Are There Giants Around You?

Are There Giants Around You?

12/22/2013 03:00:00 pm
By Richard L Grimes
Expert Author Richard L Grimes
My mom's recent funeral got me thinking a little about when it will be my turn for the whispering assembly of family and friends who will swear that, as I lay there in makeup and a suit I probably have not worn in years, I look so natural. And then some words (kind, I hope) will be spoken about the life I lived.
And I thought as that day approaches, if my children were to ask me, "Dick (being a step-father, I never was called Dad), did you ever do anything or know anyone that/who was relevant to the world?", what would I tell them?
I doubt I could say much about the first part, "did I do anything relevant to the world." I mean I think I did a lot of good things that were relevant to the people immediately on the receiving end but beyond that small audience, there was probably nothing I did personally.
But I did have the honor and privilege to know and teach SCUBA diving to two men that I discovered much later, were very relevant to the world in vastly different ways. And, as we are taught about the traits of the models we should emulate, each was very unassuming, quiet, congenial, and seemed to judge me based on my skills, not my pedigree, education, or social connections. They were very good men, and we got along very easily.
The first, Jimmy Sneed, I knew as the Ford dealer in my home town of Fort Pierce, Florida. I met him when he came to take an introductory SCUBA class I was teaching at the local junior college. (That was before the term "community college" came into vogue.)
He was one of the "old guys" in class as I referred to them quietly to my assistant instructors. I was 24 and he was about my dad's age. He did very well in the pool, never got rattled underwater in some of the stressful situations we would create, and went along on many of the subsequent diving trips I arranged long after his basic class graduated.
He helped me buy my first car on my own, a beautiful 1969 Ford Thunderbird Landau, and there was always a feeling of safety when Jim was on the reef with you.
Many years later, after I had left Ft. Pierce and moved on with my life, my Mom sent this link to me about a comment made in response to recent July 4th activities:
"One of our citizens who is now deceased was Jimmy Sneed, the original owner of Sunrise Ford. Jimmy was a member of the Army Rangers in WWII. He was one of the first to land on Omaha beach on Normandy. Specifically, he and the Rangers climbed the incredibly steep cliffs on the south side of the beach to knock out the big guns raining death on the main force. The German defenders were cutting the climbing ropes and tossing grenades down by the dozens on Jimmy and his buddies.
Many of Jimmy's comrades were killed in action but Jimmy made it to the top. Jimmy was awarded the Silver Star for Valor, one of our nation's highest combat awards. When he returned home, he rarely spoke and never bragged about his exploits. Jimmy was a modest, successful businessman who was always offering a hand to folks less fortunate and was a friend to everyone in old Ft Pierce. When he passed away, the vast majority of his friends did not know of his heroism on D-Day. We owe a huge debt to Jimmy and his buddies that fateful day in June 1944. Jimmy qualified as one of our heroes."
I was speechless. My old guy friend - who had seemed so calm underwater and in situations that made others very nervous - had rope-climbed the bloody cliffs of Normandy while Germans waiting above tried to kill him. He was one of the 90 surviving heroes that President Reagan talked about in his 1984 Normandy speech about the "boys of Pointe du Hoc." And I had the audacity to think I could teach him something. Incredible!
The other guy was Jim Wynne, a member of a private basic certification class I did for eight Miami Beach residents back in the early 1970s. When my friend who arranged the class introduced me to Jim, I saw a guy with an easy smile, full beard, and a deep water tan who looked to be about 37 years old.
We were going to have the classes at his pool and I noticed a lot of nautical artifacts and decorations in the house and on the patio. "Typical ocean side nautical wannabe décor" I thought from my (as I see now) incredibly narrow, small-town perspective.
Looking back, he was one of the brighter members of the class learning quickly; especially with the buoyancy and decompression problems we covered in the poolside part of the class. "You seem to have this buoyancy stuff figured out, Jim" I remember saying to him. "Thanks, it just seems natural" he said with a smile as the others seemed to share some inside knowledge with their smiles and little chuckles.
It was only after class when I was talking to Jimmy Sneed about my Miami Beach class and he said, "Jim Wynne? You had Jim Wynne in class?"
"Sure and he did very well: a very quiet and unassuming guy. Why? Do you know him?"
"Are you kidding? He's only the guy that drove an outboard motorboat 3,600 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. He is an Offshore Ocean Racing champ and the original designer of the ocean racing Bertram, Magnum, and Cigarette hulls! I remember seeing a big article about him in Sports Illustrated a few years back."
No wonder he seemed to handle those buoyancy problems so easily!
So, looking back at all that has passed, in case my children ask if I ever knew anyone who was relevant to the world, I can honestly say, "Yes, two giants who were very good men. One helped to give us freedom to live and the other gave us a means to enjoy it."
While you still can, think about the people around you, especially the quiet and unassuming ones, and take the time to get to know them a little better; you may discover that you are living among giants, too!

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