John Wayne

The summer of my thirteenth year was my last in California before swapping baggies and tie dye for jackets and school ties back east. I was determined to make the most of it. My diving friend Dave Thompson was a forty-something wiry leprechaun with a boat that just barely managed to stay in its preferred orientation, that is, on top of the water. Nearly every weekday that summer I helped Dave paint houses to earn money for the fuel his boat needed to make it to Catalina on the weekends where we would dive. Other diving friends of mine often came along.

On one such weekend the boat’s engine sprang an oil leak after our morning dive and a school friend and I had nothing to do while Dave scoured the island for a part. We decided to throw on our tanks and swim around Avalon harbor to see what kinds of junk lay on the bottom beneath the boats at anchor. Nothing unexpected. Cans and bottles, the occasional folding beach chair, a bicycle, a rotted-out dinghy, some fishing tackle. It wasn’t that interesting and the excursion was made a little less pleasant by a two-foot leopard shark that wouldn’t leave us alone. They had a reputation for being curious and taking an occasional nip, just to see if something was worth eating. I always carried a spear gun in those days, and I usually ate what I speared. That day, the leopard shark was getting a bit too frisky, so I speared it.

I had no idea how many other sharks might be around but now I had a bleeding dead shark to deal with. With no desire to eat it, I swam to the surface to see where the closest point of land was so I could dump the carcass. I came up next to a large white powerboat and there was a man in bathing trunks and a terry-cloth shirt leaning over the railing, a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He said, “I want to thank you for getting rid of that shark. It’s been swimming around under the boat all morning and I’ve had to keep my grandkids out of the water.” I pulled up my mask to look at him and said, “No problem!” Only then did I realize it was John Wayne. He said, “Well, come on up and have some lunch.”

I can’t remember what we talked about. I was so overwhelmed by sitting aboard the Wild Goose talking to the screen legend that the mere fact of it dominates my memory.

I saw him one more time, eight years later, in January of 1974 when the Hasty Pudding club invited him to Harvard to receive an award. A staunch conservative hawk, he arrived in Cambridge riding atop an armored personnel carrier as it slowly made its way up Mass Ave through a dense crowd of students who were both cheering and booing. I was in the crowd and called out to him. He didn’t recognize me. Aw shucks. The procession was followed by an award ceremony and a ‘roast’ by the staff of the Harvard Lampoon on the stage of a packed auditorium. The Duke was good natured about the whole thing and had the perfect retort for every jab, delivered with smiles and laughter.

Many years later, when I was looking to buy just the right boat, The Wild Goose came up for sale, its home port still Avalon, and it was in my price range. I was sorely tempted to buy it. It would have meant a major upheaval of my life; I would have had to relocate to California. I didn’t have the means to bring it east nor was it the right boat for northeastern waters. California was the place it ought to be. But then I found Neeltje and the rest is history. Still, now that I’m back in California, I sometimes fantasize about what it would have been like if I had chosen the Wild Goose.