Jeff Davis
1965
Wow! After having read the bios from Dick Eyster, Dixie Reinhardt, Pete Senoff, Gloria Dorcy and Lou Kraft, my life after graduation seems awfully dull. Most of you probably don't remember me from high school. I was a shy, quiet person who lacked confidence and pretty much stuck to himself and a very small group of friends.
Instead of trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life (which I should have done in high school), my chief goal after graduation was to continue surfing as much as I could and avoid the draft by enrolling at Pierce Junior College. If I had known, like Dick Eyster and Dave Buck, that you could get an exemption joining the LAPD, I would have tried that instead. Of course, as I think on it, I'm only 5'6" and would have been denied based on the 5'7" height requirement they had at that time. Anyway, the surfing part of my plan worked, but I spent more time at Malibu, Sunset, Zuma and Rincon than in class and was quickly put on academic probation. The only classes I actually enjoyed and excelled in were weight-lifting and badminton (yes, I loved playing badminton). By the second semester, I realized I was going to be asked to leave the premises because I had developed a habit at Pierce of skipping class and going to the beach. I also realized I would be prime draft material, so I enlisted in the Navy. I figured it would be better to have a dry bunk instead of a wet foxhole to sleep in, and less likely that someone would be shooting at me (or worse, my having to shoot at them). Dave Keister (lead guard on the "C" basketball team) joined at the same time. Interestingly, while at boot camp we ran into Ted Sisco (class of Winter '65). Ted had completed basic and was an "adjutant" who assisted the drill instructors working with new recruits. Hardly got to say more than, "Hi" because he was not supposed to socialize with us new "boots".
After boot camp I was stationed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ranger for eleven months while it was in dry dock in Bremerton, Washington. Dave was assigned to the USS Bonhom Richard in San Diego. Thought I would never see sunlight and warm weather again (rains nine months out of the year, normally). After 10 months of salt water showers (when a ship goes into dry dock, the only fresh water comes from the turbines in limited quantities and is reserved for officers only), my complexion, which was never great anyway, had gotten progressively worse. The ship's doctor sent me to a doctor on the base who took pity on me and advised that if I went out to sea my face would be so scarred no one would recognize me when I returned. I was discharged a month later. I only got out to sea one time when the ship went out for a shakedown cruise prior to heading for Japan. Standing on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, no land in sight, is a humbling experience.
When I got out of the Navy I took a job working at May Co. in Topanga Plaza, revived my love of surfing and enrolled at Pierce again while I tried to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life (again). One summer day returning from Malibu, a car coming in the opposite direction swerved into my lane on a blind curve on Malibu Canyon and we met head-on. I pulverized my right knee cap on my Muntz stereo (I really bolted it in so it wouldn't get stolen) which was the only thing on the car that survived the crash. Kenny Platner, his brother Clay and my sister Susie were also with me that day. Kenny got half his cheek ripped off. Susie and Clay suffered some minor bruises and bumps. I spent the next several months trying to strengthen my leg and get my knee to bend again, as I spent a month in a full leg cast and when they took it off the muscles in my right leg had atrophied. I was progressing slowly when my old friend Bob Teague showed up one Friday and said, "Come on, we're going water skiing at Lake Nacamiento." I thought he was crazy because I couldn't walk without a crutch, but Bob insisted and physically loaded me into his pickup truck and away we went. When we got to the lake, I asked Bob how I was going to water ski on two skis. He said, "You're not. You're going to only use one ski." I thought his intent was to drown me but quickly found water skiing was the best physical therapy for strengthening my leg and getting it to bend, and a heck of a lot more fun, too. Seemed like every weekend that summer Bob, Vicki and Jon Pugh, Bobby Watson, Richard Kopecky and I would go to Nacamiento. Within a few months, I was totally recovered. I will always owe Bob a great debt of thanks for his unselfish friendship and help.
Instead of trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life (which I should have done in high school), my chief goal after graduation was to continue surfing as much as I could and avoid the draft by enrolling at Pierce Junior College. If I had known, like Dick Eyster and Dave Buck, that you could get an exemption joining the LAPD, I would have tried that instead. Of course, as I think on it, I'm only 5'6" and would have been denied based on the 5'7" height requirement they had at that time. Anyway, the surfing part of my plan worked, but I spent more time at Malibu, Sunset, Zuma and Rincon than in class and was quickly put on academic probation. The only classes I actually enjoyed and excelled in were weight-lifting and badminton (yes, I loved playing badminton). By the second semester, I realized I was going to be asked to leave the premises because I had developed a habit at Pierce of skipping class and going to the beach. I also realized I would be prime draft material, so I enlisted in the Navy. I figured it would be better to have a dry bunk instead of a wet foxhole to sleep in, and less likely that someone would be shooting at me (or worse, my having to shoot at them). Dave Keister (lead guard on the "C" basketball team) joined at the same time. Interestingly, while at boot camp we ran into Ted Sisco (class of Winter '65). Ted had completed basic and was an "adjutant" who assisted the drill instructors working with new recruits. Hardly got to say more than, "Hi" because he was not supposed to socialize with us new "boots".
After boot camp I was stationed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ranger for eleven months while it was in dry dock in Bremerton, Washington. Dave was assigned to the USS Bonhom Richard in San Diego. Thought I would never see sunlight and warm weather again (rains nine months out of the year, normally). After 10 months of salt water showers (when a ship goes into dry dock, the only fresh water comes from the turbines in limited quantities and is reserved for officers only), my complexion, which was never great anyway, had gotten progressively worse. The ship's doctor sent me to a doctor on the base who took pity on me and advised that if I went out to sea my face would be so scarred no one would recognize me when I returned. I was discharged a month later. I only got out to sea one time when the ship went out for a shakedown cruise prior to heading for Japan. Standing on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, no land in sight, is a humbling experience.
When I got out of the Navy I took a job working at May Co. in Topanga Plaza, revived my love of surfing and enrolled at Pierce again while I tried to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life (again). One summer day returning from Malibu, a car coming in the opposite direction swerved into my lane on a blind curve on Malibu Canyon and we met head-on. I pulverized my right knee cap on my Muntz stereo (I really bolted it in so it wouldn't get stolen) which was the only thing on the car that survived the crash. Kenny Platner, his brother Clay and my sister Susie were also with me that day. Kenny got half his cheek ripped off. Susie and Clay suffered some minor bruises and bumps. I spent the next several months trying to strengthen my leg and get my knee to bend again, as I spent a month in a full leg cast and when they took it off the muscles in my right leg had atrophied. I was progressing slowly when my old friend Bob Teague showed up one Friday and said, "Come on, we're going water skiing at Lake Nacamiento." I thought he was crazy because I couldn't walk without a crutch, but Bob insisted and physically loaded me into his pickup truck and away we went. When we got to the lake, I asked Bob how I was going to water ski on two skis. He said, "You're not. You're going to only use one ski." I thought his intent was to drown me but quickly found water skiing was the best physical therapy for strengthening my leg and getting it to bend, and a heck of a lot more fun, too. Seemed like every weekend that summer Bob, Vicki and Jon Pugh, Bobby Watson, Richard Kopecky and I would go to Nacamiento. Within a few months, I was totally recovered. I will always owe Bob a great debt of thanks for his unselfish friendship and help.
Jeff and David Keister...surfing buddies
When I fully recuperated I took a couple of civil service exams: Radio Dispatcher for the Highway Patrol and Landscape Maintenance Worker for the State Dept. of Transportation (Caltrans). I was offered a dispatcher position in Boulder City, California, and a landscape maintenance position in Encino. Now, you have to understand that my father and I had been going fishing at Lake Mead, on the Arizona side of the lake, since I was 12 and we would go through Henderson, Nevada and Boulder City, California on the way there. In fact, Boulder City sits atop a hill overlooking part of the lake. My father was elated that I might go live there, as I could store his boat at my house. I sadly disappointed him, though, by taking the job in Encino in 1969. Just before he died in 1996, he told me he secretly had always wished I'd taken the job in Boulder City. Dave Keister, Greg Anderson and Bo Stefshefski (spelling?) worked with me in Encino for a while also. Dave, Greg and Beau eventually left State service and I've not seen them since. I also married a Canoga Park High School girl in 1969, Rita Aman, and we adopted two children in late '76 and early '80. As so often happens however, we grew apart, separated in '96 and divorced in 2000. On a work trip I took to Sacramento, back in the '80s, I was sitting in a spa at our hotel with one of my colleagues when I saw Phil Aguirre walking across the deck. Turns out he was there taking a class and he was working for the State Dept. of Juvenile Corrections.
I spent 35 years working for Caltrans; ten years out on the freeways (yes, I was one of those guys in an orange shirt and white hard hat leaning on a shovel) and 25 years working in various departments in the Los Angeles office. My most interesting job was when I got to manage the department that worked with LA, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties and the Southern California Association of Governments in developing the 40 Year Long Range Transportation Plan for Southern California. I retired in 2003 and immediately moved to Penn Valley, CA in a gated community called Lake Wildwood.
Lake Wildwood is situated about 65 miles North of Sacramento on the West slope of the Sierra Nevada foothills. It's nestled between Grass Valley/Nevada City on the East and Marysville/Yuba City on the West. It has a lake full of large-mouth bass, an 18 hole golf course, tennis courts, swimming pool, several parks, 24 hour security and is only an hour, or less, from some of the best trout and salmon fishing in the State. Oh yes, it's only 1 1/2 hours to Reno and Tahoe. My wife of nearly 14 years, Shari (Crawford), Class of Summer '66 (that's another story) and I play golf 4 or 5 times a week and love to drive over Donner Pass on our way to Reno for a day of gambling and good food every so often. If you happen to be in the market for a great place to live, this is it. I plan to die right here, hopefully on the golf course, or catching a huge bass on the lake.
So, as you can see, I have no great accomplishments to tell you about. I've lived a relatively quiet life and I'm just lucky to be in good health and live with my wonderful wife Shari in what we like to call paradise. I finally got onto Facebook (I've been avoiding it for years), but really appreciate the website Pete created for us and am excited about the 50th reunion, having not gone to the 40th. Hope to see and meet many of you there.
I spent 35 years working for Caltrans; ten years out on the freeways (yes, I was one of those guys in an orange shirt and white hard hat leaning on a shovel) and 25 years working in various departments in the Los Angeles office. My most interesting job was when I got to manage the department that worked with LA, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties and the Southern California Association of Governments in developing the 40 Year Long Range Transportation Plan for Southern California. I retired in 2003 and immediately moved to Penn Valley, CA in a gated community called Lake Wildwood.
Lake Wildwood is situated about 65 miles North of Sacramento on the West slope of the Sierra Nevada foothills. It's nestled between Grass Valley/Nevada City on the East and Marysville/Yuba City on the West. It has a lake full of large-mouth bass, an 18 hole golf course, tennis courts, swimming pool, several parks, 24 hour security and is only an hour, or less, from some of the best trout and salmon fishing in the State. Oh yes, it's only 1 1/2 hours to Reno and Tahoe. My wife of nearly 14 years, Shari (Crawford), Class of Summer '66 (that's another story) and I play golf 4 or 5 times a week and love to drive over Donner Pass on our way to Reno for a day of gambling and good food every so often. If you happen to be in the market for a great place to live, this is it. I plan to die right here, hopefully on the golf course, or catching a huge bass on the lake.
So, as you can see, I have no great accomplishments to tell you about. I've lived a relatively quiet life and I'm just lucky to be in good health and live with my wonderful wife Shari in what we like to call paradise. I finally got onto Facebook (I've been avoiding it for years), but really appreciate the website Pete created for us and am excited about the 50th reunion, having not gone to the 40th. Hope to see and meet many of you there.
With my wife Shari
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With Dave Levin in front of my old Cantara Street house in 1965
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Dave Levin with my sister Susie in 1965
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Myself and Wayne Newton getting ready to play golf in the Lake Wildwood Member/Guest Invitational
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My family in front of our Cantara Street house in 1968: My father, my sister Susie, my mother and myself.
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With my sister Susie (Feb 2014)
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Fishing (2014)
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Golfing (2014)
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GCHS Graduation (1965)
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COMMENTS:
Hi Jeff~ Your story is VERY interesting! Not many have surfed, sailed & still going strong! I look forward to seeing you at the 50th! You and your wife are two lucky ones!!!
Gloria Dorcy
Hi Jeff~ Your story is VERY interesting! Not many have surfed, sailed & still going strong! I look forward to seeing you at the 50th! You and your wife are two lucky ones!!!
Gloria Dorcy
Hi Jeff. Great story. You are a veteran!!! A national hero. Somewhat unrecognized at the time. Your life has been a great success through your hard work and efforts. It doesn't get much better than what you have accomplished. I always think about our college YMCA group, The Mercurians, and wonder how life has gone for everyone. Thanks for sharing.
-----Dick Eyster
-----Dick Eyster
Dear Jeff, It was such a pleasure to read your life's story. All the twists and turns of your surfing days, college, navy, employment, and your ending up living exactly where you want to, with the love of your life, golfing and fishing at your hearts desire, is truly a dream come true. The only thing distressing was your terrible accident. So glad you have had no lasting significant problems. Looking forward to meeting you and Shari!
---Donna Irwin McGarr
---Donna Irwin McGarr
Hi Jeff,
Thank you for the nice comments about my life story.
It was nice to see and read your life story. You’ve been as fortunate as have I even though there were bumps along the way. Like you, I have had a special life with my wife Cyndee (we got married almost 8 years ago) and wouldn’t trade it at all.
Now, I’m surprised they let you work for Caltrans leaning on a shovel when I’m sure the shovel was taller than you (LOL). Nevertheless, be proud of your life, your accomplishments, you’ve been blessed.
I’m glad you’re doing well and enjoying life. Interestingly, I used to live in Atascadero (for 25 years) and often spent time at Lake Nacimiento and Lake San Antonio.
Anyway, thanks for sharing, enjoyed your life story immensely. Be safe my friend,
Dave Rounds
Thank you for the nice comments about my life story.
It was nice to see and read your life story. You’ve been as fortunate as have I even though there were bumps along the way. Like you, I have had a special life with my wife Cyndee (we got married almost 8 years ago) and wouldn’t trade it at all.
Now, I’m surprised they let you work for Caltrans leaning on a shovel when I’m sure the shovel was taller than you (LOL). Nevertheless, be proud of your life, your accomplishments, you’ve been blessed.
I’m glad you’re doing well and enjoying life. Interestingly, I used to live in Atascadero (for 25 years) and often spent time at Lake Nacimiento and Lake San Antonio.
Anyway, thanks for sharing, enjoyed your life story immensely. Be safe my friend,
Dave Rounds
Jeff: Let me make sure that I have this straight. You spend your youth surfing and badmintoning, and now you're spending your senior years with a loving wife somewhere in paradise. Middle age? Who cares? I'm just glad that I never ran into you (literally) on the southern California freeways. Fortunately, my living in Colorado made that unlikely. Stay safe!
Milt Rouse
Milt Rouse