100% Humboldt
Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing Northcoast of California 100%!
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100% Humboldt
#86. From Naval Photographer to Architect: John Ash's Remarkable Path
John Ash's remarkable journey unfolds like a masterclass in reinvention. Born in Vallejo during WWII while his father served overseas, John's early years in Detroit's golden era—when Motown was thriving and the city bustled with over two million people—laid the foundation for his adaptable spirit.
When directionless after high school, John's photography hobby became his professional gateway when the Navy recognized his talent. As a combat photographer during Vietnam, he captured aerial reconnaissance from aircraft carriers, witnessing the heart-stopping drama of fighter jets landing on deck at night. This unique vantage point—being part of history while documenting it—seems to have instilled in him a lifelong ability to both participate in and shape the communities around him.
The conversation reveals how pivotal moments redirected his life course. While organizing concerts with then-unknown bands like Pink Floyd as a student leader at San Diego State, John lived communally with fellow campus influencers. Yet his true calling emerged during a Ford Foundation experiment studying student leaders, where a Berkeley professor's architectural insights triggered what John calls an "epiphany" about his future. Boston Architectural College followed, launching a distinguished career that would eventually bring him to Humboldt County following a 6.2 earthquake in 1992.
Perhaps most inspiring is John's physical transformation—quitting a two-pack-a-day cigarette habit at 38 and progressively building from short runs to completing the Canadian Ironman triathlon. This same determination fueled community initiatives like founding the Explore North Coast Kayak Association, introducing locals to hidden natural treasures in their own backyard.
From designing the Sequoia Park Skywalk that transformed zoo attendance from 40,000 to 180,000 visitors, to writing his psychological thriller novel "The Road to Oracle," John embodies continuous growth. When asked about his desired legacy, his answer is profoundly simple: "That he spent his whole life learning how to love." Subscribe now to hear more stories of remarkable community members shaping Humboldt County's past, present and future.
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Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing North Coast of California 100%!
Listen in and learn what it is to be 100% Humboldt!
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Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors and people all across America, it's the 100% Humboldt Podcast with my newest best not that new friend, john Ash. Hey, john, how are you doing? I'm doing great, man. It's a good day in the neighborhood. Yeah, what's new with you?
Speaker 2:Well, I won't be going to Friday night at the club, yeah, so there I won't see you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. Tomorrow's the 4th of July and there's a big celebration down in Old Town.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And the coolest thing about Old Town, which is right over here on the map in Eureka, California, is they do fireworks at 10 o'clock with a 100-foot fog ceiling. It's the best, worst thing you've ever seen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I call it poof and glow.
Speaker 1:Poof and glow. Yeah, you've seen enough. You've lived here a number of years, right? Yeah, I mean I don't know how many times it's been an open sky, not that many.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, there was when I first arrived in Eureka and I got heavily into kayaking. There was a couple Fourth of Julys where I paddled my kayak out with these other kayakers and we just laid back and watched the fireworks go off right above us. It was really really cool. That's cool yeah.
Speaker 1:We went up the Sears Tower in Chicago and it's so high up you could look down on the fireworks from Soldier Field over at the Navy Pier, whatever that is. Yeah, and I've never seen fireworks from on top, Wow. The other cool show and I'm going to talk about you in a minute is Seattle Sound has an Ivers Sea of Clams, has sponsors a firework show that it would blow your mind. I had never before or since seen fireworks. But anyway, tell us the John Ash story.
Speaker 2:Where do you want me to start? Why don't you just ask me a question? Okay, I was born in Vallejo, california.
Speaker 1:Start at the beginning. Yeah, right there.
Speaker 2:And it was during the Second World War and my father was overseas at the time. My father was overseas at the time and my mom was with my grandmother. She was taking care of my mom and delivered me at Vallejo General Hospital on May 9, 1944. We didn't stay there long. My dad came back from overseas. He moved us back to Detroit. That was where he's from and that's where he met my mother. So I was raised in Detroit. How about that? Yeah, and what an interest. And that's before all the negative things happened there. Sure, and I really loved it. I loved being part of an urban environment like that. That's when there was over 2 million people in Detroit.
Speaker 1:It was vibrant right Motown and it was a rock and roll city.
Speaker 2:Yeah, motown was going at the Rooster Tail nightclub on the Detroit River and things were really good and it was a good place to learn. It got me a job working at General Motors my uncle did. He was a VP there and I remember first day and this is when I'm like 17,. Right, it's like a summer job from high school and they got me a job at the Fisher Body Plant and that's where they make all the seat covers and convertible tops and they roll out cloth 200 layers and then they cut it with this knife that every cycle of the blade sharpens that blade.
Speaker 2:And so this guy is showing me an older guy I'm 17, and he's cutting and he's talking to me and he cuts the tip of his thumb off right in front of me and spurting blood all over the cloths and stuff and I said, wow, that's really a hard way to teach a safety lesson, but anyway. So when I was in Detroit I finished high school and really didn't know what I wanted to do and really needed some direction. So I had been doing a lot of photography while I was in high school. My uncle, when I was 12, showed me how to build an enlarger out of old oil cans. And so I did. And I got into photography and started making my own pictures, got a movie camera, started shooting that and was doing all the photography for the high school football games and for the high school newspaper and the yearbook. So when I joined the Navy they said well, what kind of skills do you have? I tested well, and they sent me to the Naval Photographic School.
Speaker 1:Where's?
Speaker 2:that Pensacola, Florida, Never been down there. So all of a sudden I'm close to the bayou and all the alligators and mosquitoes and everything. But I'm learning how to become a professional combat photographer and I spent four years in the Navy and during the Vietnam War.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:Served on the Ticonderoga and the Constellation aircraft carriers and flew off the flight deck. I was with an aerial photographic squadron called VAP-61. And we did mainly mapping, some reconnaissance, wow. But I did general photography. You know just portrait photography for the Navy. You know just portrait photography for the Navy, public information photography. Hanging out of a helicopter on a harness with a 16-millimeter movie camera flying over ships, you know just to get public information photography. And also flew in an F-9 fighter jet shooting other jets, really. So I had an exciting career doing photography. I thought I wanted to be a photographer. So when I got out of the Navy I went to college back in Michigan at the community college and decided I wanted to go back to San Diego where I was stationed. In Miramar, I says you know this weather is night and day.
Speaker 1:Miramar is my hometown, oh really, yeah, miramar has the big air show, america's greatest air show every year. I believe it. Oh my gosh, three days of Woodstock.
Speaker 2:When I was there, there was no houses around the base. You could crash an aircraft and not hurt anybody. Yeah, In fact that happened. I would have to go out and shoot pictures of these crashed aircrafts. That could make it, you know, but there was no homes out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mirror Mesa was all just a big nothing right, just scrub Big scrub.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was a really interesting experience, but I fell in love with San Diego.
Speaker 1:What a great town.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:America's greatest town Is that right Greatest city. That's what they call themselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hard to argue another city Back in the 60s there wasn't the traffic there is now.
Speaker 1:Oh boy.
Speaker 2:And so I transferred out to San Diego State Good school, and that's where I got involved in student politics. Oh really, I was the managing editor of Daily Aztec Go Aztecs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, great school. We used to go out in high school and drink beer with those guys Is that right All y'all. Yeah, you guys are like pretty decent fun when you're 17 or younger. No, San Diego State's a great school and San Diego as a city is unmatched. So I moved from Sioux City, Iowa, to National City.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Home of 32nd Street Navy Base, yeah. Iowa to National City, oh yeah. Home of 32nd Street Navy Base, yeah, and back in the day you know it was open base, the bus line would go right by the ships and dump everybody out. We'd go downtown and you know just a bunch of feral hippie children goofing around. But good days, and you're right, not crowded, not smoggy, not LA, yeah, beautiful, but good days. And you're right, not crowded, not smoggy not LA, yeah Beautiful.
Speaker 2:I had a girlfriend when I was at San Diego State that was up in LA and it's like you know, you'd leave San Diego and you'd start driving up and the smog would start coming in. Oh my gosh. And you just realize, wow, just. I mean LA was so bad then, oh, but that's all changed.
Speaker 1:It's changed. You could see the mountains and stuff.
Speaker 2:Now we did. I lived when I was at San Diego State. I got involved in student politics and a bunch of people that were like the president of the student body, ron Breen, and we started a commune. We rented a house in La Mesa oh cool and six of us lived in a commune. We rented a house in La Mesa oh cool. And six of us lived in this commune and we were all student leaders. We were running everything. We were running all the shows and things. We had control of the student budget Wow, yeah, it was really something. We all got work-study money and we started doing concerts. So our first concert was with Quicksilver, sweet, leon Russell, hot Tuna, pink Floyd this is going back a ways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they were young, they were new.
Speaker 1:These guys were all new. Where was the venue? Was it at Sandy?
Speaker 2:Well, we did it at the Sports Arena. Yeah, we were supposed to do it at Aztec Stadium, but because we broke a few rules in terms of how we handled the publicity and one of the higher-ups said that's the reason to kill these guys. So they did, they kicked us out. We couldn't do the concert. So we had two weeks to find a new venue and we finally made a deal with a sports arena to move it there. So we went from an outdoor concert to an indoor concert and we had to put. We rented airplanes that were pulling these big banners to announce the change in the venue, you know, and we filled up the stadium. The second one we did was at UCSD, and it was an outdoor concert. Huh, so who was in that one? We had a hot tune Again. We had almost the same lineup. Wow, I forget. We had another couple other acts, but that was essentially it.
Speaker 1:I was going to say Pink Floyd Quicksilver I'm impressed with, but Pink Floyd it's like they weren't next level then. They were just, they weren't then.
Speaker 2:Nobody knew them. Nobody knew Hot Tuna either, Right, right, and even Leon Russell. You know he wasn't really out on his own that much at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's part of the Wrecking Crew in LA. They were studio musicians that did music for the Beach Boys and the Association. They wrote a lot of those tunes and played them. They were the studio killer all-stars that would shift around. He came out of that. So did Glenn Campbell. Speaking of San Diego State, have I got a story You've heard of the Ramones from New York City, the punk rock band. So in 75 or 76, they played at San Diego State. Yeah, and that first time I ever drank 151 rum and got slammed around in a mosh what they call a mosh pit now it was called slam dancing and it was one of those experiences. You have to be there. I wouldn't do that today.
Speaker 1:Not my idea of a great time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Because you already know what the consequences would be. Oh yeah. You know, at our age we really go into avoid consequences.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I'm not going to do any hang gliding any time soon. Yeah, yeah, Forget it man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I look at things and say, yeah, well, what are the consequences of that now? Yeah, you had to weigh it, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I look at things and say, yeah, well, what are the consequences of that now? Yeah, you had to weigh it, man. So, vallejo to Detroit in the Navy, overseas, how many years? In Vietnam, four, how about that? I bet that was an experience.
Speaker 2:It was. I mean, I didn't ever go over on the land. We were always there on a Yan called Yankee Station during the Gulf of Tonkin, right in the in fact I've got a patch that says the Gulf of Tonkin Yacht Club and because you know we had the whole seven fleet there and you know it was quite a time. Probably the most exciting was being on a flight deck during night ops watching these planes screech in, just screech, and then they dropped their hooks and dragged that steel across and hit those cables and all these red lights would go on. It's a whole show. Oh, it was like just mind-boggling.
Speaker 2:And you could be right on the deck and watch that stuff and you were on the deck because you had planes coming in. You had to get their cassettes, their camera cassettes. These were cameras that were the 36-inch focal length on them and the negative size was 9 by 18. Huge, yeah, huge. Of course, now it's all digital. All that's gone, yeah, huge.
Speaker 1:Of course, now it's all digital, all that's gone. Yeah, they got little cameras there about that. Yeah, speaking of the Miramar Naval Air Show that they do every year, it's in October, it's called America's Greatest Air Show. My dad always would drag me along and want me to go. He lived in Oceanside and he was a P-51 pilot World War II. He worked on Pendleton but I finally went two years ago at you know age, whatever, I was 62. And it was the coolest thing ever, cause you, you all the hovercraft and the um, the, the, the British, uh, whatever it is, and they have jet cars and there's stuff, the motorcycle demo, I mean the whole thing is really cool, like a lot of really cool aircraft in there and it's all day and it's three days.
Speaker 2:That's in October.
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 2:I have to check that out because I go down there. All these people that were in the commune, they're still in San Diego. They haven't left. Let's go back to the commune.
Speaker 1:When you say I think a commune and I think Mendocino out in the woods, I think a commune and I think Mendocino out in the woods. La Mesa didn't have that many woods.
Speaker 2:No, we rented a house because we all had money. We were getting student activity fees and we were getting work, study, and I had the GI Bill. So I was you guys are loaded, loaded in cash but we rented this house, beautiful house, six bedroom. It had a swimming pool. I mean, what kind of commune has a swimming pool? Just yours, ours, smart guys. So we had some parties that you know really created some records.
Speaker 1:Some legend. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So and but that went on, you know, for went on until I left San Diego State. I didn't graduate from there because at that point, in the summer of 71, because I was a student leader I got invited to a Ford Foundation experiment. Ford Foundation wanted to find out what was motivating student leaders and where they were going to go and how they got along and the whole psychology. They didn't understand it, so they wanted to find out. So they created this project. They had four professors from Berkeley and 12 graduate students that had from small colleges, some public colleges, big universities, real mix and brought us all together in June of 71.
Speaker 1:These are all student leaders.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, there you go, and from little colleges of 3,000 to colleges as big as San Diego State and bigger. Sure what happened? Well, we all got together and you know, there was probably some smoking of weed and taking of hallucinogenics. Sure, so we spent the first three weeks. Hallucinogenics Sure, so we spent the first three weeks. You have to remember that was the beginning of the women's studies program, the women's empowerment movement.
Speaker 1:We spent the first three weeks arguing about who was going to do the dishes Right you know the importance thing, stuff.
Speaker 2:The important thing for me was one of the professors was Professor Sim Vanderen, who was an architect, taught architecture at Berkeley and he got us all involved in how to deal with the environment, how to create things, how to interact in terms of space, and through that experience it was like an epiphany. I left that I'm going to be an architect. This is who I am.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And so I immediately started searching for architectural schools and I ended up transferring to Boston Architectural College in Boston Wow, and I spent the next five years there.
Speaker 1:Lived in Boston. Yeah, loved it. What a great town. That's arguably a great town too, right it is.
Speaker 2:I lived in a loft in Cambridge, Far out. It was an old laundry building that had been converted to artist lofts and it was six stories of artists, musicians and architectural students in Cambridge.
Speaker 1:All the creative guys and gals, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah it just, we were all there. Yeah, yeah it just, we were all there. We had the best parties that MIT and Harvard had ever seen.
Speaker 1:All those guys came to your parties.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they came to our parties because, and I wasn't necessarily the host. I mean that would mix up, but it became a really great experience for me and that's what turned me into being an architect.
Speaker 1:And the social aspect of that and that interaction and all the BU kids and Cambridge yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow. Well, you know that was one of the great things about Boston is that there's over 240 colleges and universities in that city. 240? Yeah, it's such a young city of all these people that are going to school. Everybody that worked in a restaurant was going to college there.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:I mean, that was the standard. That's what you did yeah, that's what you did. You lived off of tips. Yeah, and you party at night? Yeah, but I don't want to make it sound like that's. All I did was party, but I don't want to make it sound like that's all I did was party.
Speaker 1:No, but you're— it was a portion.
Speaker 2:It was a portion, you know. It was a good time, but I learned a lot. I had some good professors there. My mentor was a woman named Mariotta Stevens. That was. She taught at both MIT and at Boston Architectural College and I met some really good people and that inspired me in my work you got your degree there, yeah Nice. And then I, because you had three architectural colleges in Boston. They're graduating architects, so there was like no jobs that paid anything.
Speaker 1:Not there.
Speaker 2:Not there, so you had to leave.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You had to get out. So I had a friend that had been at BAC and he had moved to LA and he says come on to LA because there's plenty of jobs out here.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:And that's how I ended up in LA and the weather's better.
Speaker 1:Weather's a hell of a lot better. Let's talk about LA First. Hey, if you're just joining us, scott Hammond, 100% Humboldt Podcast, my amazing producer, nick, who's waving at you now, and my near and dear new best friend, john Ash, talking about his journey in the 70s. You know, product of the 70s, that's what happened. There was a social aspect and discovery and women's rights, women's movement, the sexual implications of that time period are there, the drug implications. It was just kind of a different headspace around all that. I mean, I was very young, you know, because I'm only like 40 right now I'm kidding, I'm trying to observe on this and didact something profound. I guess it was a period of discovery, right? People were just getting out of the 50s and 60s and doing new things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, you hear this now, you know. Well, you hippies, you know, changed the world and it's gotten worse since then you know, changed the world and it's gotten worse since then.
Speaker 2:You know, and I try to tell people, you know it was a period of change, and they say, oh no, you just want to tear everything down. You didn't have anything to replace it with. Well, you don't replace principles and ways of doing things overnight, and I think that's still evolving. Unfortunately, the momentum was lost, and I think a lot of that momentum was lost because of drugs. I certainly think that was a big factor of it. The other factor is that people wanted to get a job and, you know, make some money. Is that people wanted to get a job and, you know, make some money? I mean, all these people that were supposedly dropping out all became, you know, venture capitalists. Right, you know. And so that's where the movement was, Right, that we got to make a living, and so there was all these new ways of making a living.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I don't know what show it was on CNN. It was called, I think, the 60s and it kind of chronicled the peak of Woodstock and the peace movement and how things. There was a new way of thinking, the age of Aquarius, all that happy stuff and ecology and civil civil rights and computers respond from all of that kind of progressive sort of thinking, recycling. You know that's some bad stuff that came from there. And then you got then they kind of hit Richard Nixon and then the Hell's Angels concert at Altamont and things really were not hippy-dippy anymore, they were pretty violent. You're going to get your ass kicked.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it kind of and it spun off of that. Then you got your hippy dirtbags after that. But it's kind of interesting that whatever that movement is kind of died, but you and I would argue it lives on in a lot of good stuff and a lot of great people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it does, especially like I have friends that are my age that I went and they're still doing things you know and we're like looking at okay, so we're survivors and what are we going to do? What kind of world are we going to leave to the next generation? And frankly, it, you know, troubles me to see where things are going, that what's going to be left. You know it's's going to be left. You know it's very easy to have a dystopian attitude about where things are going to go. You know, how are people dealing with technology with all these advances in technology? When I started my architectural practice in my own office in 81.
Speaker 1:This is in LA yeah.
Speaker 2:What part? In Westwood? Oh, wow, it's our first office. But then we moved quickly downtown to the Bradbury building on 3rd and Broadway, which is a fantastic building. Yeah, what you see is the advancement of technology. I was around in 82, 83, and I was an early adopter of AutoCAD, computer drafting. Here you were having a room full of drafting tables and draftsmen and draftswomen drawing everything. Everything was lead on paper right T-squares, slide rules. You know all of that. There was no technology. Really, if you looked at the history of architecture and engineering, it had 100 years and there's been no changes, Still using the same kind of lead pencil.
Speaker 2:Lead on paper. Yeah, yeah. All of a sudden, autocad comes around. Our Autodesk Changed the game, right, changed the game and all of a sudden you could plot a drawing. Now, when I first started with AutoCAD, it was with MS-DOS. Huh, remember DOS? Sure yeah, and it had pen plotters. So when the paper would start rolling through, it was very slow and these pens would be moving across the paper.
Speaker 1:The big old broad printers yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course. Now, that's all you know. Done away with.
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 2:Now that's all you know, done away with. But that was adapting something that was very new and people had a rough time. Everybody thought, oh, we're going to be out of work. In fact, the profession itself. We didn't know whether we should charge more for AutoCAD drawings versus pencil, because we could reproduce that. Clients thought, well, you should charge less because now it's automated. So you got into this whole head thing of what is the technology, how is it going to affect you, what's it worth? And now we're dealing with. Well, we've gone through a lot of different changes in technology, but the biggest one I think we're faced with is with AI.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're going to talk about that.
Speaker 2:I have an.
Speaker 1:AI feature, part of the new feature of the show. Oh, okay, you want to know what AI says about you. Well, you're going to have to wait for a minute, john. So you're in LA, and so at some point you made the jump and worked there and then moved to Humboldt. It came up. What brought you to Humboldt County?
Speaker 2:I was on the board of the California Preservation Foundation. A good percentage of my work was historic preservation. I did the LA Coliseum after the Northridge earthquake, did the LA City Hall, documented that whole building in terms of the kind of changes. So that was a real big part of my practice. And I got involved with the California Preservation Foundation which is a trade organization of people involved contractors, engineers, architects, historians involved in rehabilitating historic buildings.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I got on the board of that group and we had in 1992, we had our annual conference here in May and while we were here, here at Eureka. Yeah, and while we were here, we had those earthquakes. It was a 6.2 earthquake.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And so all of the architects and engineers that were at the conference were enlisted by the county and the city to go around red-taking buildings county and the city to go around retaking buildings. So it was through that experience that I met various people in the city and building owners and got some work how about that? And I got asked to come up and, you know, do some work on some buildings. Who did you connect with early back?
Speaker 2:in the day, like city planners or yeah, primarily city planners and a few private building owners. And you know I almost did the Vance Hotel, but I didn't get that job and that's. I was dealing with an Indian tribe, so it was. You know it was a common. But I always kept. I didn't open up an office here right away, I came up and would just stay here three, four days and do my work, go back down to LA. But eventually I met my wife and all of a sudden now I have two homes, one in LA and one in Eureka, and I'm commuting back and forth. Two weeks here, two weeks in LA. How'd that go? Well, that was a very interesting time. In fact. You know it started back in really in 1997. That's when I first opened up an office, no 1998. First opened an office here. And that's when I really started commuting back and forth. Yeah, on an airplane, learned how to fly Cool, flew back and forth between my own plane, drove 11 and a half hours.
Speaker 1:Such a grind.
Speaker 2:On the five yeah.
Speaker 1:You know that was what I did. So what pulled the trigger for you to move up here and move out of LA?
Speaker 2:Oh, covid, that's when I closed my LA office.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I was still doing this up until 2020. So you've been doing.
Speaker 1:Okay, I figured because he had the office down in Old Town. Right, yeah, for many years. Yeah, I just rode my bike by there two hours ago. Are you still there? I didn't see. No, no, I retired. You must have moved. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I retired in 2021. I knew that that's when I turned my license in and got my insurance set, because when you have a professional license, it's like a doctor If you want to stop, you have to get. Well, you understand trailer insurance. Sure, you know you want to cover yourselves and nobody sues you. Sure, but to do that you have to promise not to do any more work. You have to turn your license, Turn it over. Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow, hey, quite a journey. And then your lovely wife. She's amazing, she's part of an amazing family, right? Yes, she is you married up like I did. Good job, john. Way to go.
Speaker 2:I did.
Speaker 1:So Vietnam service. I know you were one of our Humboldt heroes, where we recognize a hero once a month I was honored.
Speaker 2:I think that's a great thing you're doing.
Speaker 1:Thanks, man. You were gracious and it's lovely. Every one of these is different. Somebody said hey, why don't you take that and do something bigger? A national? I said why would you wreck it? Yeah, it's nice and modest and at nine years old it's doing great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know things are sized like what you're doing, are sized for our community, and so they become important to our community. And if you try to make a bigger show of it and go, you know it becomes something different.
Speaker 1:Right, you and I are no longer spring chickens, but at one time you were a pretty athletic dude. Right, you're Adonis of some sort, a man of athletic note, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, it's interesting how things evolve from doing a health thing Like. I smoked cigarettes up until I was 38. How about that? And you know, two packs a day, marlboros, sure, you know, when I went to college, you could smoke in a classroom During class. Yeah, at Boston Architecture College.
Speaker 1:Or on a plane.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or on a plane, right Exactly.
Speaker 1:Why wouldn't?
Speaker 2:you yeah. So anyway, I was a smoker and I decided that I needed to quit. That was something I really wanted to do, so I signed up for American Heart Association program. Quit smoking in 20 days, and what they recommended is start running, start bicycling, do something.
Speaker 2:Do something that gets you outside exercise. So I said, well, you know runnings, I'll just buy a pair of running shoes, some shorts it's cheap and the first. You know, when I first started I could run maybe a mile and that was it. But I kept going and you know, one thing leads to another. You say, well, you have. Your friend says, hey, there's a 5K. Why don't you? I don't know man. So 5K.
Speaker 1:Why don't you? I don't know man.
Speaker 2:And so you do it. And when you come back to your car there's all these flyers on the windshield of the next event. So then you know, okay, Got to go to that one. Yeah, Got to do that. So you do a couple more fives and then somebody says, hey, let's do a 10. So you start working your way up and you start thinking, hey, I could, I could do that LA Marathon working your way up and you start thinking, hey, I could do that LA.
Speaker 2:Marathon? Yeah, why not? And so when I finally did my first marathon, which was the Long Beach Marathon, I decided you know if I could do a marathon after smoking all this time? The one thing I wanted to do athletically was learn how to swim. I didn't know how to swim. I almost drowned when I was 16 in Detroit and so I decided I want to learn to swim. So I go to this swim school in Beverly Hills called the Beverlywood Swim School. It's mostly all one-year-olds, you know, with their moms sitting on the side.
Speaker 1:And there's John Learning how to swim.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Mommy, who's the man? It's one-on-one. And the teacher said you know, don't worry, I want to teach you how to swim, I can teach you. I said okay, and she says you're probably the only one that's not peeing in the pool. So I went for it and I did, I learned how to swim and I kept swimming and then I said well, maybe triathlons had just started at that point.
Speaker 1:That's right, I think you mentioned you'd done some triathlons.
Speaker 2:And so I said, well, I want to try that, and so I got another swim coach and I put a lap pool in my backyard in LA.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I get that. Hey, wait a minute, it's coming in, it's coming in hot. No, triathletes are great. My father lost from torrents. He was a marathon runner.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:He probably ran at Long Beach a number of times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's quite a guy.
Speaker 1:He was a pharmacist who still drank and used a little bit, but he loved running. He'd run 20 miles on New Year's Day.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:As a rule. But quite a guy, always athletic and just getting that whole endorphin hit.
Speaker 2:And I got hooked on that and I loved it and I started doing triathlons, short ones. You know where you do a 10K run and you know a half-mile swim, yeah, and you know a 25-mile bike, and then I just kept going. You know, I really got hooked and started building up and then it came to my head that I want to do the Ironman.
Speaker 1:No way.
Speaker 2:Ironman.
Speaker 1:In Hawaii, at Kona.
Speaker 2:Well, at that time you had to qualify by doing one somewhere else. Oh, and that was two and a half mile swim, 120 mile bike ride and 26 mile run 0.2. 26.
Speaker 1:26, even. Yeah, okay, oh, you're right 26.2.
Speaker 2:Full marathon.
Speaker 1:You're right yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I said I want to do that, and the one that was the easiest to get into was in Canada, in Pintington. So it was the Canadian Ironman Pintington.
Speaker 1:Where's that? What province?
Speaker 2:It's by Calgary.
Speaker 2:It's between Calgary and Vancouver, you know, in the Canadian Rockies, but not in the winter, no, it was like in August, perfect. And so then I started training and I would train. And you got to remember, I'm running an architectural firm at this time and got jobs and clients to meet and got to make the rain. So I would get up in the morning and I'd run for 12 miles through Beverly Hills and back. I'd run all the way down to Santa Monica and come back I was living in the mid-Wilshire area at the time and then at lunch I'd go home because I had the lap pool.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'd meet my coach and we'd swim laps. I'd swim on laps and then at night I'd get on a stationary bike and I had videos of the Tour de France.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'd watch these videos of Tour de France on my stationary bike and ride Wow. And then on weekends I would do a long bike ride. I'd do 100 miles.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:And I also started doing century bike races.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that was fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because you had all these cyclists and you get these long pelothons. Oh yeah, so for that period of time from like 1983, 1984, till I did the Ironman in 1990.
Speaker 1:Wow about that, yeah how did, you do, did 1990. How about that? Yeah, how'd you do? Did you finish?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I finished Nice and 14 hours and 5 minutes.
Speaker 1:That a boy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, huh, I mean, it wasn't any world-breaking time, that's pretty darn good. In fact, what you don't want to do. You want to finish within the cutoff at 17, but it's fun to drag it out, especially the run, because you're talking with other people and other runners.
Speaker 1:And that's on Kona, the island of Kona right.
Speaker 2:No, it's in Penticton.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sorry You're in Canada still. Yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Now, in order to qualify to do Kona, you have to be in the top five of your age group, which I wasn't.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But I did go to watch the Ironman there.
Speaker 1:Oh, I bet that'd be fun.
Speaker 2:I would and I would have loved to have done it, but it's so hard. By the time I finished the one in Pentington, you know my firm was, you know staff was saying you know you're way off, you got to come back, come back.
Speaker 1:So it's a little selfish to train all that time, you know. Yeah, yeah, no, I get it. My brother-in-law did the Western 100. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I get it. My brother-in-law did the Western 100. Yeah, it was a 24-hour run. Yeah, he made it. You get the belt buckle If you make it in 24 hours. He was shout out to Scott Hanson, 23.56 and change. He just kind of squeaked in there but he got the belt buckle. Yeah, which is a big deal. Yeah, so I love that. So you had this athletic. Did you ever know Mike Pig, the local triathlete?
Speaker 2:Yes, I do. In fact, I went to a triathlon training school in San Diego that he was one of the instructors. Is that right yeah, at UC San Diego.
Speaker 1:That would have been at the top of his game because he was on tour. Yeah, he was the stud.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now, he never did the Ironman, no, he did all the.
Speaker 1:It was like a league or it was a tour. It was an official tour, but he was always the point leader for a long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I got a little story. So when I went down to UC San Diego and checking in, they said, well, go over to the cafeteria and you'll see a bunch of guys there. And so I knew who Mike Pig was. I mean, he didn't know me, but I knew from the triathlon magazines and stuff. Sure, I knew what he looked like. He was everywhere. So I go there and here he's sitting there and he's got two big cheeseburgers and a plate of fries.
Speaker 2:He's training man, he's got his calories in and I said wow that's my leader man.
Speaker 1:If he could do it, I could do it. I love that. Yeah, I really appreciate it. So, yeah, architecture is a whole different game. I was thinking while you were talking that, saying that many things look so good on paper but when you execute whether it's a building or an idea it doesn't always work, it doesn't always translate, and I was thinking there's a principle in life where Joni and I have had these great revelation ideas and when you executed they were crap, for whatever reasons, and I know there's always that disconnect and that just occurred to me and I thought you should know about that.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I think one of the things that drew me to architecture was I've always had a very vivid imagination, and sometimes that's good, and many times it's not so good, because you get wild ideas in your mind. And so architecture gave me the opportunity to sit across from a client and they would give me words of what they wanted and that would generate images in my head and I'd learn to sketch upside down so that you could talk to me and I could run that through my imagination.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:And sketch that out. So you know, that was, in fact, one of the things that made me confident that I could be when I decided I want to write 12 years ago. That led me to believe I could do that because it was a matter of taking what was going on in my head and turning it into words, and that was fun. That was fun to take these wild ideas and say that that's just fiction.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you can put that down and make good stories. Sure, you can create characters and let them live in your mind and create poetry.
Speaker 1:Create poetry, you can song write.
Speaker 2:And I've done that yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it. Create poetry. You can song write and I've done that. Yeah, yeah, I love it. I love the creative outlet. Yeah, so I do the quiz show so you get your chance to earn something from the prize bag here. So we're going to break for that. Ready, just joining me. This is John Ash Scott Ammon 100% Humble Podcast. So, nash, scott Ammon 100% Humble Podcast. So you get to eat. Question number one for all the money, you get to eat anywhere you want in the county. Where do you take your sweetheart? Where?
Speaker 2:do you, guys, go?
Speaker 1:I'm buying. Where are you?
Speaker 2:going Well. Typically we just go to the Ingleware. Okay, you know, that's our destination.
Speaker 1:That's your go-to.
Speaker 2:Let's say they're closed that night when would you take Well, brick and fire.
Speaker 1:Brick and fire, good, delicious.
Speaker 2:Let's see. Well, that's a really hard question. Brick and fire, yeah.
Speaker 1:Brick and fire my friend Peter. After he goes to the club they'll often go to McDonald's and get a burger. It's a quarter pound, anyway. Question two you get your whole day off. You get to do whatever you want to do. 9 am, 9 pm, john, what are you up to? What are you going to do with that day off? Anything you want to do, no holds barred.
Speaker 2:You have to stay in the county though. Well, I'll go for a bike ride. I go for a walk in Sequoia Park. Oh, I love walking with my dog in Sequoia Park. I do that, you know, maybe five times a week.
Speaker 1:You live over by the park.
Speaker 2:No, I live on the corner of Booner and Jay Got it.
Speaker 1:Trying to think where that is. Yeah, nice, yeah, mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:So what did you think? What kind of image did you get when you there's a crosswalk there, there is.
Speaker 1:Four of them yeah. Is that the bike lane too? On Jay, is there a bike?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a bike lane on Jay yeah.
Speaker 1:And I'm glad for it, because I just rode my bike down the bike lane on Jay all the way to the bay.
Speaker 2:So you don't ride on the brand new bike lanes on H&I that cities spent several thousands of dollars on. Yeah, and you would like most bike riders that ride a lot Come over on J. They ride on J. There's no traffic, no traffic, better yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Funny thing, you mentioned two things. So for those of you that are new to Humboldt County, Arcade is in the North Bay and Eureka is in the South. They just did this famous Humboldt Bay Trail. They opened up five days ago and it's magical and we took the ride down and so you can go all the way from North Clam Beach to the North See, where that is, All the way down to the power plant. You don't know where that is, but it's South Eureka, I think it's South Eureka. I think it's 15, 20 miles and it's cool. So you can bike this thing now and they celebrated that and we rode that and it was full of people on the way down. On the way back it was magical on the bay as the sun set over Humboldt Bay and it was warm and it's just a cool thing. And you did mention Sequoia Park. So our last guest, Jim, Sequoia Park. So our last guest, Jim, he's the zoo director. You might know, Jim.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I know Jim.
Speaker 1:He was telling us about the Skywalk, which is also cool.
Speaker 2:I was involved in the design of that. Is that right? Okay, makes sense, because that's been hanging around for about the last 10 years Excuse the pun, yeah, yeah, good one. When Gretchen Ziegler was the Zoodo director Okay, she was the one that initiated that originally, along with, you know, some of the other people, board members Jeff Lamry was part of that and so when I joined the zoo board because I was an architect, I got involved and I became chairman of the project committee and worked on that design, because it went back and forth in terms of how to do it, where it was going to go, what was the mission of it, how much it was going to cost. And it wasn't until Julie Bimbo, who never gets credit for much, got involved with some of the sponsors, like the I forget their names the hotel hospital, the association, yeah yeah and got them, talked them into funding it Smart, you know and she really got that going and made that happen.
Speaker 1:He said they took attendance from what 40,000 to 180,000 last year.
Speaker 2:Is that right?
Speaker 1:Oh phenomenal, yeah. 40,000 to 180,000 last year. Oh phenomenal, yeah. He said it's not regional now, it's international. Yeah, which is really cool.
Speaker 2:So that you know, once we got the funding for it, then it really started going forward and I think they did a great job of it, gretchen you know. And then she retired and Jim took over, and also Jim's a real avid drone flyer.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, he's hardcore.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice guy, you guys did a great job on that. It's a cool thing. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, so let's do the AI portion of the show. Okay. So AI claims that you're humble and approachable. I I don't know if you want to comment on that I think that's true. Known for his approachable demeanor and willingness to lend a hand, ash is a fixture at community gatherings and events. I don't know if that's 100%, but that's a nice compliment. Used to be, used to be, used to be. Yeah, that's fair. Both as a war veteran and a local leader, ash exemplifies resilience, service and hope, and here's what I kind of like this one. I hope this is me a little bit, so I'm hoping to aspire to this. His life work stands as a testament to the power of giving back and the enduring impact that one individual can have on a community. Wow, thank you, ai. That's pretty high praise.
Speaker 2:That is.
Speaker 1:I don't want to muddy it up at all. Yeah no, no, Sometimes AI gets it right and other times it's like huh, Story of courage, compassion, commitment, a reminder that true heroes are often not found in distant battlefields, but right here at home, building a better future for us all. Excuse the pun. Maybe designing would be more of a pun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what I'm disappointed in? Frankly is that it didn't mention one that's in my heart. It didn't mention one that's in my heart, deep within my soul, is what I think of as my greatest achievement. What's that here in Humboldt County, Please? And that was founding Explore North Coast Kayak Association.
Speaker 1:That's right. You mentioned that before Tell us about that real quick.
Speaker 2:So when I got up here when I was in LA, I had a sailboat. So when I got up here when I was in LA, I had a sailboat. I had a 32-foot Erickson at Marina Del Rey and I would sail out to Catalina and that was my thing, my water thing right, and I loved it. I learned how to sail when I was actually in San Diego going to boot camp the weekend. I was able to Mission Bay.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, yeah cool, and so when I got up here, sailing didn't fit and I had sold my sailboat and so I talked to a few people about. You know what do you do up here in the water? Well, kayaking Big. So I first tried river kayaking. I said you could really get hurt doing this, oh boy.
Speaker 2:And plus, if you go river kayaking, you got to go with other people because you go down the river and you got to have a way to get back. That's true. And so I got into ocean kayaking and I bought a kayak and bought another one and started kayaking and I would meet people out on the bay and I'd say, you know how about we connect up next weekend and, you know, leave from Arcata and or Mad River.
Speaker 1:Mad River Slough, yeah, yeah, or Trinidad, yeah.
Speaker 2:Big Lagoon, oh, big, big Lagoon. So I started meeting people and then I said well, you know, why don't we exchange email addresses? And so we can do this and send out a note, and I'll do that. So I started sending out notices and we're all going to meet, and so it started that way. And my wife always says you know, you take a fun activity and you want to make it into a job. And that's exactly what happened. I started, you know, getting serious about it, and then I met two of the people that had just started kayaking Marsha and Simeon Tauber. Do you know their?
Speaker 1:I know the names.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they used to own Simply Macintosh and Arcata Sure and so they got involved. And Marsha's an attorney and she says well, why don't we start an organization, a nonprofit? And that's exactly what we did. We started Explore North Coast. It's still going. Yeah, it's still going 125 members.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got a client. She comes in all the time. She's got kayaks racked up. Hey, just got off the bay. Yeah, she's like into it, she's all wet.
Speaker 2:It was a great experience. I did a film kayaking around the bay and this is when I was in Rotary Yucca Rotary and I brought it in and showed that at one of the meetings.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cool.
Speaker 2:And there was people there that lived all their lives and knew nothing about the bay. Huh, I said, wow, I didn't know that was like that. Yeah, you know, you go down in the South Bay, you know, and you see all these birds, gorgeous, it's just beautiful. They didn't know that it existed.
Speaker 1:I'm inspired to get out there. So when I was a rookie state farm guy, I went down to you ever know, don Brown State Farm? Yeah, avid kayaker Built his own. Yeah, cherrywood Beautiful. And he goes, get in the car, we're going to go put some shorts on. We're going to go get in Hooked and Slew, we're going kayaking. And I go heck. Yeah, we are, and I'm peeling off clothes and throwing off my sport coat. Yeah, let's go. And he had had brain cancer for a cancer for many years and he was, you know, in remission and recovering and it finally took him. But the story is he goes. Scott, you live in beautiful Humboldt County. You got to take advantage of this place, and isn't this beautiful?
Speaker 2:And I go.
Speaker 1:Yes yes, sir, and three or four hours of. Zen training and insurance in a kayak. And he was right. I'm looking at Hooked and Slew. It's 70 degrees, yeah, and there's everything, and we're the only guys out there in these 18-foot cherry wood beautiful, yeah, and it was cool. It was a good experience.
Speaker 2:It was beautiful man.
Speaker 1:So, Joni, when you hear this, yes, I am committed to going kayaking. We'll start a big lagoon.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or maybe you know, at Dorney the Humboldt State Rowing House down there rents them. Yes, they do.
Speaker 2:Maybe we'll start there in the bay yeah, and there's another place over on Woodley Island called Humboldt's yeah, and they rent them out.
Speaker 1:You can get them there also and Kayak Trinidad up in Trinidad, yeah, and that's a harbor to float in. I want to do that, it is.
Speaker 2:You can go in the rock garden out there and it's just beautiful. That's cool and Explore. North Coast has events. Every week they meet in a different place, like in Stone Lagoon. They have once every year they have an event where you kayak and there's a little island out there and they all camp overnight and cook salmon.
Speaker 1:Man, I want to. So how do we find those guys Explore?
Speaker 2:They have a website.
Speaker 1:ExploreHumboldtcom.
Speaker 2:No, ExploreNorthCoastorg org.
Speaker 1:ExploreNorthcoastorg org. Explorenorthcoastorg.
Speaker 2:So I don't know if you had it on your list, but I know if I didn't say anything about it, my wife would say, well, why didn't you talk about your book? Yeah, oh, your book? Yeah, yeah, go ahead real quick. Okay, so, real quick, I finished a novel 80,500 words, that's about 225 pages in a paperback, and currently I'm trying to find an agent, because I want to go with a major publisher, sure, so I can have distribution, of course. And so, and what's it called? Well, it's called glad, you asked Scott Funny. So it's called the Road to Oracle and it is a lyrical psychological thriller about twins Kate and Nate Windsor, whose carefully controlled lives unravel under the weight of childhood trauma and disassociative identity disorder.
Speaker 1:Sounds like a lot of us. Yeah, that sounds great, john.
Speaker 2:So this is something I've been working on for the last three years and finally I've finished it.
Speaker 1:So you have a manuscript that you're submitting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a manuscript and I'm querying agents because there's a whole process. Oh yeah, that you have to go through. This guy wrote a book.
Speaker 1:How to Become a Better Father, the Everyday Dad oh yeah, a friend of yours, me, yeah yeah, self-published oh yeah, I never took it to the next level, but that's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Hey, real quick, how would you like your legacy to be remembered? What's on your tombstone? What are we saying at your celebration of life?
Speaker 2:Briefly, what would you want us to remember? That he spent? His whole life learning how to love Nice. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, because it goes both ways. It's knowing people to love and being able to have enough self-worth to give love back.
Speaker 1:Give and receive. Hey, I'm giving right now and you're receiving a Dutch Brothers card because you answered the questions and the quiz very well, oh my goodness.
Speaker 2:Thank you, John. I am looking forward to using this.
Speaker 1:Hey man, they have coffee.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's really it's drive-thru. You know about it, hey. So I just want to thank everybody for joining us. Hey, we got voted top three podcasts by the North Coast Journal and Best of Humboldt. I understand we didn't win, but, miles, congrats. You're amazing. But hey, people are looking our way, coming for you Miles, next year, bro.
Speaker 2:So what do you got to do to become number one?
Speaker 1:Well, you have to jockey for votes. I should have done that on the podcast for six months, but I'm starting now, so we're going to win. Well, you know.
Speaker 2:I think you're doing a lot of great things and I think that Humboldt County is better because you're here.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:And I think people should vote for you and recognize that.
Speaker 1:Hey man, next year the polls are going to be open. So if you would like to subscribe, like us, love us, make comments, social media, all the podcast platforms, please do. We'll be back next week. Scott Hammond 100% Humble with John Ash. Thanks, john for coming. Thank you, appreciate you.
