if you're not careful. And if you drink scotch or bourbon while reading, that really burns. So, be careful. I'm just saying. Countless interesting, unusual and weird events have occurred in my life. I guess my ADD affected every foolish decision I ever made, but it makes a good story! I hesitated to write my autobiography because it seemed so pretentious, egotistical, "Oh, look at me!" or that I'm making it up, like no one has done all of that stuff except Mark Wahlberg. The stories are true. A little artistic license may have been involved here and there, only to make the moment funnier. I want to make you laugh, so go read the darn thing, already!"

The book's subtitle is, "How a Dozen Brushes With Death Transformed My Life" which references the present, as Von Prum relays the wisdom gained not just from age but a series of events that allowed him to transform his life; transform from what to what is what the book is all about. His continuously positive outlook is more than refreshing, it is contagious! You cannot read this book without laughing, learning something about yourself and being a little bit better, happier person. Action, adventure, humor, entertainment and insight, it's all there. It's a "Must Read." Adult humor, mild, nothing really rude.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lance Von Prum
• Release date: Apr 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311033291

Lance Von Prum

Interesting to say the least, even from an early age, my life has been one adventure after another. I had my pilot's license at 17, flew helicopters up and down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, made over sixty skydives and crashed three aircraft. Not my fault! Mechanical failure all three times. Lucky me! I crash better than anyone I know. Why? Because I'm alive to tell you about it.That's part of why I write; I've come to appreciate being alive and I not only have exotic memories to write about but an imagination fueled by my experiences. Everyone likes to laugh and a good sense of humor is evident in just about everything I write, fiction or nonfiction. My friends keep describing me as a renaissance man but I'm a bit uncomfortable being compared to the likes of Leonardo de Vinci. More recently, a friend dubbed me "The most interesting man in Vancouver" and I have accepted the title. That said, I've drawn and painted since I was about five, or as long as I can remember. I seldom had the money to buy the things I wanted, so I made them, Things like boats, airplanes, custom cars and motorhomes. I've painted and sold hundreds of watercolors, been a graphic designer, live entertainer and have written, mostly for my own pleasure since 1972. Now I write professionally, bringing some of my early experiences and my early writing into the light of day.I write for two reasons: I enjoy making others laugh and I've developed a writing style that creates vivid mental images of impossible situations, often with a twist, like the shooting milk out your nose kind of humor. I also enjoy writing about what I've learned from over a half dozen close calls with death and how it changes your views on things. Living is a good thing and that essence is injected into everything I write. I also have ADD and have a very entertaining eBook that's written to help others with ADD understand and deal with ADD and overcome the negative aspects of the condition. The focus is on al the great qualities that those with ADD often possess, like determination, enthusiasm, open-mindedness, high intelligence and lots more. Sharing what I know to help others seems like a win-win situation.I want to share with others in a way that is rewarding, by making them laugh and have a good story to tell a friend, or help people find more meaning and purpose in their personal lives. I invite you to check out my eBook and paperback library and find a book that interests you, and for less than the cost of a ham sandwich, you will be well rewarded. Thank you for your interest in my work and remember, do not drink liquids while reading anything of my writing. I'm just saying . . .

Book preview

I Died But I Got Better

My Journey To Becoming The Jaded Old Geezer

Copyright © 2015 by Lance Von Prüm

All rights reserved

Published in the United States by Lance Von Prüm and Up All Night Press

All Rights Reserved

First Edition: February 28, 2015

Photo credits: Lance Von Prüm

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

My Thanks

I’d like to thank my mom and dad for bringing me into this world and doing their best in raising me. I must have been a real handful. Anyone who says that their family is not dysfunctional is a comedian or an idiot. They did their best and I forgive them. I have several lifelong friends who have put up with me over the years that deserve my thanks and appreciation. I had a handful of good teachers and instructors along the way, beginning with kindergarten. My thanks to each of them for caring about me and touching my life in a special way. I have a handful of other close friends whose friendship I greatly value. There are others in my past I won’t mention for their sake, whose close association I will always treasure. I’m thankful I somehow had the insight to see inside myself. Mostly, I’m thankful, after all I’ve been through, to still be alive.

I’m not dead yet! Monty Python, In Search of the Holy Grail.

I Died But I Got Better

My Journey To Becoming The Jaded Old Geezer

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Lil Rascals

Chapter 2 Road Trip!

Chapter 3 A First Time For Everything

Chapter 4 Timothy Leary?

Chapter 5 From The Armpit To The Old West

Chapter 6 A Few Lessons In Not Dying

Chapter 7 Arial Clowns

Chapter 8 The Back Door Chopper Pilot

Chapter 9 The Persian Vacation/CIA Operation

Chapter 10 Iran Air

Chapter 11 Air America

Chapter 12 Gravity Testing

Chapter 13 Road Trip

Chapter 14 Time Warp

Chapter 15 Persian Nightlife

Chapter 16 Death Threats, Corvettes and Four-Hour Erections

Chapter 17 Gangstah

Chapter 18 History of The Flying Car

Chapter 19 Both Ends of The Funny Bone

Chapter 20 Not Dying Is Like Déjà Vu All Over Again

Chapter 21 Cowboys and Indians

Chapter 22 Not Insane

Chapter 23 Earning My Ray-Bans

A Final Word

Introduction

Who am I to write an autobiography and why should you read it? I’m really nobody in particular but I’ve had some fantastic adventures and exciting moments, many resulting in my near death. Over the years I’ve shared some of my adventures with friends and anyone who will ask and have been told over and over to write my story, including, Academy Award winning director, Ridley Scott. Well, sort of, as I explain in the book.

This is a true story. Nothing has been fabricated or exaggerated. My story is interesting enough without embellishment. I’ve written exactly as I recall every moment and written in a casual conversational style as though we are in the room together. This book is about my adventures, so many of the more personal aspects of my life I’ve excluded out of respect for the privacy concerns of others. There are a couple exceptions but great discretion was used throughout the book.

The names I have mentioned are the correct names keeping with the theme of authenticity. Every photo was taken by me or of me by someone with my camera or are family photos. The photo of Hunter S. Thompson and Marge are copyright free.

This is a funny story. I see vivid images in my mind that I translate into very descriptive and entertaining dialog, which in turn, creates vivid and entertaining images in your mind, at least that is my intention. I write to entertain and educate, and what better way than humor. My final hope is that you take something away with you, that you enjoyed reading, learned something or at least have a funny story or two to tell your friends.

You can learn more about me and see lots more photos at my web site: www.vonprum.com.

I Died But I Got Better

My Journey To Becoming The Jaded Old Geezer

Chapter 1

Lil Rascals

I was a very young child when I was born. My first memory must have been about the age of two. I see an apple core in a glass ashtray that is on sitting on the arm of a dark green mohair camelback sofa in the dim morning light that filtered through the curtains into the living room in what I later came to know as Devil’s Lake, North Dakota. There were ashes in the ashtray, there was a thin maroon carpet on the floor and the walls were all grey from the dim winter sun. It was chilly. How I can recall these details at the age of two, I can’t explain, especially since I can’t remember or explain many things in my life.

Oh yeah, I’ve got CRS, can’t remember shit. Is it old age or the 60’s? I’d say, a little of both, but a bigger part of the picture might have been the fact that I had ADD and didn’t know it until ten years ago. Having ADD and not knowing you have ADD is what fuels country and western songs. It’s what make the Irish drink. Nobody’s got any more screwed up logic than the Irish. There’s lots of competition from the French, the Russians and any politician but the Irish get first prize. Perfect example:

So, Murphy’s tryin to quit drinkin. Ee’s gettin off work and gotta walk right past the pub. So, he says to himself, he says, ‘Murph, you’re a man of strong character and fortitude. Now, put yer mind to it an walk right to the next corner without lookin at the pub as you go by.’ Sure enough, Murphy makes it to the next corner. So, he says to himself, he says, I’m proud of you, Murph! I knew you could do it. Now let’s go back to the pub and I’ll buy ya a beer.

My mother got me out, when the weather would allow in a perambulator. I don’t remember the perambulator but I graduated to a stroller that I have a vivid memory of. It was powder blue and ivory white. It had four small wheels and a sort of tray in front with a heavy curved wire with red, yellow and blue wooden beads on it that I could spin and push back and fourth and a pair of wooden handlebars I could yank on. This was before I could walk. I remember looking down and seeing my first baby shoes on my feet. Perhaps this was my first memory.

I have a friend, Joel who has a perfect memory. I am not him but nor am I a complete moron. Well, that may depend on who you ask or how many IPA’s I’ve had. In all honesty, I never drink to the I love you, man level. I have a friend who does but denies it because he can’t remember. I can remember a coal bin in the cellar of that first house and I remember that I crawled in the coal pile to play with the hunks of coal and of course got black as soot everywhere. Then I have a memory of the bathroom and my mom washing me. I can remember potty training and sitting on my own special potty chair. Yes, I do. Mommy, I did it!

The local running water was so bad it would kill grass, really. The water had lye in it, so we couldn’t drink it, bathe in it or even cook with it without boiling it for ten minutes. Again, something I came to know, but I can remember going to the public fountain to get fresh well water. Why that water was good and tap water wasn’t, I can’t tell you. Maybe it was filtered. Dad would let me carry an empty pail and he would carry two full pails back to the truck. Even at three, I was probably too young to carry a big galvanized steel bucket but dad must have let me try and that’s what I remember.

I don’t need to tell you all this and you don’t need to know it, but it amazes me to this day, the volume and vividness of the memories that I have in my head, all before I was four years old. Many people tell me they have little or no memory before they were four or five years old. Perhaps what helps cement these memories for me is that we moved from North Dakota to the Northwest when I was less than five years old. Perhaps the dramatic relocation caused these memories to stick but most of my memories are simple moments, not dramatic events. I was born on June 12th, 1948, and no, I don’t remember that, but I remember what must have been the winter of 1951-52. We have moved from the house on 8th Avenue to a two story duplex across town, the year earlier.

My memory of that duplex is not of moving in but moving out. The memory is that I am standing up to my crotch in snow, a foot or so. I’m wearing a dark brown snowsuit and a hat with fuzzy earmuffs and the neighbor girl my age, Carol, is standing next to me. She is wearing a blue snowsuit and a white knit cap with thin red stripes around it. We are watching my dad build a trailer to move all our belongings out west. He’s painting it a dark green. Before that, I remember a big kid with a bike, must have been, oh, five. I remember him and some other kids, including Carol’s brother. These memories are vague, like blurry snapshots and film clips from, The Little Rascals.

That summer in 1951, I recall more detail than I will bore you with here but we lived on the top floor of this up and down duplex. The kitchen was white, the cabinets were Dutch blue and the kitchen door was the only entry from the outside stairs. It led out onto the iconic hot tin roof. We had a small outside deck that was covered with galvanized tin and I remember that dad had to hose it off to cool it down enough to set up my inflatable pool. I have brief flashes of images of the kitchen, living room and the second story window view of Carol’s unfinished house. I remember that they lived in the basement while her dad was building the rest of the house. I’m standing on that same thin maroon carpet as the one in the house on 8th Avenue. There was the same green sofa and I remember an upright Philco, AM, FM, Shortwave radio and a record player with stacks of 78rpm records. Oh boy, did I get in trouble with those records! How’s a three year old supposed to know they’ll break if you walk on them? I got my first ass whooping.

I had a dog, named, Penny. She was my babysitter and probably a lot smarter than me. She was a good loving dog. Mom could just set me in the grass and weeds, outside the back door and Penny would watch me as I played in the dirt. Weeds and dirt? I guess we weren’t as concerned with hygiene back then. Penny wouldn’t let me crawl away and no one could get near me without having a dog on their neck.

Chapter 2

Road Trip!

My dad’s father, was a car salesman at the time at the local Ford dealership. Yeah, I know, that’s my heritage, farmer, car salesman. The year before we moved, dad and grampa made some kind of deal to deliver two cars to the Northwest. Forgive me for not remembering more details at this point but I must have been only three or so. Roadtrip! I have flash memories of mom and dad ferrying two new 1952 Fords, two thousand miles to the Northwest, dragging me along. Dragging, hell! I have vague but fond memories of that trip. I got to eat in restaurants and stay in motels with a TV, a swimming pool and the Vibra-Massage bed! Remember those? Like I said, my friend Joel has a perfect memory, not me. It’s like Lincoln said; You can remember all of the things some of the time and some of the things all of the time but no one, except my friend, Joel can remember all of the things all of the time.

Gramma and grampa were no sweethearts. Grampa would just smoke his pipe and didn’t have time for no kids and gramma would make me do chores. Wasn’t my gramma a keeper? I thought grandparents were supposed to love their grandchildren, take them to the zoo, buy them candy and puppies and stuff. Not these two. I guess we left my dog Penny with Pete and Donna in North Dakota. Pete was my mom’s brother who had a radiator shop in town. They stayed in North Dakota but most everyone in my dad’s family moved to Vancouver except dad’s sister, Stella, and husband Elmer.

The story I recall hearing several times as a boy was; in the winter when there was no farming to do, my dad and his brother, Eugene would come out west to Vancouver to work in the shipyards during the war. More than likely they were just happy to get away from their parents. They had farm deferments from the draft and my uncle eventually joined the Navy. Not my dad. He was an entrepreneur. He probably had never heard the word or knew how to spell it but he made more money than his brother because my dad somehow figured out that he could buy a guitar for ten bucks and sell it for twenty. The guitar came with a booklet or maybe my dad bought a booklet on How to play guitar. He’d then jump on a bus, get off in a residential neighborhood and go door-door, selling a guitar and music lessons for twenty bucks. When he sold one, he’d take the bus back to the store and buy another ten-dollar guitar and do it again. Dad couldn’t play a lick on a guitar but he managed to sell them anyway. In hindsight, it seems a bit selfish. I mean, making good money is one thing but there was a war on.

I may have one vague memory of the move to the Northwest but we ended up in an upstairs, furnished apartment on Alberta Street in Portland. The apartment included a television and I remember a local kiddie show called, Mister Moon. A guy with a cape with stars and a moon on his head, would show cartoons, tell jokes and make kids on the set laugh. It was mom’s high tech electronic babysitter until they started dumping me off at gramma and grampa’s place.

One night at gramma and grampa’s place and in a rare mood, gramma and grampa were reminiscing with me after watching, The Lawrence Welk Show. Gramma said