Crazy for the Storm
This one is titled “Crazy for the Storm” by Norm Ollestad. I read it because it was ranked as one of the great modern adventure/survival tales by Outside Magazine. Most of the other books on their list I’d read already or heard of, but had no interest in; this one intrigued me.
Author Ollestad tells two parallel, interwoven stories in alternate chapters. The first is the remarkable tale of his survival, at age 11, of the small plane crash in the mountains of southern California that took the lives of the pilot, his father, and the latter’s girlfriend. The second is his childhood saga of growing up in a semi-feral state, bouncing between his mom and her violent, hard-drinking, abusive boyfriend’s house; and road trips (including a hilarious one to deliver a washing machine to the author’s grandparents in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico), surfing and skiing adventures with his dad. All of this in the context of a sort of surfer squatter colony on a hillside by Topanga Beach, California, when it was in its heyday, in the early 70s. The place sounds like a descendant of the hippie communes of the 60s, but with no ideology other than being within walking distance of great waves and lots of partying. His Dad, also Norm, a lawyer and former FBI agent, skier and surfer; had walked out on his Mom and moved up the hill after his Mom had an affair with a buddy of his while he was a guest at their house (seems reasonable...). Dad drove little Norm to excel at the same sports he was passionate about, occasionally beyond the point where the kid really enjoyed them, but overall his winning personality and clever ways of getting the best out of him won junior over and by the time of the crash he was a championship skier. This is where the two stories merge and loop back on each other, for the fatal trip in the Cessna to the Mammoth, California ski area had, as its objective, picking up the author’s trophy from his biggest race.
Boy Ollestad’s harrowing trek down the mountain to safety in a snowstorm, during which his Dad’s girlfriend, who’d also survived the crash (Dad and the pilot perished on impact), dies in a fall, is made all the more tragic by the fact that it was, as Ollestad found out years later, entirely avoidable. Basically the pilot was either crazy or incompetent or both, and had agreed to take them to Mammoth in weather conditions that were prohibitively risky. He never filed a flight plan, he flew VFR when he shouldn’t have and basically killed the lot of them. Ollestad credits his dad with having instilled in him the skills and attitude necessary to make the trek and get out alive.
The author ends the book with a series of reflections on fatherhood (he’s now got a son) and how he’s struggled to achieve a balance of getting his kid into sports and getting him good at them without pushing so hard as to sour him on learning them and enjoying. He ends up proffering an amalgam his dad’s example (lots of devoted time and opportunities, unflagging enthusiasm, optimism, relentless good humor), tempered with a bit more patience and space for the kid to develop his own interests and at his own pace, as a winning formula.
Overall, a well-written and interesting book that will appeal to students of late 20th C American countercultures, outdoor enthusiasts, and thoughful parents.
