Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Louie Johns - sailor and friend

Camp Connell, Ca -- Louis Johns, known to us as Louie, lived just down the dock from where we keep our boat at the Oakland Yacht Club.
The attached video shows a short trip we made together from Alameda across San Francisco Bay to Pier 39. We went over to see the Giants play with a group of friends, all on boats.
He was an energetic, entertaining, bright young bachelor in his 40s, though he seemed much younger. He lived the good life aboard his sailboat, and telecommuted for one the Bay Area high tech companies.
We saw him often, coming and going on the dock, hosting friends in his cockpit lit with Tiki Torches, and often carrying a giant rubber ball he used for his exercises to the end of the dock where he worked out. He worked hard, and played hard.
He recently spent a work/vacation in Hawaii, surfing and working and -- as he said -- searching for the perfect wife. He didn't find her but he was still happily looking the last time we saw him.
One night he was walking home, tripped on a curb and fell and hit his head, and died. But the tragedy of his death does not erase the joy of his life, or that he lived well. You can get a glimpse of that in the video.

RIP Louie.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

thank you so much for posting this video. We miss Louie very much. He loved sailing and living on the boat.. I am truly grateful for his Alameda friends he loved so much.
Louie's Aunt Bobbie

Kaminoge said...

It was great to see my old friend enjoying himself out on the water. Thank you for posting this.

Unknown said...

Wonderful to see Louis on the water. Livin' la vida Louis. He's gone, and he still cracks me up. Thank you so much for this.

Dr. Jeffrey Maret said...

Great to see Louis out on the water in his element. Still hard for me to get my head around the fact Louis is no longer here in our three-D world. / Thanks for positing this.

Mims said...

When was this? Was this the night I came and rescued him from Mike and Connie's boat because he was drunk as a skunk? :)