About 'Jack' and 'Fuzzy'

The web of circumstances for an incredulous and unlikely event began forming when my friends and I were in high school. Will reminisce as best I can.

It is always fun speaking to a large crowd when you are saying nice things about a friend. That task fell to Ivan O'Neil and me last Thursday when our lifelong buddy, Jack King, was named the Kalispell Chamber's "Great Chief" at the big annual banquet. We briefly related his unnumbered good deeds for community, county, state and nation. For a fun break, I threw in a short version of this story from long, long ago.

Do not remember Pennington's real first name because everybody called him "Fuzzy." During World War II, Ivan, Jack and I made friends with that fellow teenager who came from someplace in the east to work with us in the Forest Service at Coram. Fuzzy was likable, eager and naive. We taught him how to go snipe hunting, but he fell in love with the outdoors anyway. Decided to stay in Montana and go to the U of M.

Fuzzy and Jack became smokejumpers while college students at Missoula. In those days there were no "Search and Rescue" teams or helicopters, so during the school year it was not uncommon for law enforcement officials and the Forest Service asking jumpers attending the University to parachute on wilderness rescue missions. Over the years they carried out mostly hunters disabled by accidents and sickness … a grizzly victim from The Bob.

Jack, Fuzzy and four others were called one fall to find and rescue a lost hunter in the vast Selway Wilderness of Idaho. This man was building a bonfire each night but before ground searchers could reach that spot the next day, he would be gone. There wasn't tracking snow yet and no available hounds. The plan was to have a C-47 over the vicinity at daybreak, and jump where smoke was last seen.

Circling the chosen area, veteran "spotter" Glen Smith was reviewing exit techniques for the jumpers, planning to drop two men at a pass. Fuzzy was first in the open door with static line hooked to the overhead cable and Jack was hooked up right behind him. Smitty had to yell at the top of his lungs to be heard over the roaring engines and the rushing winds. He was reminding Fuzzy, "Remember, when I slap your left calf and say 'Go' ….. you….

WHOOSH! WHOOSH! Fuzzy was GONE … Jack was GONE … quite a ways from the jump spot near the smoke. Nothing to do on the plane but quickly explain to the other four guys what had gone wrong, then dump them and supplies in the correct place.

Meanwhile, Jack and Fuzzy watched from where they had safely landed, as the other parachuters descended in the correct place. What to do? "We'll just have to get over there and help in the rescue … fast as we can."

When they eventually reached the right place, our heroes found disappointment because the lost hunter had again left, before the four jumpers landed. An unsuccessful search was continued until reasonable hope was gone. Ahead was the tough task of scrambling cross-country, back through dingweeds to recover the "early leapers'" gear, parachutes and jumpsuits. Nothing is easy in a wilderness rescue.

My memory of that event is dimmed, but it seems they had gone about a mile through trees, brush and downfalls in a line towards Fuzzy and Jack's equipment when they walked right up on the lost hunter. The man was dazed, malnourished and hypothermic. He had fallen down and could go no further, "HE WOULD HAVE DIED THERE."

The six young smokejumpers gave him first aid, nourishment and brought him safely back to civilization. If Jack ever told me the details, they have faded … but details are not the point of this story.

From that day on, we never used the name "Fuzzy." He had become "Too Soon" Pennington. Fuzzy didn't seem to mind. In his heart he knew, if he hadn't gone "too soon," pushed by the fateful hand of destiny, a fellow human being would have perished in the wilderness.

Besides! Some of us felt he got to liking "Too Soon" … better than "Fuzzy."

G. George Ostrom is a Kalispell resident and a national-award winning Hungry Horse News columnist.