Jack Gossett

As Old Ma Earth existed for millennia without me, so she shall again. Shortly after my 85th birthday, I had an epiphany: I didn’t have time to drink cheap wine. 

I was born in the village of Dennison, Ohio, to Hazel Russell Gossett and Harold John “Squid” Gossett. (Yeh, Squid. I also had uncles named Goosie, Punk and Doc.) I graduated from Dennison High School in 1954. I had one sibling, Shirley Herron, of Port Orchard WA, who preceded me in death. My wife, the cellist Rebecca Evans, whom I was very lucky to meet and marry, and a whole pack of nieces and nephews survive me.

As a young man, I attended a military training program studying the Russian language. For 5 years, during the height of the Cold War, I served with the US Air Force Security Service (USAFSS) as a Russian linguist, spending 2 of those years flying spying missions along the borders of the Soviet Union. This was a highly classified job, and really fun. I was part of America’s secret “Air War in the Cold War”, collecting intelligence on the then Soviet Union.

I attended Ohio State University, earning a degree in Biological Sciences. I really liked college. The hours were good, the beer cold, and the women wonderful. I did well scholastically, graduating cum laude, and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honorary society. 

Work? On occasion I did. After the military, I worked as a Russian linguist with the government in Washington D.C., and worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a biologist. With the Corps I worked in Florida, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and ended my career in Seattle.

As a kid I dreamt I could fly. Leap off the couch, crash to the floor. Better still, get behind the controls of a small, noisy, drafty, shuddery little airplane for the first time. Start up, taxi to the grass strip, advance the throttle, and all 65 hp blast you off like...like a slug in the mud. But then, damnit, you are flying. Eventually I became a pilot and owned several airplanes, including a Piper J-3 Cub and a Piper Clipper. I misspent my youth flying small airplanes and not doing much of anything constructive like…hell, I don’t know. I helped build an experimental biplane. I flew ultra-light aircraft and powered parachutes. I made a parachute jump. I scuba dove in the Florida Keys, and snorkeled in the Caribbean and the Galapagos Islands. I petted a grey whale in Mexico. 

I enjoyed the company of motorcycles and rode a yearlong adventure on a bike from Washington D.C., up the Alcan (1100 miles of then gravel and mud) to Alaska, down the west coast to Mexico, and eventually back to the east coast.

I loved sports cars, and at various times drove a Sunbeam Alpine (ho hum), an MGTD (windshield down, bugs in teeth fun), a Porsche 912 (faster than my airplane), and a Mazda RX7 (OK rotary). I liked canoeing and took several memorable long distance canoe trips, including the Allagash Wilderness Waterway in Maine, and the Green River in Utah. And, I traveled frequently to the Arctic, Europe, Mexico, Central and South America. 

I was always pretty much a loner, but I did belong to the American Legion and Seattle Chapter 2 of the Disabled American Veterans. And, I was lucky enough to have had several good and true friends. 

Road trips? I had this thing about driving to the end of the road. I have driven south to Key West and Cabo San Lucas; north to Newfoundland and Cape Flattery; numerous times to Alaska. At age 86 I wanted to do a solo road trip to the Arctic Ocean, but cancer and old age interfered. I kicked the cancer in the butt, but old age kicked back in and I did not the energy for the 7000 mile road trip. Then my wine glass ran dry.

And that, my friends, is that. I have reached my road’s end. I will be cremated, my ashes mixed with those of my cat Taku and scattered somewhere in the Cascades with a good view, where big cats are known to roam.

It was a grand trip. Although it got harder to do as I aged, I hope I traveled it with curiosity and courage. Drink good wine. Adios amigos.