Trails to Sails

By Phillip Kasper

This is the story of Phillip Kasper and his amazing adventures across the Western hemisphere. From horseback riding in Los Angeles as a Hollywood stuntman to sailing between California and Hawaii, Trails to Sails is filled with unforgettable experiences and thrills.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667856087

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Trails to Sails

©2022, Phillip Kasper

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 979-8-21802-821-3

ISBN eBook: 978-1-66785-608-7

Contents

STUDIO STABLES

THE WOOD SHAVINGS STACK

OLLIE AND THE NOOSE

PICKWICK SWIM PARK

NECO THE CAT

JOHNNY ASHBY

THE CONEJO PASS

BOXING STALLIONS

SPOOK

GYPSY

HORSEPLAY

LARRY GOSS

IRENE

FRANKENSTEIN

CHEROKEE LANDRUM

THE POLLIWOG POND

SLIM CARTER

GYPSY AND THE WILDFIRE

THE WAGON

MOOCHIE

CHERRY BOMB

THE CHARIOT RACE

BILL WARD

SPUTNIK

NEBRASKA

FAT RON’S 49 FORD

JR. AND THE MOTOR SCOOTER

THE GO JUICE KINGS

VIETNAM

THE BAKERY

CHICAGO

HOBO LIFE

WWII

DRIVER TRAINING

THE DESERT

REFUGIO BEACH

IN THE NAVY

BUDGET AND THRIFTY

RUPTURED DISC

EPIPHANY

FROGMAN

THE STEP LADDER

THE HALF PIPE

PROMINENT FROGMAN

THE LAUNCH

SAILING TO HAWAII

FROGMAN CHARTERS

NO PLAN B

FRONT STREETCHALLENGE

VACUUM CLEANER

JOHN CARTER

FRED SMITH

BOSS FROG’S DIVE AND SURF

QUICKSILVER

THE PANAMA CANAL

DEAD HEAD

ACAPULCO

CALYPSO

SUMMARY

Postscript

THE COMMANDO HIKE

MY LAST GAINER

A DAY AT THE RANCH

LUNCH

STUDIO STABLES

We departed on the night of August 10, 1987. We left just before midnight and as we cruised down the dark channel towards the harbor mouth we passed a restaurant situated with a panoramic view of the harbor and the ocean. It had floor to ceiling windows all across the harbor side of the building and boasted a disco with a disco ball, a strobe light, and a big dance floor. The disco was hopping and you could see dancers showing off their coolest moves through the plate glass windows, but although we could see the action clearly, we couldn’t hear the music so the dancers moved like robots and looked ridiculous. We all had a good laugh.

We made our way out of the harbor and into the gentle swells of the open ocean. A canvas cover enclosed the cabin and sheltered the crew at night. As I closed the canvas and peered into the dark sky I thought to myself, when I wake up in the morning I will be out to sea and we’ll be on our way to Hawai‘i. I laid down in my sleeping bag trying to get some rest and finally drifted off into a fitful sleep. When I awoke I lifted the canvas cover and looked outside. To my chagrin I saw in the distance the mountains that rose above Ventura County from where we had departed. I realized then that we were not out to sea, but just a few miles off shore and I thought to myself, man…this is going to be a long trip. I looked up and saw an airliner flying over us heading west. Its occupants would be arriving in the islands in a few hours. It would be weeks before we would get there. It was going to be a long trip indeed.

I was born in Glendale, California and when I was five years old my family moved from Los Angeles to the city of Burbank. My parents bought a home on the south side of the town which was in the heart of a popular recreational area. Not far from where we lived were lots of great entertainment options: Pickwick Swim Park and Bowling Alley, an ice skating rink, a drive-in movie theater, and several riding stables. In addition, Burbank was adjacent to Griffith Park, the largest municipal park with wilderness in the country. There were lots of things to do and places to go right in the neighborhood. Everything from horseback riding and hiking in Griffith Park to ice skating on Friday nights at Pickwick Ice Arena. Burbank was a magical place in those days and a great place for a kid to grow up.

My family’s home was in the El Rancho district of Burbank which is a small strip of land that runs parallel to the Los Angeles River from Walt Disney Studios on the west to the border of Burbank with Glendale on the east. It is about two blocks wide and four miles long, but in this suburban strip home owners were still permitted to board horses in their backyards. In the greater Los Angeles area, this was very rare.

The El Rancho district survived changes to zoning which often prohibits keeping hoofed animals in suburbia because of its proximity to Griffith Park which was an established equestrian area. For many years people had been keeping horses at their homes and riding them in the park. Because of this prior use the El Rancho district was exempted from restrictions that prevented the stabling of horses and remained a place where residents could keep their horses in their own backyards.

Griffith Park is located just south of Burbank across the Los Angeles River. It sits at the east end of the Santa Monica Mountain range and rises to an elevation of 1600 ft. The park spans an area of over 4000 acres. It is home to Griffith Park Observatory, the Los Angeles Zoo, pony rides, miniature steam trains, an authentic merry-go-round, a golf course, the Travel Town railroad museum, and miles upon miles of equestrian trails. There are also many beautiful hiking paths in the hills. Thousands of birds including crows, blue birds, hawks, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, owls and many more reside in the park. There are also deer, coyotes, foxes, squirrels and at least one mountain lion, P22, living in the hills. The border of the park was only three blocks from our house so this was my playground when I grew up. It provided unlimited opportunities for fun and adventure for the kids that lived anywhere near the park.

My first horse was a tall shiny black gelding we named Black Beauty. My family were not equestrian people, but we happened to move into a neighborhood where horses were permitted so my dad bought us a horse. No one in my family knew anything about boarding a horse. We didn’t have a barn, stables or even a corral in our back yard so my dad just got a long rope and tied Blackie, as he came to be known, up to a big plum tree that was behind our house. In a few hours the horse was all twisted up in the rope and not so happy about the arrangement. With that setback my dad realized that there would need to be different accommodations for Blackie.

There were many horse stables in our area. The closest one to us was a barn called Studio Stables just a couple of blocks from our house. Blackie was moved to Studio Stables and that event proved to be a great influence on my life.

Studio Stables became my home away from home. I practically lived there. Every day after school and on the weekends I was at the stables. I loved the people that gathered there. There were people that boarded their horses, there were kids and adults that came to just hang out and there were the wranglers that tended to the horses: getting the renters saddled up, guiding rides, feeding the horses and cleaning the stalls. All my friends were there and being one of the youngest members of this group I was sort of a mascot and so everyone looked out for me.

The owner of the stable was an African American man named Tommy Cloud. He resided in a small house on the property with his wife Nell who was Native American and their daughter Irma. Irma once told me that her dad had owned a stable in Los Angeles years before and like at Studio Stables, lots of people came there just to hang with other people that loved horses.

The stable was like a playground for me, I could do just about anything that I wanted to do. There was a large corral on the boarding side of the stable and I would set up small fences to jump over on my horse. I would turn my horse loose in the corral and just chase him around the arena for the fun of it. I would ride around the stable swinging my rope trying to lasso anything that the rope could fit around. I had the run of the place and no one bothered me with rules and regulations as long as I didn’t break anything or set anything on fire. I was a six-year-old-free-spirit out for fun and adventure at every turn.

THE WOOD SHAVINGS STACK

There were quite a few horses boarded at the stable and part of their care involved cleaning out their stalls and then placing a fresh layer of wood shavings on the ground which made a comfortable bed for the horses. They used a lot of shavings so they kept a supply in a big mound on the side of the barn. The shavings were soft and piled loosely. We would often climb up on the roof of the barn and jump down into the shaving pile for fun. They were so soft you could jump six or seven feet down off of the roof and land safely in the stack. One day I decided that I was going to go one step further—instead of jumping into the shavings pile I would do a swan dive from the barn and into the pile. I was fearless and a little naive. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was to be the beginning of my tendency to be a daredevil whenever the opportunity arose. I climbed up on the roof of the barn and looked down into the pile of shavings. I found a place that looked soft and dove in. My outstretched hands made a hole in the surface and I glided right through the shavings just like I had dove into a pool of water. It was amazing. I scrambled back up onto the roof of the barn and dove off again, but this time I struck a hard spot in the shavings stack. When I hit the bottom my head and neck twisted violently. It felt a lightning bolt of pain pass from my neck up into my head and then down my back down through my arms and legs. I ran around in circles holding my neck, screaming and crying like a chicken with his head cut off. After a while the pain subsided and I sat down and rested my head in my hands. I had a major crick in my neck, but after a while felt alright. I realize now that I had come very close to breaking my neck. It was a close call for sure. Thank goodness I was spared the worst. That was the last time I did a swan dive into the shavings stack, but not the last time I would flirt with disaster.

OLLIE AND THE NOOSE

On the rental side of the barn was a patio with a picnic table in the middle. Our group of stable people would sit around the table, have lunch or snacks and listen to music on the radio. One song I remember hearing was A White Sports Coat and a Pink Carnation by Marty Robbins. I can still remember singing along with the music and trying to figure out what the words meant. I didn’t know what a sports coat was or that a pink carnation was a flower. A couple of years later Marty Robbins released the song El Paso and it became the number one song of 1959. It wasn’t long before I knew all the words and could sing it by heart. I loved the Spanish guitar licks and hoped to learn to play guitar like Grady Martin someday.

The patio had one wall that was made from wooden planks and a roof of corrugated steel panels. Someone had left a sharp knife stuck in one of the planks, so anyone that had the inclination could pull out the knife and practice knife throwing against the wall. I tried my luck and I must have thrown the knife a hundred times without getting it to stick. I was starting to think that it was never going to happen when I threw the knife and stuck it perfectly in the wood plank, hitting with a thud and quivering from side to side. I felt like Jim Bowie. An eight year old’s dream came true.

There was also a rope tied to a rafter in the ceiling above the patio that dropped down near the picnic table. Someone had tied a hangman’s knot in the rope. We would hold onto the noose and swing and spin around on the rope for fun. One of our group named Ollie was playing around with the noose one day and after he spun around a few times he passed out and hung himself. Unfortunately he was by himself that day so there was no one there to rescue him. When he was discovered he was unresponsive and was rushed to St. Joseph’s Hospital. The doctors performed a tracheotomy to get him breathing again and that saved his life. After a few weeks Ollie was back at the stables again looking good as new, except for the scar he was sporting just below his Adam’s apple where they had done the procedure. Ollie was okay, but the noose came down.

PICKWICK SWIM PARK

We moved to Burbank in the summer of 1954 when I was five years old and on the day of our arrival my brother and I went out to explore the neighborhood. After walking just a couple of blocks we found Pickwick Swim Park. We approached the chain link fence that surrounded the park and with wide eyes stared into this magical paradise. The pool was gigantic. It was round with a stationary raft in the middle. A high dive and a low dive were mounted on the raft. It wasn’t surrounded by cement in every direction like most public swimming pools. A sidewalk went all the way around the perimeter of the pool, but beyond the sidewalk were acres of green grass creating a beautiful park with a pool in the middle so large it was practically a lake.

Approaching the pool from a distance you could hear the din of a thousand people talking and children screaming and laughing. You could hear the bang and wavering thud from the fiberglass diving board springing off its support and clapping down again every time someone bounced on it. You could see groups of kids rocking back and forth on giant inner tubes. You could smell the hot dogs and french fries emanating from the food stand. On top of all that a jukebox blasted rock-n-roll music and people were dancing The Twist to Chubby Checker. My brother and I were mesmerized. We had never seen or heard anything like this before as we stood in amazement and sorrow because we didn’t have the 50 cents that it took to get into the park. We were back at opening time in the morning.

When I first started going to Pickwick Pool I didn’t know how to swim. Since the pool was circular and was only eighteen inches deep around the perimeter, that wasn’t any problem. I would just stay in the shallow water and splash around like little kids do. This was before water wings or snorkel vests were invented so I was careful not to wander out into water that was over my head. My parents knew how much I loved playing at the pool so on my sixth birthday, they bought me a snorkel set. Revisiting this story I wonder why they would give a little kid that didn’t know how to swim some dive gear, but they did and I wasn’t afraid to use it.

Soon after I took my snorkel equipment to the pool and experimented with it. I’d seen Sea Hunt on television so I had the general idea of how it all worked. Before long I was wearing my mask, snorkel and fins properly and was able to cruise around in the shallow water seeing the bare legs of the people moving around me. Then It occurred to me that since I had the ability to cruise for some distance on the surface of the water it opened the possibility of me making my way out to the raft that was in deep water in the middle of the pool. The raft beckoned, but snorkeling out to it would be risky because I still didn’t know how to swim and if by chance I lost control of my gear, I might drown. I carefully weighed my options. I could play it safe in the shallow water or I could head out to the raft. I was confident that I could make it out there, but was it worth risking drowning? The daredevil in me took over. I adjusted my gear and headed out to the raft. As soon as I was in over my head my heart started pounding. One false move or a collision with a swimmer could be a disaster. I concentrated hard. I paddled along carefully and finally made it to the raft. I held on to the side of the raft and looked down through my mask. I was in five feet of water. Frighteningly deep and way over my head, but I was committed now. The only way for me to return to shallow water was to snorkel my way back. I pushed off and kicked with my fins. The water was deep at first but stroke by