William Scott Wildman 1955-still firing on all 8 cylinders
This is a working copy of my life’s story.
To start, I’ll be placing information here in no particular order but will later place it in chronological order.
Here are the family trees from my mothers, Mary B. Wildman, side and my fathers, Donald D. Wildman, side. First from my mothers family starting with John Taylor. Here is a link to his travels from Texas to California in 1864. https://medium.com/@wswildman1/john-taylors-journal-from-texas-to-california-1864-c99db57a134c and John Whaley brother of Thomas Whaley https://medium.com/@wswildman1/thomas-whaley-1823-1890-135f7f1dd316
Here is the family tree from my Fathers side. Wow, Josiah Wildman was born in 1750. If you look at my grandmother Cassandra “Cassie”, She was daughter of Emma Davis, “Queen of the oil fields”.
Thanks to my cousin Julie Ham for sending me this tree from the Wildman’s side of the family.
My early childhood memories are from Coldwater Canyon, San Fernando Valley and then we moved to16906 Millstone Ave, La Puente CA. My family of 5 kids lived there with our parents. St. Martha Catholic Church was a couple of blocks away. Jim and I went there from the 1st through the 6th grade. The nuns were from Spain and could speak a little english. I remember this neighborhood when my father worked for LA Water Treatment and would drive new company cars every year. We helped him campaign for for Barry Goldwater when he ran against John F Kennedy walking door to door. He always referred to the other political party as “those damn dumb democrats”. The time in the neighborhood recalled the two girls up the street Sandy and Jayne. They were our girlfriends at an early age. This was the time of the early Vietnam war and the Leverenze boys (Jim, Mike, and Robert) were both drafted by the army. I’ll ask my brother Brock who was Jim’s friend what happened to them.
Next we moved to West Covina where we finished our 7 and 8th grade at Cameron Middle School. From there we went to West Covina High School where we graduated. We first rented a house at 1426 E. Thackery. I recall helping my father sell Amway to our friends. After one year we bought the house up the street at 1530 E. Thackery. We converted the garage to a big room for the boys and built a 3 car garage in the back yard, the lot was 1/2 acre. I can recall running out of this house during the Sylmar Earth Quake in 1971 . It was so violent it was difficult to stand-up and run. This is where my twin brother Jim caught the kitchen on fire while making candles for Christmas. We joined 4-H when Brock went into the US Navy and had chickens, ducks, sheep, and cattle (sometimes) in the back yard. One time in high school with all of my motorhead friends over, we had a Jeep and Bronco race in the back yard around the orange trees. My dad wasn’t at home often, but we were involved with school and 4-H projects. My bother Jim raised beef steers and I raised an ayrshire dairy cow (Phoebe) when she was just 2 weeks old. We couldn’t keep them in the back yard so we rented 2 stalls in Covina and fed and cared for them twice a day.
Here is a photo of Jim and I during West Covina High School days. We graduated in 1973 . Jim was interested in livestock and his projects. One project he had was modifying his 1969 F250 truck. This truck is still in the family at Brian’s house in El Cajon, CA. I was busy with buying trucks and converting a 1960 F100 panel to 4-wheel drive. During my high school days I would get in a van and be driven to Pico Rivera to the truck docks. We would work Teamster union casual shifts earning $6 an hour while at home the wage was $1.60 . Jimmy Hoffa was our union president at that time. After mom and dad got divorced, mon moved with Paul to Big Bear and I moved in with my sister Virginia in Belmont Shores and started to attend Long Beach City College first as an architecture major but later changed to engineering after I discovered how little money the graduates were making. My architecture instructor Paul Nebal, designed my uncle Busters house in Naples, CA. After 3 years at LBCC, I was able to transfer to California State University Long Beach, Sigma Chi, Seal Beach house, Tollycraft, Northrop, Raytheon, Booze Allen Hamilton, LA Air Force Base, Honeywell, Pony Lane, Construction projects, VW bus, Baja Mexico, Sailboat racing, dancing, travel.
West Covina High School ( 1960 F100 panel), Long Beach City College, California State University Long Beach, Sigma Chi, Seal Beach house, Tollycraft, Northrop, Raytheon, Booze Allen Hamilton, LA Air Force Base, Honeywell, Pony Lane, Construction projects, VW bus, Baja Mexico, Sailboat racing, dancing, travel. Africa, New Zealand, Tahiti, St Vincent and the Grenadines, BVI, Baja Ha-ha 2017 Layla ,2018 RedBird, 2019 Sierra Vista, motorcycle ride to Lincoln NE, Cabo San Lucas, PCT hike 2020 -2021 completed over 1000 miles from the Mexican border ending at the Sonora Pass.
We traveled to New Zealand from May 4th to June 3, 2018 renting a motorhome starting at Christchurch on the south island and ending in Auckland on the north island. Sam and his girlfriend Amanda joined us with her family in an additional motorhome for a couple of weeks.
One of the beautiful Sunsets
At 65 I decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail starting at the southern terminus at Campo near the Mexico border on 3/3/2020. I was delayed with eye problems and the start of a rainy season. My permit was good until 7/28/2020 and to Lake Echo 1151 miles later. By the end of the year Covid-19 was raising its ugly head and we got off the trail at Cajon Junction off the interstate 15. We finished on 7/9/2020 after 435 miles of hiking. We logged more than the map after many side trips and multiple rattle snakes. There were times when we almost ran out of water in the Anza Boreggo Desert.
I had only 100ml and 4 miles to go in the afternoon when we ran into a guy who was a teacher heading in the same direction with a little more water.
Nancy here is doing her best to scoop up water from this concrete tank with 2 inches of brown water and trash at the bottom of the tank. Our Sayer Water filter came in handy.
In 2021 we have permits to complete 1000 miles of PCT starting from Cajon Junction and interstate 15.
My 2021 permit was good for 1000 miles and on May 9th, I started out from Cajon Junction by myself and hiked over 350 miles in 3 weeks. Nancy resupplied me at Action and Cathy at Tehachapi. On the way, I met several hikers and got to know them by their trail names. Mine was “Wildman” and was given to me by this guy Jim who I met during the first leg the previous year. I finished this leg on May 29th at Kennedy Meadows (Mile 702) the end of the desert and beginning of the Sierra Nevada’s. I averaged 17.5 miles per day with the best day to date at 24 miles.
This was one of the most challenging sections of the PCT to date. It started out with a resumed hike at Sonora pass off Hwy 108 after a major snow storm. I kept a watch on the snow conditions up to that date and the start of the hike was clear and unobstructed but as I descended down the pass there was snow everywhere and finding the trail was not possible. The method was to follow tracks in the snow and verify the path with Guthook or the Garmin Explorer. It became difficult to make any significant progress in the snow without “post-hole-ing” or sinking to the waist with only your backpack to stop you from dropping further. These were 5 mile days as it was difficult to find a dry and flat place to camp. The spikes strapped onto my shoes were the key but the ice ax was not worth the weight as I wasn’t willing to hike where the ax is required. That item was returned to REI.
Thank you very much for writing the journal regarding the Baja trip. I really appreciate the first-person narrative and sharing your story. I laughed the part about the stupid joke at the awards.
Here is my recount of 7 weeks and over 2000 mile shake-down cruise on Resolute a 2007 J/122. We have horses but I traded in my horse for a sailboat:
We joined the 2022 Baja Ha-ha with myself and a crew of 3 after finalizing the purchase of the boat a week before. Good start to Tortuga with the big blue spinnaker flying high. Calm weather and seas to Bahia Santa Maria. As we left the bay we had good wind to Cabo San Lucas as we sailed all the way into Los Cabos Marina. We changed crew, and made our way to Bahia Los Frailes, Los Muertos, and to Isla Sprito Santo with good weather. Our next port was La Paz as we said goodbye to Dixie then it was just the two of us as we returned to the islands north of La Paz and calm bays. Beautiful weather at the Cape and up to islands north Spritu Santo, Partigas with fishing, exploring, snorkeling. It was cruising at its best. We returned south to Los Cabos where my wife Nancy flew home and I greeted Gary Clark from TX (He helped bring Medicine Man back from Transpac in 2019 when I had to dive under the boat to cut a net off the prop) for the bash back up the coast. We had calm weather and seas up to Tortuga where the forecast north was 22kts. As we had motor sailed through 2O kts on the way up, Gary needed to get back and we didn’t consider it too extreme. We headed up to the south end of Cedros Island on December 7th and noticed in the distance a sailboat close to the island not making headway with calm winds. Just then we heard a distress call requesting help from a frantic young woman. We responded and were informed that they had picked up a fish trap line and tangled it in the prop and were dead in the water. We approached Motion a 36' S/V with Derick and Nicky on board and advised to douse the sails. It was apparent from Nicky’s emotional plea, this could end their journey. With Gary at the helm and Resolute circling Motion, I prepared to go in the water with a mask and fins. I dove under the disabled boat and freed up the entanglement. I requested a mechanical verification of the drive system while in and under the water. After the confirmation, I swam over to their stern as they expressed their gratitude. My final statement to them was “Sometimes you just need to COWBOY UP”.
As we continued on and made our way up the inside of Cedros Island, the wind started picking up. We motored across Bahis Sabastian Vazcaino with now 26kts on the nose and 8 to 10 foot seas and a short swell duration. I can recall changing clothes in the V-berth and experiencing free fall as we crested over a swell and slammed in the trough. I would later look back at Gary at the helm as water blasted over the dodger hitting Gary in the face and drenching him. We finally made it to San Carlos at night for anchorage and a good night’s sleep. We concluded our trip with Gary in Ensenada arriving at night going through a Christmas boat parade running aground in the mud and with a final side tie at Baja Naval. As we got closer to the port In Ensenada, the radio traffic was unbearable and the VHF radio turned down (this would later be a mistake), Gary took a bus back to San Diego as I stayed with the boat during a haul out for bottom paint. Nancy joined me again for the trip back to San Pedro where we had an uneventful ride up the coast. That is until we crossed the border. We used the CBP ROAM app to report our entry to the USA as it was acknowledged with a PENDING. Our boat does have AIS but as an offshore racer, there is an unidentified switch at the nav station to disable this feature and unbeknownst to us, it was turned off. So with no AIS and the VHF volume down to nothing, We proceeded past Point Loma where I noticed on my radar an 85 foot USCG cutter sitting 15 miles offshore at 1:00 at night. We passed the cutter as it followed us about 5 miles off our stern. The cutter stopped and launched a tender where they came up to our stern and requested us to come to a stop and prepare to be boarded. With 4 fully armed USCG personnel, they boarded and proceeded to check the bilge and engine. We were informed that we were under suspicion as our AIS was not activated and there was no reply when we were hailed on the VHF. The boarding resulted in a safety inspection that was completed and successfully passed. We continued on our way and made it back to our home port in San Pedro, California.
This journey resulted in several lessons learned to be added to the docket under “Boating Experience” and If you don’t see the local fisherman going out in pangas, the weather may be a little more than you bargained for.
W. Scott and Nancy Wildman
J/122 S/V Resolute
This last Saturday 7/8/2023, we gathered on our J/122 sailboat Resolute at 0930hrs for a LBYC sailing race to Catalina’s ship rock. The starting line was by the jetty at Alamitos bay in Long Beach so allowing an hour to motor to start. 2 of the crew of 8 couldn’t be in the race so we decided the 6 remaining would be adequate. The crew now was myself, my son Sam, Dixie Yeck, Russell Grant, Peter McMahon, and Wayne Powell. Both Russell and Wayne have been involved in many offshore races over the years and were a welcome addition to the crew for the 2 day race. Wayne is a retired LA County Paramedic and has a lot of foredeck experience. We decided to bring the 2 bow dock lines with us just in case the were needed over at Isthmus. As we were backing out of the slip, Wayne and Sam were on the bow to retrieve the dock lines from the cleats when Wayne (experiencing a seizure?) slumped over and with a groaning sound. Sam thought he had a cramp in his leg and didn’t think much of the groan when Wayne fell over the lifelines into the channel and was going head first to the bottom. Watching Wayne go over the side was Sam who quickly removed his shoes and pants and jumped in after him. Hearing the rapid splashing off the bow, I called out “Man-overBoard” to alert the crew of the emergency. I looked off the bow and saw no one but then Wayne surfaced unconscious as Sam pushed was pushing him from under to surface. Sam grabbed Wayne around the chest holding his head out of the water as he swam to the dock. People on the dock heard the Man-overboard call and quickly ran over to assist in lifting Wayne out of the water. The call to 911 was made as the crew on the dock turned Wayne over to his side to discharge some water. He had a heart beat and appeared to be breathing but they were advised to initiate chest compressions. LA County paramedics and LA Port police soon arrived and initiated treatment.
The LA County paramedics and diver credited Sam’s physical condition, training, and swimming ability for his quick reaction to the potential drowning. As Sam was drying off he said to me, “ My 4-H Lifeguard training came in handy ! “
Wayne was taken to Harbor UCLA hospital emergency room and I asked the crew if they still wanted to join the race. With a resounding “Yes” , we notified LBYC race committee of our emergency and they would wait for us to start our PHRF A fleet. We were 21 minutes late to the starting line but for a good reason.
W. Scott Wildman
4-H Sailing and Automotive Project Leader.
