I will never forget Jeff. He used to show up at my parents house to eat dinner and embarrass me but in the sweetest way. He was the organizer of fun and he made any boring night on Bootes better. He was such a devoted father and loved his wife so dearly. My mom still asks about him often. All my love to his whole family. What an incredible loss. 

A great individual and co-worker. You are greatly missed.

I think storytelling goes hand in hand with a guy who lived a story worth telling. So, I want to share more of the stories that overflow my memories of Flash, 'the legend'. My son loves stories of my own misadventures, many of which involve Flash, and so I hope these stories sit well alongside the thoughts and condolences otherwise expressed. 

Flash generally commanded centre stage. His voice, its booming resonance, was simply irrepressible, an MC’s trademark, as irresistible as it was invasive at times. He could silence a room full of 100 expectant children, drawn into a hush of his “check this out,” an invitation which always seemed carry a sense of the monumental when uttered by Flash. Though he could own centre stage like no one else, his voice reverberated with an invitation in the mould of the Pied Piper or the Fiddler, for all to join in great quest, to dare to live, to be truly alive. And if there were shenanigans or misadventures to be had, he was more than ready to pass baton and let you lead the way.

On this one occasion, his cousin Brian was cruising with us. At least 9-foot tall and twice as broad across the shoulders, and the most friendly and amiable person you could meet. It wasn’t the first time I’d taken a liking to one of Jeff’s cousins. We sail into Costa del Maya, a new and relatively undeveloped backwater spot on the cruise map. The road through town was unpaved, a sandy, beaten path that ran through restaurants down to the beach. It was a place you could get endless tortillas and rice and a lobster for less than ten bucks. It was dusty and sparse and simply perfect. It was town ripe for a couple of gunslinging hombres to take a horse ride through. For characters like Flash and I, who don’t necessarily push the ceiling of the pay-grades in terms of thinking, horse-riding in a backwater stop in Mexico is like striking gold. What could go wrong?

$5 (an hour) and “hey, it’s up to you whether you want to wear a helmet or not.” “Well, why would I, when I have a perfectly good baseball cap, which does a fine job, too, of keeping the sun from my eyes.”

In a litigation-mad world, where insurance companies won’t allow you to gallop or canter or all those horsey words horses do like running. In Mexico, horse not only gallop and trot and canter, they fly. Legit, I tell you. I’ve seen them, I swear. We took out time at first, hoping we looked as cool as we were acting, while Brian, who kindly informs us has never ridden a horse before, takes his time, a nervous giant, looking like Sideshow Bob on his miniature tricycle.

And here is thing about Flash’s indomitable voice, its ineffable ability to call into action all of god’s children and Noah’s animals in once great hurrah, while at the same time his willingness to let someone else take the spotlight, if it meant everyone getting there kicks. Having walked our rides down to the beach, and allowed the horses to soothe themselves in the shallows, Flash turned his horse toward the road with a little kick and a giddy-up. Either Flash was on the lead horse the others were conditioned to follow, or it was the right kind of giddy-up for each of our horses. The horses shot off together at a pace. A bolt of adrenalin shot through me as I let my ride go, overriding my fear and the instinctive urge to hold my horse back. I remember Flash alongside me, Brian not far behind, and I think the fear started to win out seeing Flash whooping and hollering, while the air whistled by faster and faster and about that time I started rethinking my decision to forego the helmet. It took all my effort and strength to pull my ride up, and I was happy to see Flash do the same, but as we turned to greet one another with beaming smiles, Brian and his horse came bolting by with a head of steam, as though bounding the final bend of the Kentucky Derby, heading for home. “Woohoo,” Flash cried. If the giddy-up was ‘go’ in horse language, ‘woohoo’ was fifth gear. We took off after them, though within seconds they had thirty yards on us, then forty, fifty, and then a hundred yards, and I swear, as I watched both Brian and his gallant stead fading into the distance, I saw wings grow of the side of that horse and it took flight. How else could one explain how fast that thing was moving. On my life, I sear it was the quickest I’d ever seen a horse move, and all the while, trying my best to stay upright and give heroic chase, there is Flash, riding one handed, one hand in the air whopping and wooheeing it up.

They had to be two-hundred yards from us by now ,well into town, and I was thinking about the ship guests and crew at the restaurants stretched out along the road, looking out upon a perfect sunny day and seeing this runaway horse bolt through town. From our distance, the sight came to me like a monumental tree being felled. Slowly, the giant figure began to lean left. Further, and further. And then it happened. TIIIIIIMMMMMMMMMMBERRRRRR. As though upon Jack’s beanstalk, the giant came crashing to earth. A cloud of dust was still swirling when we rode up. Brian was alive, though he’d be skipping photo ops on formal night later that week. He took his bruised and bloodied body back to the ship, but not before the apologetic horse owner had told him he wouldn’t need to pay for the ride. If I recall correctly, Jeff and I continued on with the ride. I mean five bucks is five bucks, and with Flash, you always get your money’s worth.

I was thinking of how the story would circulate through the dining room that evening, and be replayed endlessly throughout the ship that night. And how children in the town, for years to come, would tell the story of winged Pegasus and this 9-foot tall ex-university cheerleader gymnast taking flight over the streets of Costa Maya. How once a year they would gather around the statue erected in the memory of Brian ‘the Brave’. And I thought of how, gathered together, the children and townsfolk would turn to the town crier, the one with the voice who commanded all things in the town, who wore a lightning bolt on his t-shirt, and went by the name of ‘Flash.’ They would turn to him and wait for the signal. “Giddy-up," he would cry, and they would let out a cry that could be heard up and down the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula for hundreds of miles. “WOOOOHEEEEE!’

One picture that comes to mind is on the Explorer take-out, we got to eat lunch every day in the dining room. The entire youth staff team would gather at a big table, which felt kind of special, but it also meant spending more time with personalities that others might not be able to handle for more than 10 minutes. Some people had an off switch, different modes and moods between work and play and rest. Some liked to dial it down at lunch time, but not our Flash. The all-too-easily-humoured little boy in me, forever cackling at the class clown and earning the teacher's wrath for encouraging their antics, kept a watchful eye on Flash, thinking, 'go ahead, entertain us.' He would amuse himself in preparation, a roll would disappear under the table, a napkin would follow soon after. The consummate stage professional, he would bide his time patiently, waiting for the moment that would elicit the greatest reaction, the biggest laughs. I could always tell by his mischievous sideways grin that I'd be getting my money's worth and before the first course had even arrived, he would be showing us all the magical dancing bread roll on the napkin trick, chuckling to himself like it was the greatest show in town and the first time we'd seen it. I introduced it to my son recently, and he looked at me like I was superman, or better still, like I was Flash Gordon, the magnificent.