David Botterill's Weblog

Friday January 05, 2007

Five Things About Me...Even If You Don't Care

• I lived in Germany for three years in the late 80's while I was in the Army.  While I was on a weekend trip to Berlin (remember the wall was still up in the 80's), Libya-backed terrorists bombed a discotheque in West Berlin.  Two U.S. soldiers were killed and 50 injured. Fortunately I've never been into the disco scene. You couldn't walk anywhere near a U.S. installation without having the proper identification the rest of my trip.  The U.S. subsequently bombed Libya.

• Upon graduating High School in 1981, I participated in the Fort Lewis College Japan program.  I lived with a family in Tsukatsuki-shi Japan (Between Osaka and Kyoto) for six months.  I took a semester of Japanese before going but soon learned the difference between learning a language from books and tapes and understanding a native speaker.  I was with a family in Tokyo the first three days in Japan.  I was standing naked in the shower/bath area trying to figure out how to work everything when the home stay mother opened the door and rattled off something in Japanese and shut the door.  I don't know what she said to this day.  She probably said something like, "Don't take a long shower because we don't have huge hot water tanks like you Americans."

• My Great Grandfather, Tom Botterill, started the first Pierce Arrow Automobile Company in Salt Lake City, Utah and later Denver, Colorado.  That's ultimately how I wound up being from Colorado.

• Do you remember the story of the boy who had is arm bitten off by a shark in Florida?  On July 6, 2001 we were vacationing near Pensacola, Florida.  We'd been at the beach most of the week and it was very hot.  The beaches there are incredible, white powder sugar sand and warm water.  Near the end of our vacation, the people we were visiting there said they usually go to the beach in the evening because it's less crowded and much cooler.  So there we were on the beach at Gulf Island National Seashore about 6:00 PM.  My four kids were out in the water playing in the waves.  I was standing in the surf watching them.  There were only a few groups of people there that evening.  All of a sudden some women came running down the beach towards us yelling, "A boy's been bitten by a shark get out of the water!".  First I thought, "That's not even funny."  Then the reality that it might  be true struck me.  I started frantically yelling at my kids and my friends' kids to get out of the water.  Two Japanese women farther out couldn't understand what I was shouting at them.  They finally came in.  I instructed everyone to stay put and I went toward where Jessie Arbogast was getting CPR.  It was surreal.  Jessie was on the sand without an arm while his aunt gave him CPR.  About five feet away from him was a 7 foot bull shark.  No blood was coming out of his wound so I knew he had bled out in the water.  A helicopter landed and rushed him to a nearby hospital.  I returned to my family and regretfully informed them that he probably wouldn't live.  I was surprised to hear the next day that he was expected to recover.  My wife had strolled up the beach about 10 minutes before the attack and taken a picture up the beach.  The picture included Jessie's group's area.  This picture was later used by the park ranger to deny the claims that Jessie's uncle was shark fishing.  I spoke with the park ranger and confirmed to him that I never saw Jessie's group fishing but did see a man and boy fishing farther up the beach earlier.  Here are a couple of good pages with more info if you're interested.
• Saving Jessie Arbogast
• Jessie's Story

• I live with my mom.   Actually, my mom lives with us.  My mom's health has taken a bad turn in the past couple of years and she really can't live alone anymore.  I'm glad I can do this for her after all she did for me growing up.  I won't lie and say it's been easy for us.  This hasn't been easy for my mom either.  She's lost her freedom and is in constant pain from a bad hip.