On February 2, 1989, the University Underwater Society held its
25th anniversary reunion at 7:30 P.M. in 4.102 of the R.L.M. Building
(26th Street & Speedway) at the University of Texas in Austin,
Texas. Besides the current members attending, past members ranging from the
club's founder, Gary Yantis, to members of the club's early years attended.
Some of the early members that attended were: Jerry Johnson (deceased, June
9, 1994), Mary Crook (Allen), Burt Burton (deceased, October 2, 1990) [Burt
provided his sense of unique humor throughout the reunion, as he did when
he was President of the club. I thought he was always a funny and
entertaining President.], Paul Johnston, Ryan Dumont, Jody Guerrero, Dr.
Robert Helmreich, Quentin Martin, and Chuck Ervin. Each of the early
members were invited to say a few words as to their early experiences with
the club.
Prior to the meeting, I had mentioned to one of the club officers that the
25th anniversary of the club was coming up and it would be nice
to have a reunion meeting. I knew that many of the early members were
still in and around the Austin area. The meeting was set up and I contacted
as many of the early members as I could. They in turned contacted anyone
that they knew was in the near-by area; thus, the reunion meeting was
born.
I brought a tape recorder and set it on the speaker's podium to capture this
important moment in the history of the club. To my dismay upon returning
home, something was wrong with the recorder's built in microphone and the
audio was barely perceptible. I was disappointed and felt like the
recording was a total loss. In gathering information for writing the
history of the club, I contacted various early members. In talking to Doug
Duryea, he mentioned that he had wanted to come to the 25th reunion,
but had a conflicting schedule at the time. I told him the taping fiasco
and he suggested that I get a pair of headphones and make a transcript to
share with all. To my surprise the audio was workable with this set-up.
We can thank Doug for this suggestion, as it would never have occurred to
me to make a transcript. Because the audio was inaudible in spots,
this transcript was edited.
Below are the comments the early members made to the group:
GARY YANTIS:
A friend of mine who can't be here lives in Benson, Arizona, Robert Wogstad
and I got together in January of 1964. I made contact with the Geology
Department and then talked to Dr. Alan Scott to become our original club
sponsor. We set up the original meeting in what's now known as the
Hogg Building. It was the old Geology Building. It was the only
geology building when we were here but things have been changed since then.
Our first meeting, we were impressed. We had about 40 people show up
at our very first organizational meeting, about half the group we have here
tonight, but it went real well. Everybody seemed to be enthused about
the group. To get to that point, we had to go out and put poster all
over the campus and get the word spread out. Everybody seemed to pick
up on the idea and a good group showed up. We had within a month or
so our first election. I was on "scho-pro" [scholastic probation] at the
time so I wasn't allowed to become President of the club. At that time
we had James McAfee elected first club President. James is in Cupertino,
California now. He is an engineer. Also, we had Earl Mitchell
and his wife Ann Mitchell who were actively involved with the club at that
time. Earl served as the Safety Officer of the club. I said Robert
Wogstad was involved. You are going to have to bear with me. I cannot
remember too many more. Twenty-five years, you people weren't even
born then, with a couple of exceptions along in here, what have you! In
a few minutes I am going to let some of these people talk about some of their
experiences with the club. I remember in '65 we were diving over in
Spring Lake. We had an incident over there. I don't know whether I
should mention it or not. We were diving, well one thing we were not
diving, supposedly someone from the area over there, San Marcos, had an incident
below one of the glass bottom boats. Just so happens there was a Senator,
a Representative and their wives in their boat, and they saw fit to get a
bill past, the Boating Act of 1965. Governor Connelly ram-roded it through
in a hurry. We tried to prevent it, although we didn't. Divers don't
seem to have very much of a voice in the sporting community. Nothing
really came of it.
The Boating Act had one little paragraph and after 25 years I can still remember
it. "No swimmer or diver shall come within 200 feet of any sight-seeing
or excursion boat except for maintenance purposes only." Talk about
a selective law. It was made strictly for Aquarena Springs to keep divers
from diving in Spring Lake. It affected every diver and swimmer then
and now. From here out, diving or swimming in a lake and a boat runs
over you, it's your own fault because that boat is sight-seeing and you got
in the way and you came within 200 feet of it. Two hundred yards, yeah,
I mean. Sheees, forget it!
I'm going to invite some guest people to come up here. Chuck Ervin
has a number of slides. I have few pictures and you can come up and
look at them, some of these pictures afterwards, but Chuck Ervin has a number
of slide I'd like for him to present some of these slides right now.
Some discussion followed, and Mary Crook was selected to
speak next:
Mary Crook (Allen):
I'm the baby of the group and the only female. I don't know where all
the women are, raising their kids I guess? I didn't ever hold an office
in the club. My job was to go to parties and break rules. So
Safety Officers hated me. "Are you doing that again? Yes." [Mary squeaked
out]. But I had a good time in the club and I stayed in it for I guess
three or four years. I did some of the trips that ya'll remember. It
was lots of fun. I'm the one in the pictures puking over on the side. Every
time we went to Mexico, you know, I never got to do any of the deep dives
cause I was normally sick on the boat. That's all I have to say.
Burt Burton: (President from Spring 1966 Semester Through January 1967)
Gary started the club in '64. I joined the club the next year in '65.
And it was at that eventful dive at Aquarena Springs when our Safety
Officer at the time, Doug Duryea, was arrested as a representative
of the entire group. In '65, I learned to dive. In '66
, I was the club's Parliamentarian. In '67, became the club President [President from Spring 1966 Semester Through January 1967].
My Vice-President was Chuck Ervin, the gray haired older gentleman
over here. He and I and one of the other, probably the oldest living
member of the club is Dr. Wylie Jordan, who at that time was a doctor at
the Health Center, who's now a psychiatrist. But Wylie and Chuck and
I took the first the club dive, and not to Cozumel; we could not find
that. We went to Isla Mujeres, which is not hardly on a map. It
looks like a scratch, but it's close to Cozumel. And after that, the
next year in '68, mores dives. Just 25 years later, it's unbelievable that
people are still going down there. It's great! Chuck has got
some slides he wants to show.
Another one of the old members, of course, is Paul Johnston sitting in front,
wasn't invited to stand in front of us but he's been around, been around
forever and ever. I'm so glad to see the club. Yeah, any other
old fellows? More, yeah! Quentin. [Quentin Martin]. I'm
really please to see that the officers up here were talking about running
the club as you all, as I recall my days of an officer came and went, and
gone. So feel lucky. We had a good time, but as I remember it,
it was not run that well. Burt makes one last comment below.
Jody Guerrero:
I'm Jody Guerrero and I was President in about 1970, if I recall, '71. I
want you to know that this club changed my life. I'm going to give you a
testimonial. I started the University back in '68. I was 17 years old.
These guys taught me. In '69 they certified me. My first
dive was Jacob's Well. From what I understand, Jacob's Well is closed
now. You can't go in there anymore. My first ocean dive was 30
mile out at Buccaneer Rigs. It was a party boat and I put my 3 kids
out in that party boat just last year. It still the same old boat.
It still stinks. I threw up going out and I threw up coming back. They
tell me I had a great time getting in the water. I did. I went
to Cozumel back in 1969. You folks are probably not aware of this,
but they had no direct flight at that time. We had to drive our cars
going to Laredo; we hop a bus. We'd go to Monterrey. From Monterrey
we'd take a flight from [inaudible] to Cozumel. We'd spent a night
in Merida, and then in the morning we'd hop a flight from Merida to Cozumel.
It cost me $188.00, food, seven days of diving, six nights of diving,
and go and come back. I got the "trots" free. I will recommend to the
group that goes to Cozumel to spend all your evenings at Cabanas La Carribe.
They have the cleanest restaurant on the island. Avoid mayonnaise
and you'll be fine.
The other thing is, one of the folks who is not here I wish was, is Ed Leiter.
Ed Leiter was a zoologist. He was about 18 years my senior. He
always led the group to take off for parts unknown when I was there. One
of his joys, of course, being associated with a geologist, was to go to Chichen
Itza. We would take a boat across the channel; grab a second class
bus and go in to Chichen Itza. And that is pronounced Chichen Itza'
and not Chichen It'za. The Mayans put their accent on the second syllable.
Now they have an air strip. They have 11 hotels and they have
about 18,000 people living around there. Folks, it was a spot in the
jungle, back in 1969. I've since been able to take my family back there.
I took my in-laws. I took my sons. The first thing I told them
when we got off the plane, I said, " Get under the wing and suck for air."
They did not know what a 110% humidity and 98 degree weather was like
until you go there. It's fascinating.
I don't know if there are any instructors here from that original group.
They're the ones who taught me how to dive back at the YWCA with a
heated swimming pool. One of these instructors, or actually, there
was three of them, took a group of archaeologist to Chichen Itza, and taught
them how to dive. They came back with more grunge than you can think
of in the cenotes, grottos, and Sacred Well. They told me when they
did their dives they taught the archaeologist to go head first into the slush,
mud, or the muck whatever you want to call it. These guys were going
4 and 5 feet deep in the mud and picking up artifacts. You can see
it in one of your National Geographic books. I think it was
National Geographic '68/'69.
These are the guys that taught me. I owe my whole life to them. They
pulled us out when we were getting ready to drown. They would pull
us away from barbs. They would pull us away from poisonous fish and
eels and such. They did know how to have a good time. I was their
"gopher". I had to get the barrels. You call them kegs.
Only other thing I've got to say, because of them I met other folks. One of them was David Feinberg who is not here tonight. David has gone on to manage hotels around the world. Because of him, I have been to Turks and Caicos. I've been to British Honduras which is now Belize. I've been to Cayman Brac. I've been to [inaudible] which is the world's second largest atoll which is 48 mile across. I've been to Moorea, Tahiti, Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is strange, I tell you. I been night diving and day diving in Tahoe. David was the first one to introduced me to moonlight diving at night, no lights just the moonlight. That was in Glovers Reef which is 55 miles east of Belize. I tell you what, when you got your heart sticking out your mouth, no lights, you got the moonlight to work with and you are a scared kid, you do not forget stuff like that. I was never part of a major accident. I've only gouged myself a couple of times, only had a couple of hammerheads swim around me. Nothing serious, so I'll let this next guy talk.
[ Burt Burton tells some more club stories. Not being near the speaker's
podium at the time, his audio was not clearly picked up. ]
Paul Johnston:
This is really great! This is a family. Maybe 25 years from now you
can come back to revisit. When I saw the newsletter that Gary, and I am going
to meet him better tonight, but I was a member of the club in '67, and I
saw that short history, and he listed some names and I knew these people
were still in Austin, I said what a fantastic deal! Give them a call
and have them show up. It's been a mother to me, a good friend, and
you will meet a lot of people that you will keep forever and forever as your
friends and it's been great. I felt guilty if I missed a club dive. If
I overslept on a Sunday morning or whatever and didn't show up at a dive,
I was depressed until the next club dive. I was an instructor for the
club. I was an Assistant Safety Officer [After 25 years even my memory
failed me. I meant to say I was an Assistant Equipment Officer. I think in
the excitement of the moment, I said the wrong officer]. Sad to say
I have the dubious privilege of becoming Safety Officer [ should be Equipment
Officer] by death of one of our members. It's the only death of a club
member I know. Ray, what's his last name, anyone remember [it was "Jones"],
drowned out at Hamilton Pool. He was wearing too much weight. It
was a double drowning. His friend tried to save him and both of them
drowned. If you will notice in some of the by-laws, you are required
to wear a buoyancy compensator or a safety vest. That law, as you will
remember, was passed after that death. It was required.
After I graduated from the University, I went to the service and came back,
became President of the club and on it went. When I got this newsletter it
inspired me to organize 20 years of newsletters that I have collected. So
if any of you have 1964 through '67 , I would like to get copies of them
or put them in my file [I'm still looking]. It says something
about me. I'm not sure what it says. It might not be too
complimentary. But it's a great club. Enjoy it. Get involved
and I'm glad you're here!
Quentin Martin:
I had wondered if I was in the right room because I walked in and I did not
recognize any of these guys. Did we get older? What is this?
I joined the club in about '68 about the same time Jody did and Paul.
Probably the most memorable diving that I did with the club was the
first time to Cozumel. I remember three things about Cozumel. One
was the wall at Palancar where I just about dropped my mouthpiece out of
my mouth and then the size of the tarantula at Hotel Lopez where we stayed.
And then, after diving for about 4 or 5 days out in the sun, somebody
coming up behind me and telling me the top of my head had turned blue.
It peeled about four times before I recovered from that one. I
had a great time in the club. It's great to see everybody again.
So I hope ya'll have the same experiences.
Dr. Robert Helmreich: (Club Faculty
Sponsor)
I forgot my name. I came down to Texas right after, actually about
4 months after the end of Sea Lab, the saturation dive and figured since
I took a job teaching at U.T. that was going to be the end of my diving except
for vacations. Suddenly within a week of arriving on campus I had found
more divers than I had ever come across at college at Yale. So it was
great! I got involved and became faculty advisor with Dr. Scott in '67. In
'68 I went out and did a 600 foot saturation dive taking a couple
of students along, but we killed one of the divers in the first three minutes
since one of his diving buddies murdered him and that sort of screwed up
that dive for the Navy. That's life , I guess. But in '69 the
fun part was taking 12 club members to the Virgin Islands where we did a
7 month saturation dive for NASA called Project Tektite. We had a bunch of
psychology students who didn't know how to dive and a bunch of dive club
members who thought psychology was something you got in Cracker Jack boxes.
We all got along great. Nobody got bent. We had anti-war
demonstrations, divers smoking dope on government property and inside habitats.
Everything was super. And then with the '70s and the Nixon
administration, everything went right down the tubes for diving. I
am happy to report starting in 1988 I still work for NASA. In fact
I am about to take a year off U.T. to work full time. We have a undersea
habitat for saturation diving. We did seven dives last year and I'm
going to do five this year. It's in a horrible place called St. Croix.
Just, you know, a really cruddy place, in about 75 feet of water. Yeah,
let me know what you want to do. It's not like the old days.
They have absolute prohibitions about smoking dope underwater. Weird
stuff, no diving while intoxicated. It's not like the old days in the club.
On that note, the amazing thing is, other than the case of bends that
we talked about [ Burt Burton had told the story between speakers of
one of our club members suffering decompression sickness after a dive to
Lake Travis], I put about 27 stitches in my leg on a barbed wire fence at
Sometimes Island, no, at Rattlesnake Island in Travis. That's the only
accidents I remember. So I think that God looks after fools and young
student pot heads. On that note...By the way as your faculty advisor,
I don't condone any of that stuff.
Chuck Ervin: (Slide Presentation)
I came to U.T. in the fall of 1965. I was at Yale and took a course
there. I thought that diving was a nice thing that clean cut undergraduate
students participate in. I came down here and there was a booth at
registration [located on the north side of Gregory Gym where registration
use to be held] and someone conned me into attending an introductory meeting
such as you have been conned into attending tonight. Well, when I got
there I didn't discover other clean-cut undergraduates, instead, I discovered
"Pirates!" Very dangerous looking Pirates! In fact the club was
riddled with them. I came to feel, that ,there was a quandary. I had
to ask did diving make Pirates of otherwise clean-cut people or had the Pirates
commandeered the dive club? Well, I found out it was both.
This is Penn Jones [inaudible]... This one is of Doug Duryea, our safety
officer, who you've already heard of as having been arrested at Aquarena
Springs. Doug was also the Don Juan of the club. When I walked into
the introductory meeting, the meeting would not start without him. A
large number of females that refused to allow the President to call the meeting
to order. And when he finally arrived there were great shouts of "Doug!"
to call him. Well, I did not know who this character would prove to
be. I was put off, frankly, by it. I thought ,well no room for
the rest of us ; let's go home. However, his human side showed itself
soon enough and we ceased to worry about him. He does resemble Paul
Newman there, doesn't he? Well it was the likes to be that I allied
myself....[inaudible].
This is Tim Davis. It seemed like grotesque posture was part of him,
no way around that. There's Jim McAfee, early safety officer of the
club, first President. There were no businesses in Austin teaching
diving. There was no way to learn how to dive for central Texans. So
the club had formed a set of classes. They rented gear. It was
rusty. It always broke, very dangerous. The club had its open
water dive in unlikely places. I think this is Canyon [Lake]. Is
that Travis? Well this is [inaudible] down by Mansfield Dam. [inaudible]
Here is Burt. He had hair. We had Mae West life preservers.
The BC [Buoyancy Compensator] had not been invented then. I came
back to the club in 1981and briefly joined when I came back to Texas. I had
been living in Europe. The first meeting they were giving away Buoyancy
Compensators. I wasn't sure what they were, but I understood that you
had to have one. They were giving away other prizes. I thought, my
goodness, it would be nice if I could win one of those. Instead they were
given to expert divers who already had them. All I got was a bumper
sticker which asked, "Gone down lately?" I thought, "Oh dear." As I
didn't have the cash to put in one, I didn't dive with the club and I regret
now that I didn't. I would have loved to have gotten started again.
I think this is Ann Mitchell. I don't know who that is. [inaudible]
I think this is Doug.
At that very first meeting, the minutes of the club talked about the previous
meeting in May, this was September, when everyone had gone out on a house
boat in Lake Travis eating barbecue chicken. When they got greased
down, they would simply dive overboard and go back for more. I thought
that's the sort of group I would like to be a part of. This is at Hippy Hollow,
before. Picture of Larry Carroll and the usual excellent visibility
at Lake Travis. I don't think this picture is light enough to see,
but they are throwing a diver into Don Brod's pool below Aquarena Springs
[inaudible] the San Marcos River. Teaching includes the [inaudible]
entry method. There's a car that didn't quite make it to San Antonio.
See how clean-cut and bright eyed I was! That was in the early [inaudible].
... It got worse as the years went by. This is Burt. Studious Burt.
We were roommates in '67 the first time I caught him studying I took
a picture of him. This is the crew of the Intrepid moving on to what we thought
was Cozumel but at Valladolid we could not find our turn. We had rented a
VW [Volkswagen] in Merida. We wound up going to Isla Mujeres [Isla
de Mujeres, a small island just north of Cozumel]. Burt on the left.
Wylie Jordan above him. Sam Withers, I think his name was, and
I, bedraggled there on the bottom. Very brief diving. Burt inside
the observatory of Chichen Itza. He bought a '[inaudible] Papa" hat
at Merida. Wore it for years. This is looking out from the large pyramid
at Chichen and that sacred cenote being talked about. [inaudible]...Isla
Mujeres is more attractive. We had a great time there. Any of
you know the school of fish at Garrafon? There is a school of fish
that stays together, at least during the daylight hours. If you swim
into it, they'll separate and let you in. Then they surface. Burt
decided to try to shoot into that crowd and catch himself a fish. Well,
after four or five tries, he gave up because they always parted just as the
spear came through. No fish was ever caught. Extraordinary experience.
[inaudible]....Everything was novel then. There were no fixed dives
anywhere. Someone suggested we try [inaudible]. We did find a dive
shop willing to take us out. They thought it novel and so did we. We
went out 5 miles. Everybody puked. Here's Doug. He's still
thinking about puking into his regulator. The big question in those
years was "What to do?" If you are underwater and you decide that you've
got to throw up, do you throw up into your regulator or take it out? The
question is never resolved. This is Kathy McCue ascending the line
before the days when she got bent. This is Tim Davis and Chris Clearman.
Chris was later a policeman in the Austin police department. Started
busting us for dope, it was terrible. He knew our habits and he knew
where we stashed it. The boy made an about face, I'll tell you.
Chris's pride catch. Which one was the clown? Well, [inaudible]
if you look at his pants, you will see why [inaudible]. This a dive
into Jacob's Well. Kathy is there, Larry Carroll, and Celia Green. Has
anyone in the club been there? Anybody been diving there?
.......[inaudible]..it was 90 feet down there to that second chamber. What
did you do instead? Well ,this was the entrance to one of those lateral
chambers. I did not go through it. People tended to die once
they got down in there. As long as you stayed out, you could at least
find [inaudible]... Someone unfortunately left a rope, I don't think it extended
to the bottom.
Here we find a whale in Lake Travis. Some airplane had jettisoned a
wing tank. Hal Bybee found it underwater. Tim Davis brought it
to the surface. ......[inaudible]. It looks like a giant gar. We had
trouble entertaining ourselves. Everything was novel and anything was new.
We had a favorite dive in January of every year, Inks Lake. Famous
dive where we broke the ice and went diving. This was a warmer year
than usual. Larry Carroll later became a film editor in Los Angeles.
...I don't know. all right! I told you we were with Pirates in the
club. There's Larry preparing for hand to hand combat. The large
gar which he wrestled to shore. There he is with Larry George. The
gar is very much alive. Here he is being a good boy scout and throwing
him back. [Several years later, I caught a gar by hand at the same
location at Inks Lake. The group photographed itself with the gar.
I was amazed in doing this transcript that Larry Carroll and myself
had the same experience at the same place. Could it have been the same gar?]
This was rare for Larry Carroll. He was known for hand to mouth
combat. He once skinned a catfish with his teeth which he caught in
Barton Springs, middle of winter. Celia Green who was going with him
later to become his wife said no more good night kisses for you Larry Carroll.
I am not sure whether it was that evening or another, Burt, Larry and
I and a couple of other people night diving in the springs, Barton Springs,
came upon some [inaudible] eels which lived deep in the springs under the
diving board. How many knew that? I see a hand go up. Well, Larry
speared one! Took it home with him! Kept it in the refrigerator!
Burt Burton was so incensed that he called him "Killer Carroll."
He's never stopped calling him Killer Carroll and it produced a lot
of jokes. Larry would invite people for slimy and cheese sandwiches.
"They'll make you 'eel' .", he said. Larry and Celia at the end
of that dive. What was it?
One of our few successful divers who managed to keep himself clean and white
was Roger Bakeman. .....[inaudible]....in psychology, Roger later went to
Emory in Atlanta. In 1975, he was here in town and said he was about
to go diving for a two weeks sailing trip in the Bahamas. I thought
that sounded like fun. Got organized; the next morning flew there and
met him at six that night and off we went. Had a great time. There
we are aboard the ship. Twenty of us on a 50 foot boat for two weeks,
no baths.
So, what did the experience mean to me? Here I was at the beginning,
certainly, a earnest clean-cut young man, joined the club, within 5 years
become a Pirate like the rest of them! So, welcome to diving folks!
Good Luck! Look out for your morals. Watch your pocket book.
Enjoy the company you're going to keep. Thank you!
Chuck made the comment about when we were bored and always looking for something
to do. As I recall one of the things that we like to do was to "salt"
the area where we could go spearfish by whatever we thought might bring in
the carp and other things, burlap sacks with range cubes in it. One
of our more brilliant Vice-Presidents, at the time that I was there, tried
to sink a bale of hay . Do you know how many of us can float on a bale of
hay? Do you know how buoyant it is?
[more inaudible discussion]......We may not dive anymore, but we can still
can drink! I don't go under the water any more, but I own a boat and
go anywhere on the top of it.
Chuck Ervin: ( Explains about the club name
change)
......[inaudible].mentioned the name of the club.....the name changed. The
first name was The University of Texas Skin and Scuba Diving Society. The
abbreviation was UTS & SDS. Well in 1968 [actually, 1966], SDS
also stood for Students for a Democratic Society. They're the radical
Communist front. We had mail coming to us, [inaudible]...post office
box addressed to UT & SDS. The FBI was going to investigate us.
We had to make a name change. At that point, we became the University
Underwater Society. The U.S. is a lot safer ,and more American.
UUS, yes!
[There was one intermediate name change between UTS & SDS and UUS. It
was UTUS, the University of Texas Underwater Society which would then become
UUS. See complete details in The Early Years for more
information].
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© Copyright 1998 Paul Johnston
University Scuba Club - The Early Years