Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival

Amazon Best of the Month, June 2009: The story itself could take your breath away: an 11-year-old boy, the only survivor of a small-plane crash in the San Gabriel Mountains in 1979, makes his way to safety down an icy mountain face in a blizzard, using the skills and determination he learned from his father. But it's the way that Norman Ollestad tells his tale that makes Crazy for the Storm a memoir that will last. He almost has too much to tell: a way-larger-than-life father--former child actor, FBI man (who took on Hoover in a controversial book ), and surfer who drove his son to test his limits in the surf and on the slopes; a youth spent in the short-lived counterculture paradise of Topanga Canyon; a stepfather who could give Tobias Wolff's a run for his money; and of course the crash. But writing 30 years later, Ollestad is wise and talented enough to focus his story on the essentials, cutting elegantly back and forth between a moment-by-moment account of the crash and his memories of the difficult but often idyllic year leading up to it. More than a story of survival, it's a time-tempered reckoning with what it means to be a father and a son. -- Tom Nissley Amazon Exclusive Essay: It Starts With a Good Story by Norman Ollestad It was time for my eight-year old son, Noah, to read before bed. "Eh," he groaned. "Reading is so boring. It sucks." He’d been reciting this same mantra for months. I was resting beside him in his bed and I saw his whole life crumble--a slew of poor report cards and father-son arguments, ending in long term unemployment. "What about Dr. Seuss?" I reasoned. He glared at me with his brown eyes. "It's okay," he mumbled. I opened the book he was reading for his class and handed it to him. He stared at it, mute. "Noah," I said from my lowest register. He proceeded to read at a snail's pace and I pointed out that it would take him twice as long as usual to get through the required five pages. So he ran the words together, not even stopping at periods. I grabbed the book and told him we'd be reading all weekend to make up for his lack of cooperation. For months I coerced him like that, urging him past his lazy monotone, trying to get him to connect with the story. It was a long few months. When I was Noah's age I also disliked reading. I just wanted to hear the story without having to work for it. I had wished my dad could work the same kind of magic he did with surfing: he'd push me into the waves so that I could simply enjoy the ride, eliminating the most arduous, frustrating part of surfing--paddling for the wave. My father was always asking my mother, who was a grade-school teacher, why I wasn't a better reader. She advocated patience, and encouraged me by tirelessly pointing out things in each story that I might relate to. My father was killed when I was eleven, so he never got to witness my eventual love of reading. In order to help Noah find that love, I searched for a seminal moment in my past that had transformed me. There was no single thing. But during my reminiscences I flashed on Dad reading aloud my grandparents' monthly letters from Mexico. They had retired to Puerto Vallarta and their letters were filled with stories. Stories about an inland village where Grandpa went twice a week to buy ice for their fridge, to keep their food cold. Stories about helping a Mexican family after a hurricane hit Puerto Vallarta. Stories of secret waterfalls and secluded isthmuses that Grandpa and Grandma had discovered around Vallarta. And that’s when it hit me--it was very simple: the essence of my love for reading really emanates from my love for stories. "How about I tell you a story tonight," I whispered with great zeal to Noah. His eyes lit up and he smiled. "What kind of story?" "Any kind," I said. "A story about a magic skateboard would be cool," he suggested. As I spun the impromptu tale, he rolled onto his side and stared at me, totally focused. The following night I made a bargain with him: "First read five pages, then I'll work up a story about whatever you want." Before I got myself nestled beside him, he was halfway through the first page. Progressively, Noah's topics became more elaborate, and soon he was giving me outlines for stories. Somewhere along the line his reading voice changed--he was gobbling up the sentences, his voice alive with inflection. He'd broken through. Noah was hooked on stories, like I got hooked on riding waves. Once he'd experienced the pleasure of going on that narrative ride, reading became second nature, like paddling for a wave. It all starts with a good story. Photographs from Crazy For the Storm (Click to Enlarge) My first surfboard, Topanga Beach, 1968 Mom, Dad, and Me, Topanga Beach, 1968 Dad in St. Anton, Austria, Early 1970's St. Anton with Dad Me, Ski racing Skiing with Dad Puerto Vallarta, 1975 Three generations of Normans, 1977 From Publishers Weekly In a spare, brisk prose, Ollestad tells the tragic story of the pivotal event of his life, an airplane crash into the side of a mountain that cost three lives, including his father's, in 1979. Only 11 years old at the time, he alone survived, using the athletic skills he learned in competitive downhill skiing, amid the twisted wreckage, the bodies and the bone-chilling cold of the blizzard atop the 8,600-foot mountain. Although the narrative core of the memoir remains the horrifying plane crackup into the San Gabriel Mountains, its warm, complex soul is conveyed by the loving relationship between the former FBI agent father and his son, affectionately called the Boy Wonder, during the golden childhood years spent in wild, freewheeling Malibu and Mexico in the late 1970s. Ollestad's unyielding concentration on the themes of courage, love and endurance seep into every character portrait, every scene, making this book an inspiring, fascinating read. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Bookmarks Magazine Crazy for the Storm works on one level in the genre of "how-not-to." Passages recounting young Norman Ollestad's relationship with his father will make today's doting, attentive parents cringe. But those anecdotes neatly alternate with the author's death-defying descent that, by most accounts, he shouldn't have survived. Ollestad's memory of the tragedy is engaging and disquieting, even if the book's organization suffers from "the familiarity of the [memoir] format" ( New York Times ) and some questionable memories. Such lapses seem forgivable, given what Ollestad accomplishes here. In the end, he has much to say about fathers and sons, and his honesty -- though he reaches a bit of closure, he doesn't overreach for any sort of happy ending -- rings true. From Booklist It’s almost too horrible to imagine: an 11-year-old boy is flying in a small plane with his father and his father’s girlfriend. The plane crashes—slams into a mountain—and the boy’s father is killed, along with the pilot. His father’s girlfriend is injured, and it’s up to the boy to get the two of them down the mountain before they freeze to death. A seemingly impossible task, but the boy, author Ollestad, was no ordinary 11-year-old. A sportsman like his father, he had just won a skiing championship; also like his father, young Norman was a not easily intimidated, even when the odds were stacked against him. Ollestad tells the riveting story of his arduous trek down the mountain (the plane crashed more than 8,500 feet in the air), interspersing the story with scenes from his life with his father, allowing us to witness both the boy’s survival and his staggering loss at the same time. It is a poignant story, suspenseful (even though we know the outcome), and written in a vivid style that makes us feel like we’re there on the mountain with him. --David Pitt An elegant memoir as well as a transformative coming-of-age tale. When he leaves his father s limp body behind on the icy plateau giving it a final kiss and caress as it s claimed by the snow Ollestad takes his first perilous steps not just into survival, but into adulthood. New York Post Cinematic and personal . . . Ollestad s insights into growing up in a broken home and adolescence in southern California are as engrossing as the story of his trip down the mountain. x (Washington Post Book World Tragic and exotic ...[with] short, punchy chapters and...nonstop emphasis on adrenaline-fueled excitement. Janet Maslin, New York Times The memoir is as much about a father-son relationship as it is a survival story...Ollestad says his father s life philosophy about surfing and skiing - knowing there s always a place to go and find peace, clear your mind - got him down the mountain and through life. USA Today A page-turning adventure tale . . . and a meditation on manhood. At times beautiful, at times heart-wrenching, Crazy for the Storm is a commanding read --Entertainment Weekly, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles MagazineAmazon Best of the Month, June 2009: The story itself could take your breath away: an 11-year-old boy, the only survivor of a small-plane crash in the San Gabriel Mountains in 1979, makes his way to safety down an icy mountain face in a blizzard, using the skills and determination he learned from his father. But it's the way that Norman Ollestad tells his tale that makes Crazy for the Storm a memoir that will last. He almost has too much to tell: a way-larger-than-life father--former child actor, FBI man (who took on Hoover in a controversial book), and surfer who drove his son to test his limits in the surf and on the slopes; a youth spent in the short-lived counterculture paradise of Topanga Canyon; a stepfather who could give Tobias Wolff's a run for his money; and of course the crash. But writing 30 years later, Ollestad is wise and talented enough to focus his story on the essentials, cutting elegantly back and forth between a moment-by-moment account of the crash and his memories of the difficult but often idyllic year leading up to it. More than a story of survival, it's a time-tempered reckoning with what it means to be a father and a son. -- --Tom Nissley Dad Said Olestad, we can do i t all. . . . Why do you make me do this? Because it's beautiful when it all comes together. I don't think it's ever beautiful. One day. Never. We'll see, my father said. Vamanos. From the age of three, Norman Ollestad was thrust into the world of surfing and competitive downhill skiing by the intense, charismatic father he both idolized and resented. While his friends were riding bikes, playing ball, and going to birthday parties, young Norman was whisked away in pursuit of wild and demanding adventures. Yet it were these exhilarating tests of skill that prepared "Boy Wonder," as his father called him, to become a fearless champion—and ultimately saved his life. Flying to a ski championship ceremony in February 1979, the chartered Cessna carrying Norman, his father, his father's girlfriend, and the pilot crashed into the San Gabriel Mountains and was suspended at 8,200 feet, engulfed in a blizzard. "Dad and I were a team, and he was Superman," Ollestad writes. But now Norman's father was dead, and the devastated eleven-year-old had to descend the treacherous, icy mountain alone. Set amid the spontaneous, uninhibited surf culture of Malibu and Mexico in the late 1970s, this riveting memoir, written in crisp Hemingwayesque prose, recalls Ollestad's childhood and the magnetic man whose determination and love infuriated and inspired him—and also taught him to overcome the indomitable. As it illuminates the complicated bond between an extraordinary father and his son, Ollestad's powerful and unforgettable true story offers remarkable insight for us all. Norman Ollestad studied creative writing at UCLA and attended UCLA Film School. He grew up on Topanga Beach in Malibu and now lives in Venice, California. He is the father of a nine-year-old son. From The Washington Post From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Bill Gifford Were he alive and parenting today, Norman Ollestad, Sr. would almost certainly be arrested -- or worse, collared and forced to appear on Dr. Phil. He would be pilloried by the Alpha Mommy Brigade and lose any hope of ever visiting his beloved only son, Norman Jr. Consider this list of offenses, compiled by "Little Norm" in this breathtaking "memoir of survival": An avid surfer, the elder Ollestad takes his stripling son out in waves that are literally breaking over his head. They go skiing out-of-bounds in deep powder, and the kid flounders; Dad comes to his aid only when Little Norm finds himself trapped head-down in a tree well, a potentially fatal situation. Driving home from their ski trips, Papa Ollestad would sometimes "rest one eye," as he put it, letting Little Norm steer while he dozed behind the wheel. At one point, he takes the kid on a 1,000-mile Mexican road trip that reads like an outtake from "Easy Rider." Contemplating that looming journey to Mexico, one that would certainly involve surfing, Junior felt nothing but dread: "He would be focused on the surf and I would be left to fend for myself," he moans. He vastly preferred birthday parties and chocolate cake to his dad's taxing adventures. "I yearned to live the life of my peers," he writes, "riding bikes together after school, playing ball in a cul-de-sac." But this is not a memoir of complaint, nor a saga of childhood oppression. The "survival" part comes later, after their chartered Cessna slammed into the side of 8,693-foot Ontario Peak in the middle of a raging winter storm. Ollestad, his father and his father's girlfriend had been flying to pick up the kid's championship ski trophy when the pilot became lost and hit the peak. His father and the pilot were killed instantly, and the author and his father's girlfriend were left to fight for their lives. There, in wilderness barely an hour from downtown Los Angeles, Ollestad realized that everything his father had taught him, every painful ordeal to which he had subjected the boy, had a purpose. Even by the standards of Southern California in the 1960s, Norman Ollestad's parents were a quirky pair. His father had been a child actor, appearing in the movie "Cheaper by the Dozen." Later he joined the FBI, but soon grew disillusioned with J. Edgar Hoover's petty diktats and wrote a book exposing them, which did not endear him to his former employers. He retreated to the hippie enclave of Topanga Beach, at the south end of Malibu, where he surfed and earned a desultory living as a lawyer. Ollestad sketches life at Topanga as nearly idyllic: Surfing just outside the front door, naked people on the beach, a cluster of simple houses on the sand (now long gone, bulldozed to make way for movie-star mansions). The book opens with a photo of his father taking Norman surfing, in a baby carrier. But the '60s were expiring, yielding to the bleak hangover of the '70s. His mother was an incurable romantic, and when she fell in love with a visiting Frenchman, his parents' marriage was over. Like so many of us who belonged to that first generation of children of divorce, Ollestad was forced to navigate by himself a complicated world that he hadn't made. It is his father who towers over the story, with his hunger for life and new experiences of all kinds, good and bad -- pushing Norman, whom he dubs "Boy Wonder," into all sorts of situations that seem reckless now. He's about the furthest thing possible from today's "helicopter parents," hovering over their children and monitoring their every move, shielding them from the unpleasantness and conflict that make up so much of life. Norman Senior wanted his son to experience the brilliance and the danger of life, to learn that you can't know the bliss of a perfect powder run if you're not also a little bit scared. When their plane hit the mountain, Little Norm had just won the Southern California ski championship, thanks in part to the skills he'd acquired by following his father down various terrifying avalanche gullies. Now he was lost and freezing, struggling with the realization that his father was dead, trying to stay conscious and get himself and his father's girlfriend, Sandra, to safety. Not long afterward, the dazed Sandra plummeted to her death down the icy mountainside. The boy realized he had to make it down alone. As his initial panic yielded to his rational mind, he summoned the strength and self-reliance that he had unwittingly learned from his father over the years, in spite of his whining and complaining. "I knew then that what he had put me through saved my life," he writes. The tragedy is that it took his father's death for him to realize that. One wonders how well today's over-coddled kids might have fared in similar circumstances; at least they could have texted for help. This book is not perfect: Some of the descriptive passages are difficult to follow, and perhaps less precise than they could be, so that we get lost in the fog on the mountain, just as we sometimes flounder in the author's own inchoate emotions around this traumatic and defining moment of his life. But these are minor complaints. A portrait of a father's consuming love for his son, "Crazy for the Storm" will keep you up late into the night. Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. Read more