This is one of those really long stories made short so that it will fit into this space. What inspired me to write this is that I was cruising through Twin Falls, Idaho, the other day and as we were on the bridge going over the Snake River, you could see the launch ramp off in the distance where Evel Knievel attempted his infamous “Snake River Canyon Jump” on Sept. 8, 1974.
Brought back a memory for me because I was there that day. I was a cameraman working on the filming for TV. At this point, you are probably asking what was I doing working as a cameraman on the Evel Knievel Snake River Canyon Jump in Twin Falls, Idaho? Let me start at the beginning.
A guy named Dick Barrymore built my first surfboard. He was a fireman who built surfboards in his garage in Seal Beach. This was 1957. He later opened a surf shop across the street from the Seal Beach Pier. I got my second surfboard from that shop.
Besides making surfboards, Dick Barrymore was also an excellent photographer and shot a ton of great surfing film both in Hawaii and California back in those days. He was also a skier and filmed skiing.
Some of his footage found its way onto a local Los Angeles television program and, again long story short, this launched an amazing career making ski movies.
Fast forward to the summer of 1973. I had recently decided to retire from the professional surfing competition circuit and was working my way into playing music. I had also been an avid skier since I was very young.
The idea struck me that I had always wanted to be able to spend an entire season skiing, but had never been able to due to my full-time commitment to pro surfing. But now I could, and it would be a great place to work on music without the pressure of people coming to see me just because I was a well-known surfer, and for that reason, I probably was terrible and it would be fun to laugh at.
Voila! A plan was put into place.
So, I told my wife we were gonna move to the mountains and I was gonna take off to find out where. I jumped in my Ford Van and drove to Sun Valley, Idaho. My old pal Dick Barrymore lived there and by now was at the top of the ski movie industry. His house was the perfect first stop on my quest to find a place to relocate to ski and play music.
It turned out to be the only stop.
Within a couple of days, I had secured a job working in a ski boot factory during the day and as a dishwasher at the newly opened Chart House restaurant. And I rented a small two-bedroom condo not far from the ski lifts. At that point, I called my wife and told her to rent out our house, pack up her car and our young son, Clint, and hit the road for Idaho.
During the next three years, I wound up working at the Chart House both as a waiter and playing music and skiing my brains out. I did some music for the soundtrack of a couple of Dick Barrymore’s movies and skied in one of them.
One day, Dick called me up and asked if I had ever worked a movie camera. I told him when I was younger I had made a couple of 8mm home surf movies: “I Surf For Adventure” and the infamous “Curse of the Surf Snatchers.” He says, “Perfect, you are working for me on Evel Knievel’s Snake River Canyon Jump.” He had been hired to do the filming.
I am thinking, “Cool, this is gonna be fun and some extra bucks.” And that is exactly what it was. Evel turned out to be a pretty cool dude. He had been a friend of Hobie Alter.
Now, 51 years later, we are driving across that bridge and I am trying to explain this whole story to my wife, the pretty Raquel, who is from Mexico and has never heard of Evel Knievel. She is faking being mildly interested, her only comment being, “Then why don’t you have ‘TV camerman’ on your resume?” Geeze, I guess I had missed that one all these years.
Oh, we were up there to celebrate Dick Metz, of the Surfing Heritage and Cultural Center, for his 96th birthday at the Pioneer Saloon in Ketchum. Super cool event.