Don't Hold Your Breath

By LeRoy French

This is the life story of adventurer/photographer LeRoy French. The reader will be taken on some amazing journeys, from shark attacks, boat sinking's, incredible scuba dives to leaving a California lifestyle and moving his entire family to a Caribbean Island. One of the most ferocious shark attacks ever recorded is explained in full detail along with Mr. French's eventual recovery. Exciting encounters in Micronesia, Mexico and other remote destinations will keep you on the edge of your seat. This is truly a story of a lifestyle that most people only dream of. Mr. French has an insatiable desire for adventure along with a "Love Affair with the Ocean."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781684097098

Book preview

Chapter 1

First Look at Planet Earth

I came into this world on February 3, 1938, a couple of years behind my brother, Jim.

I don’t remember much in the real early days of age four to eight except that we lived in a very large house on Grand Avenue in San Rafael, California. I recall the house having a front portico with huge white pillars—something like a mini White House. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. My parents were incredibly wealthy.

We only stayed in the Grand Avenue house for a couple of years because my parents were having a beautiful estate-like house being built on top of an area called Seaview Avenue, a short distance from where we were now.

I had no idea how important this new house would be to me in the future. It was a one-level ranch-style house with seven bedrooms, many bathrooms, maids’ quarters, three-car garage, library, playroom, and lots of acreage. It was absolutely beautiful with a magnificent view reaching out into San Francisco Bay.

My mother was a very beautiful woman with some Spanish influence. She was from Livermore, California, about 5 feet 2 inches and 120 pounds.

My father was a very handsome outdoorsy man, five feet and ten inches, and with a great sense of humor. He was from Lansing, Michigan, and his income came from five automobile dealerships that he and his father owned in the San Francisco Bay Area. The dealerships were unbelievably successful as they were Chrysler products, and during war times, Chrysler was very much in demand.

To give you an idea as to the size of our family, on my mother’s side, there were four sisters, their mom, and their dad. Her mom and dad lived in Livermore, California. The four sisters were married, which means now I have four uncles to add. My father, on the other hand, had his mom, dad, and one brother. The brother was married, so that’s one more aunt in the mix. Needless to say, family gatherings were interesting. There were lots of cousins.

I remember fondly at about eight years of age spending weekends in Livermore with Grandma and Grandpa. They were quite poor, but they had this small house next to the railroad tracks, and I would sit for hours with my brother, waiting for the train to come by. It was a big event for the two of us when it finally arrived. On Sunday, this was an incredible day. All aunts, uncles, siblings, and pets would crowd into this small house for some of my grandmother’s Mexican cooking. It was fantastic. She was from Mexico, and man, could she cook!

On one particular Sunday, I will never forget. My father had a present for my grandmother and grandfather that he wanted to show them. The only other person who knew anything about this was my mother. We all piled into cars and headed out, following my dad. We ended up in a quiet neighborhood in front of this lovely three-bedroom home. We are all confused until my father asked my grandmother and grandfather to step out of the car. They walked up the driveway and stopped, and my father handed them the keys to the house. What a great day! I might add that this house had a basement set up with bunk beds for all of us younger ones. There were some big-time pillow fights down there and a lot of crying and yelling, but super times.

Chapter 2

Growing Up

Growing up was great fun in our house. My brother and I had our own large bedrooms with a full bathroom that we shared. The bathroom separated our bedrooms, and next to mine was a giant playroom. My brother and I spent lots of time in this room, playing, fighting, etc. The house was surrounded with beautiful plants and flowers and manicured lawns. We were out there constantly. A couple of experiences I recall was my brother chasing me, and finally, when he caught up to me, he gently pushed me into a bush filled with bees. This was not good. To follow up on that, a few weeks later, we were playing on the front lawn with a toy bow and arrow set until he shot me in the stomach. No real harm done. Small cut, but this was not good. Needless to say, he was sent to his room more than me.

My father was incredible. He never said no to us. I wanted a parrot. He bought me a parrot, but after the second day, it bit me, and it was returned to the pet shop. One day, somebody mentioned we should have a swimming pool in our huge backyard. Shortly thereafter, workmen arrived and started digging a hole for the pool. The pool was huge. We would spend hours in it.

We also had live-in maids. Two in particular I can recall were a Japanese couple named M and Hannah, a delightful couple, and Hannah was an excellent cook. One night, our parents went out, and M and Hannah had the job of taking care of us. My brother, Jimmy, was taking a bath, and M went in to get him out so he could put him to bed.

M leaned over the tub to get him, and Jimmy pulled M in. Not good. The next day, M and Hannah quit. Mom and Dad were not happy. But something good came out of this. Nancy, an African American arrived. This woman was quite large and moved around like a lion. She was probably the best cook in the world—super nice—and she took no prisoners.

Our ages at this time were around nine and ten. It’s important to remember that during all this growing-up time, there was an area where the United States was going through a major war, and Chrysler was supplying many of the products to the war effort.

So one morning, my mother came in and told me that I would be going to the school my brother had been going to. I knew very little about my brother’s school except that it required a uniform. Boy, was I in for a surprise. It was called San Rafael Military Academy.

Chapter 3

School Days

Well, the military academy was something else. It was both a boarding school and day school and a boys’ school. It had everything—swimming teams, football teams, baseball teams, and more. It had its own mini hospital, six barracks that boarded about a hundred students each, a drill field where we practiced marching skills, and of course, classrooms and study halls. This whole thing was totally new to me, and at the young age of ten, I hadn’t a clue as to what was going on. But in those days, you learned fast.

I never really excelled in school, and this was no exception. My classroom abilities left a lot to be desired. I seemed to like being outdoors. As time went on, I was getting along OK, and I really didn’t have many friends; however, I did manage to get in one fight, which I lost. I knew very little about fighting, and though my dad literally prepared us for any problem in life, fighting was not one of them.

It all started with my dad driving us to school one morning. While approaching the school, he saw a man mistreating a dog. He stopped the car, got out, and wrestled the man to the ground, whereupon he put the dog in our car and eventually took it to the animal rescue. Well, everybody in the school was watching and cheering my dad, including the man’s son. He came up to me, and the fight started. In all fairness to myself, he was two years older than me and considerably larger. I got in one good punch, and he got in about three until a teacher broke it up.

I later found out that this school had all the silver-spoon kids in it and that the one I had the fight with was the son of the president of a Central American country. We later became good friends. So as time went on, we were boarded at the school when my parents went on vacation. In the barracks at night, the rules were very strict, and there was no fighting, yelling, or going out of our room without permission.

I do recall one day in the mess hall at lunch; about twenty of us sat at one table. We were taught to eat everything on the plate. No exceptions! So when the food came to the table, we were having scallops that day. Though my parents introduced us to all kinds of foods, scallops was not one of them. Anyway, I looked at my plate and already decided I didn’t like the smell of the scallops. I asked the adult at the head of the table if I had to eat this awful-smelling thing, and he said yes. So I put one in my mouth and immediately threw up all over the table. Twenty kids tried to get out of the way; it wasn’t pretty. Oddly enough, I didn’t get in any trouble. I think they felt sorry for me. I haven’t eaten a scallop since then.

Chapter 4

Idaho

Summertime was the best—three months of no school, playing around the house, exploring the forest of eucalyptus trees that was there, and just having a great time. Then at about age twelve, things changed. My mom and dad said we were all going on vacation together. I had no idea what this meant, but it was a dream come true. First of all, we had never gone on vacation together, but it really didn’t matter to us because my brother and I would usually have fun together. It brings to mind the steep hill at the back of our property, which ended at a very thick forest. This hill in the summertime was overgrown with dry grass. We would take pieces of cardboard and sit on them like a toboggan and race down the hill—until one day my brother ended up running into a tree. After that, we were told we couldn’t do that anymore. By the way, he wasn’t hurt, just scraped up a lot.

Anyway getting back to the family vacation plans. My mother picked us up on the day the academy let out for summer vacation. She had a beautiful car at the time, a black Dodge convertible. We drove up to the parking area around our house, and in the middle sat this huge four-wheel drive, army-looking truck and lots of bags and boxes. It was kind of like a Humvee of today’s army. It seemed as though this was surplus at Chrysler and was sent out to my father in an attempt to sell it now that the war effort was over. In all this stuff were four large tents, camping gear, etc. That night at dinner, my father made the announcement that we were going camping in Idaho. I was old enough to know where Idaho was, and I knew it was a considerable distance from San Rafael, California.

Anyway, my dad had heard about a great camping area where we would stay for three months. This whole idea sounded like an accident waiting to happen. Everybody was going—Nancy the maid, dogs, and so forth. My mother and Nancy were not really outdoor people, but they were game to try. Remember it was 1950; we’d have three months in the super wilderness, with nobody around. Plus, most people had never heard of the area we were going to. I got the feeling my dad read somewhere that this would be a good spot to spend the summer. It was also possible he got this idea from one of his golfing cronies over a couple of drinks. Anyway, we were going to Elk Creek in Idaho, just north of Stanley in the Sawtooth wilderness area.

The idea was to drive this huge four-wheel-drive beast up there with all the camping gear. My brother and I would go with my dad, and then later, I found out that my dad’s brother and his wife were also coming. His name was Leon, and his wife, Virginia, would be following in a station wagon with my mother and Nancy. First of all, this truck (for lack of a better description) did not go faster than fifty miles per hour on the highway, and it made a terrible, deafening whining noise along with no air-conditioning. Driving through Nevada in the summer is not cool.

We stopped at restaurants along the way—one in particular in Winnemucca, Nevada, that displayed a giant stuffed grizzly bear. I had never seen anything like it. I can only recall that this was like the Wild West. Horses were tied up outside bars and restaurants. Men in the back of pickup trucks had guns and were wearing them just like in the movies. What an adventure so far! It was a long, slow trip, but then my dad said we were getting close as we passed through Sun Valley and over the summit to Stanley.

My dad never ceased to amaze me as to how he knew where we were when he had never been there before. We stopped in Stanley, and my dad checked with the local sheriff, game warden, police so he’d know what we were doing. He was the only law enforcement in the area. Stanley, Idaho, at that time had unpaved streets and no sidewalks. It had a hand-style gas pump (one) for autos and one restaurant/bar with horses tied up in front. Wow, it was unbelievable! After we stopped in Stanley, we headed down the main dirt road to Elk Creek about an hour or so away.

Before we got to Elk Creek, I should mention that my mother’s station wagon overheated once just south of Twin Falls, Idaho, and had three flat tires along the way. Nancy the maid wanted to quit and go home, and my mother was very disheveled but hanging in there.

After a very bumpy ride through the forest, we arrived at Elk Creek. It was not really a camping ground at the time, so there was no one around for miles. We came out of the forest and had our first look at where we would be staying for the next three months. This was one of God’s greatest creations. Visualize this huge green meadow with this beautiful creek winding through it and, in the background, the snow peaking the Sawtooth Mountains. They were so close you could touch them. What a magnificent, beautiful, tranquil setting!

So this was my first experience with the outdoors and at a fairly young age. I recall my father and everyone pulled all kinds of equipment out of the power wagon’ and the station wagon. The tents got set up first, and I must say, now that I look back on it, it must have looked like some kind of an army invasion. These were huge army tents that my father got from somewhere. It took all day and into the night to set them up. Anyway, the campsite got set up, and my dad took my brother and me on a walk into the meadow. I noticed that he was carrying a pistol and a rifle. It’s good to note that, in those days, this was super wild country. It was never really explored much, and it had very few visitors.

As we walked through the forest and into the meadow, there stood not thirty feet away a beautiful elk. He just stood there, looking at us as we did to him. I was frozen. I had never seen an animal quite so elegant. He calmly walked away, and we went on our way. My brother and I were very excited. We later found out after two years of camping there that Elk Creek really earned its name. Every day around sundown, we would see herds of them in the meadow, feeding and drinking water from the creek.

On our second year there, we were kind of used to things, and now relatives started visiting. Aside from my father’s brother, Uncle Leon, we had my mother’s sister and her husband, Gene. All were avid hunters. If they were going to hunt something, it had to be small game, which by the way was out of season. So no hunting. I was glad about that. My father, Leon, and Gene headed out one day to go fishing in the creek. By the way, the creek was crystal clear, cold, and great drinking water. We also bathed in it. Anyway, my brother and I, Mom, sister, Virginia, and Nancy were left in the camp. My brother and I were fishing in the creek next to the camp when my mom came over very quietly and told us to go back to the tents. We saw a concerned look on her face and knew it was better not to ask any questions. She said to leave the fishing poles and come now.

We quietly and slowly walked back, and everybody got into one tent. I asked her why we were doing this, and she pulled back the window awning. Walking through the camp was a huge mountain lion. It looked like it was going to stay for a while, knocking over cans and pots in search of food. I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but my mom was not an outdoorsy person. I couldn’t believe what she was about to do. She picked up a shovel and a pot and went outside and faced the lion. She made all kinds of noise, and lo and behold, the animal took off like a scolded dog. Nancy the maid was terrified. I had a whole new outlook on my mother. She was my wonder woman. When the guys came back from fishing, they couldn’t believe the story. By the way, we had rainbow trout for dinner cooked over an open fire.

After about two months, I awoke one morning not feeling well. During the course of the day, I started to run a fever, and my stomach was in pain. There were no doctors or medical facilities for miles. My father contacted the game warden, who by this time had become a great friend, and they decide a plane had to be chartered to take me back to San Francisco. I went with my father in a single-engine plane back to San Francisco. What a trip flying over the Rocky Mountains in that small plane! Fortunately, weather was on our side.

Our family doctor diagnosed me with umbilical hernia. I was resigned to stay home with one of my mother’s sisters, Mildred. My dad flew back on the small plane to pack up the campsite and bring everyone. What and adventure! I wasn’t sure if our summers would be spent in Idaho any longer, but I was in for a huge surprise the next year. Growing up was fun!

Chapter 5

The Ranch

There was a lot of anticipation in the air about what was going to happen for the next summer vacation. Idaho was mentioned, and my brother and I couldn’t wait for summer to come so we could go back to Idaho. What we didn’t know was that we would not be camping. When we got ready to leave, I noticed no more power wagon and no more army tents. I had no idea what was happening, but we piled into my mother’s new station wagon, and my dad and Uncle Gene and his wife, Evelyn, piled into my dad’s pickup, and off we went. Nancy stayed home.

When we finally got to Stanley, we stopped and met with a friend of my dad’s, Russell Vaughn, whom I had met briefly before. We followed Russell out of town on the dusty main road for about five miles and then turned into this ranch. We came through the log gates and up to what looked like the main log cabin. We all got out, and my dad said this was our home for the summer. He had bought this incredibly beautiful ranch with a small creek running through it and four outcabins, a barn, corral, and 140 acres of meadowland ringed by forest and the beautiful snowcapped Sawtooth Mountains in the background. It was similar to Elk Creek but different. This, for the next four years, was where we spent our summers.

One morning, I awoke and my brother and I went out to the barn (the outhouse was out there also), and there were three horses in the corral. My dad came out and pointed to one horse and told my brother, Jim, that it belonged to him. His name was Sailor, and he was a beautiful sorrel gelding. He pointed to another one and said this was my horse, Tumblebug, a sorrel mare.

Tumblebug was super. Now what you need to know is that we had never ridden a horse before. My dad taught us how to ride, how to put a saddle on them, how to groom them, and how to feed them. My brother and I used to race all the time, which drove our mother crazy, but Tumblebug always won. She was superfast, and I loved her. I literally went everywhere with my horse. I rode her three or four times a week. I would talk to her, and she would answer back.

As the summers went on, my dad taught us all about rifles and pistols, hunting, and fishing. All the aunts and uncles would come up every summer, and it seemed like the fun never stopped. We went on horseback pack trips for six to seven hours down to the middle fork of the Salmon River. We would explore old Indian burial sites and deserted mines and ghost towns along the way. I remember one pack trip in particular where after about four hours of riding, we came to a lake named Frog Lake. This lake was covered with lily pads and was crystal clear. If you looked across the lake in the distance, you could see the White Cloud Mountains of Montana. What a spectacular view!

But I must admit that during those years, all the pack trips afforded something spectacular. Keep in mind that this was 1950 to about 1953. There were no tourists, and the streets and main road out of Stanley were dirt, with no sidewalks. The area was totally virgin. You could drink the water out of any stream, and trout and salmon abounded in all the creeks and rivers.

I remember one day a man named Glenn Brewer brought a beautiful horse to the ranch to see if my dad was interested in buying it. The horse’s name was Red and, according to Brewer, impossible to tame. When he took Red out of the trailer, I noticed the bit that goes through his mouth had barb wire on it. My dad, being an animal lover, confronted Brewer about this, and he said it was the only way to control the horse. My dad said it was cruel and had him remove it. He told Brewer to get off the ranch, paid him for