Over thirty years ago, Ed Browning, a potato farmer from Osgood, made a small fortune out of a large one that he had inherited. Ed literally lived in the fast lane. He created The Red Baron Race Team, winning air races in a P-51 Mustang and setting the world record for low-level speed in a modified F-104 that had been married to a jet engine taken from a US NAVY F-4 Phantom. The jet crashed in 1978 and the Mustang crashed in 1979, bringing an end to Red Baron Racing, emptying Ed’s war chest, but not stopping the fun. A few years later when I was floating the Dry Bed near Lewisville on the 4th of July, two people blew by me riding jet skis and I knew I had to have one. Buying Jet Skis led me to meet Ed Browning, who owned Pinecrest Power Sports. After he sold the business to Kris Wright, Ed ran a place in Alpine, WY, with naked ladies carved into the wooden pillars by the bar. He died in the fast lane at age 62 in 2002. You can see from his card that he sold many brands of motorsport equipment. In deference to Kawasaki, I know that they have the rights to the JetSki brand. I still own one. I also own Sea-Doos, and call them whatever I want — jet skis. Forty years later, I still have Ed's business card -- you can see that he didn't care what I called them either.
I am still alive, ride jet skis, do not live in the fast lane and I do not fly airplanes. My adventures are more down to earth, like jumping waterfalls and trespassing. Flying off the diversion dam on the Snake River next to I-15 and the north end of the runway took me and a few of my friends high enough to briefly appear on the airport radar. We may have needed FAA clearance, except they never figured out who we were or why we were in their airspace. Going over the edge of the glassy surface of the Snake River and flying down through the air and landing in the turbulent water is an incomparable, exhilarating experience. But the waterfall is not what creeped me out about being there.
About 200 yards above the falls and diversion dam, the glide path for the Idaho Falls Airport passes over the Snake River. I could see a Boeing 737 on the final approach as I was about to jump over the dam. A quick 180 took me back to a spot where I could float in calm water as the jet passed directly overhead. As I turned the engine off, the only sounds were the distant, muffled water cascading over the dam and the water birds calling to each other on either side of the river. The approaching jet could be seen, but not heard until it screamed right over me and then softly settled down on the runway in a cloud of smoke and reverse thrusters. I was so entranced by the visual that I only noticed the calm surface and the bird calls. The stillness was palpable. I could not feel the water moving under the jet ski and the August afternoon heatwaves distorted the horizon as I watched the jet go onto the taxiway.
Instantly, my mesmerized calm was turned to white-hot panic as I heard a giant hissing sound directly behind me. Thinking that someone in a boat was about to run over me, I tried looking back to see where it was. This is where I lost it. There was nothing there! But the hissing grew louder. It was closing in right behind me at high speed. The gust of air was so powerful that I was nearly blown off the jet ski. Before I could recover, another blast just missed me as it went hissing by. I watched these twin tornadoes make it to the shoreline where the bushes were blown down to the ground before springing back -- then on across I-15 as a pair of dust devils. To my knowledge, I am the only jet skier to survive being struck by wingtip vortex from a Boeing 737. I just know that I would have crashed if this thing had hit me while I was flying over the falls. I had also just discovered that if you wet your pants in a wetsuit, no one notices.
Rogie's adventure-by-jet ski-saga also involves trespassing in Island Park. It was not uncommon for MK to go with me to look at cabins in various stages of construction to get ideas. One lakeside cabin had a deck and stairway under outside construction but was finished on the inside, so we just parked our jet skis, walked over, and peeked in through the windows. One of the ground level bedrooms had been converted into a workout room with sophisticated weights and equipment. On the wall were blue and yellow helmets and a Pittsburg Steelers football jersey with #33 on the front. As we walked up the stairs to look into the living room, I told MK that I thought that this cabin was rumored to be the one Merrill Hoge was building. As we looked into the living room, we could see the beautiful emerald green carpet, offset dramatically against the bleached pine woodwork and staircase. MK asked me, “I wonder if this really belongs to Merrill Hoge?” Just as she said this, my eyes focused beyond our reflection in the glass and I saw a muscular man lying on the couch, just smiling at our clumsy trespassing, saying nothing — so I told her, “You can ask him yourself, he is lying on the couch right in front of us!”
This is how two otherwise responsible citizens came to be dressed in dripping turquoise blue and pink neoprene wetsuits with matching gloves and water shoes, doing the soft shoe off the deck for Merrill Hoge. We never spoke or actually met him -- but I easily recognized him whenever I saw him as a football commentator on TV. As far as I know, Merrill never moved -- he just stayed there on the couch, smiling at two dancing lookie-loos. As MK and I rode away on our jet skis, I started to smile as I was reminded that no one really does notice when you wet your pants in a wetsuit.
Ever vigilant, RT
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