I just read that Dr.Sammy Lee passed away. If you don’t recognize the name, he was famous nationally for bringing home to the USA several gold medals in the early Olympics in diving. He also was a major player in the civil rights movement. He’s worth a Google, if you’re young enough not to know of him. I was lucky enough to know him personally.

Sammy came to Santa Ana College where I taught SCUBA diving classes and helped to mentor our springboard divers. He taught them how to look good diving into the water, and I taught them how to stay alive and have fun under the water.

He became my hearing aid doctor early on in our relationship, and worked with, and on me, for many years before I retired and moved north to Washington State. This story is just one of many that could be told about Sammy, but it will give you an insight as to why everyone seemed to love him.

As I mentioned above, Sammy was a doctor that worked on the hard of hearing folks like me. His office was in Santa Ana and I was a regular customer/patient. His examination of me revealed that the outer ear canal, from the outside to the eardrum, was closing off. He thought it was occurring because of the constant exposure to cold ocean water. As a diver and instructor, I spent extensive time in the ocean. He said he could open them back up with an operation called an “exostosis”.

We made arrangements for me to check into the hospital to have both ears done. Remember, this is over 45 years ago when we didn’t have the equipment we have today, and it was a serious surgery then. I think it is more common now. They call it a surfer’s ear.

I checked into the hospital one afternoon, and spent that night. There were various tests done to get me ready for surgery in the morning. They wheeled me in, put me to sleep, and I woke up feeling just fine. Sammy said all went well and I could go home that afternoon.

When the time came for my release, (it sounds like I was in prison), they wheeled me out to the street in a wheelchair and I got up and started walking home. I only lived two miles from the hospital and didn’t have anyone to pick me up, so I planned to just walk home. I wasn’t hurting anywhere.

I had walked for about a half mile, when a car suddenly slammed on the brakes, and stopped alongside me on the road. I looked over and it was Sammy staring at me through the car window. He opened the door and said, “What are you doing out here? “

I told him I was just walking home. He said, “You can’t do that, you just had some major surgery.”

I said, “It doesn’t feel like it. I feel fine.”

His answer was, “If you don’t think it was major surgery, just look at your bill.” I got in the car still laughing. Sammy drove me home.

He was a dear friend, a credit to his country, a good doctor, and the world, country, and many others, like me, will miss him. People of his caliber are few and far between.

Chionodraco rastrospinosu

The bucket we found to carry the fish had been used to send something down to the station sometime in the past. There were no stores at McMurdo Station, and we saved and reused everything. This bucket was ugly. It was black, with yellow and red paint all over it, because it had been used several times for one thing or another. The top had a lid we could seal, with about 30 little tabs that could be bent down to lock it in place. It had a handle, and I carried it with me on the way home, never letting it get out of my sight.

At the end of the cruise, the 93 fish that were collected were very carefully injected, wrapped in cloth, and placed in the 5 gallon bucket. They were small, most about 6 inches. They belonged to New Zealand, and were loaned to me to take home and work on. This collection of fish was one of the main reasons for the entire expedition, and I had it, in a bucket, to carry home. It was a very heavy responsibility.

The trip home for me started on a ship, from the station to New Zealand. The bucket shared my bunk. In New Zealand, I had to wait for a military air transport flight to San Francisco, and the bucket shared my room with me. The flight to San Francisco was long, we didn’t have jets then, and the bucket shared my seat with me. We landed at Travis Air Force Base, in San Francisco.

They put me in a car and drove me to the San Francisco airport, where I would take a regular commercial flight home, to Southern California.

I had been gone for about five months. I had not shaved or cut my hair in that time. I had bright red hair down past my shoulders, and a full red beard all over my face. When I was on the ice, everyone look like that, but it was 1959, and the hippy movement hadn’t become popular in the cities yet, and I was to the city person, some sort of mountain man, and probably mentally deficient.

I was wearing a red plaid, wool shirt, and an old pair of wool Army issued pants. To make the picture complete. I was carrying my ugly bucket in one hand and my ice ax and my steel crampons in the other hand, because I couldn’t find any way to pack them. Can you imagine what would happen now, if I tried to get on an airplane with an ice ax and a bunch of metal crampons?!

I walked up to the counter to buy my ticket, set my bucket down and was totally unaware of how I was affecting those around me; I just asked for the first flight out to Los Angeles. The lady behind the counter, told me there is a plane leaving in 20 minutes, I think she just wanted to get rid of me as fast as possible, and gave me a ticket. I took my ticket, and reached down to pick up my bucket, and it was gone.

I panicked! I grabbed a lady standing next to me at the counter and said, “Did you see what happened to my bucket?”

Red Beard

She didn’t say anything. Her eyes were as big as saucers as she was shaking. I realized later that she was terrified from looking at me. Her husband said, “The custodian took the old bucket away that was sitting on the floor. Is that the one you mean? There he goes, over there,” and pointed. I looked through the crowd of people that were milling around, and he was headed for a door that said employees only. I panicked about losing my bucket, and being late for my flight, and ran after the man, calling out, “That’s my bucket.” and waving my arm in the air to get his attention. It just happened that the arm I was waving was also holding my ice ax and my crampons. People scattered, and I suddenly had a clear path to the custodian. I reached him just as he got to the door, and he, for the first time, heard me and turned around. I was right on him, waving my ice ax; he dropped the bucket, and slammed himself against the wall.

I didn’t have time to explain anything, I had to catch my flight. I picked up the bucket and just said, “That’s my bucket.” Then I turned and ran to catch my plane again. The people gave me a clear path, even though I was no longer waving my ice ax around.

I made my plane and sat in the backseat, by myself, okay with my bucket and ice ax. The flight attendant came back after we got in the air, and in a nice calm voice asked, ‘Where are you coming from?” I told her the Antarctic, and she asked, “How did you get to the San Francisco airport?” I told her it had all been military transportation. She just said, “Well, that explains a lot,” and left. It wasn’t until then, that I realized what had just happened. I chuckled to myself all the way home.

When I got home, I looked in the mirror and I even scared myself.