Smith: Santa Rosa man helps team set record for ocean swim

What we humans are capable of can make your mind swim.

Consider the handful of men, all in their 80s and some with significant ailments, who just set a record for relay-swimming from Catalina Island to San Pedro.

Six swimmers, calling themselves The Old Men and the Sea, completed the 22 miles across Catalina Channel in 12 hours, 15 minutes and 23 seconds. No other group of octogenarians had attempted the feat.

Norm Stupfel of Santa Rosa, who’s 82 and long operated the former Carlson’s Department Store in Sebastopol, took part as the alternate. It turned out he didn’t need to spell any of the others, but he was there and ready and he accompanied a swimmer on one leg, “just to give him some company and me some experience.”

Stupfel admits he was dubious when the swim’s prime instigator, Don Baker of Arizona, asked him many months back to join the team as alternate. Open-water swimming isn’t really the Sonoma County swimmer’s thing.

“I had mixed feelings about it,” said Stupfel, a 20-year masters swimmer who has won national championships and trains at the Petaluma Swim Center and Santa Rosa’s Ridgway Pool.

“I wasn’t sure I was capable of it because of the temperatures out there. That’s cold water.”

Pleased to be asked and intrigued by the challenge, he agreed and began swimming at San Francisco’s Aquatic Park and at Lake Berryessa.

Stupfel was familiar with four of the Old Men and eager to meet the other two. These aren’t just any retirees who decided to have a go at a record. All are top-level competitive swimmers and two of them, Graham Johnson of Texas and Dave Radcliff of Oregon, are former Olympians.

Stupfel was for most of the crossing in the boat that followed each swimmer. As a swimmer proceeded, he was bracketed in the water by monitors in a kayak and a paddleboard. Each man swam for three hours, then yielded to the next fellow in the relay.

“Well, the gods were with us,” said Stupfel. “Gentle current, warm water.”

A robust crowd greeted the record holders as they landed at Portuguese Bend on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Does Stupfel expect to get together again with The Old Men and the Sea?

He said, “I don’t know how you’re going to keep us apart.”

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LIAM ISN’T BORN YET, but already his family and an entire community are preparing to meet with the highly sophisticated medical care it appears the Windsor child will need.

Early ultrasounds discovered that Katie and Brit Ward’s unborn baby has a heart defect that leaves his left ventricle severely undeveloped. He will require several surgeries, the first within days of his birth in October.

Relatives and friends are acting now to encourage blood donations and monetary contributions that will help the Wards with living expenses while they’re at the hospital at Stanford and with uncovered medical expenses.

There’s a blood drive from 2 to 7 p.m. Sept. 14 at the Healdsburg Fire Department. On Sept. 18 from 6 to 9:30 p.m., anyone interested in helping the family is welcome to a fundraiser in the courtyard behind Bear Republic Brewing Co.

The crowdfunding site for Liam and his folks is at gofundme.com/y83bgwc.

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THERE ARE ESTATE SALES here about every day, or nearly so. One next weekend at one of the grand dames of Petaluma’s stately D Street stands out.

Years ago, people called the place at D and 5th “The Haunted House.” For decades the home of local character Phillip “Cuss” Boynton, it was so neglected and forlorn it appeared it might just tumble.

Then, about 20 years ago, Frieda Schneider of San Francisco bought the house and refurbished it gloriously. She filled it with fine antiques, gilded mirrors, statues and water features, many pieces of art, urns, candelabra, pedestals, a 12-foot cathedral-shaped stained glass window and on and on.

Now, Schneider prepares to let everything go in a living estate sale on Sept. 4, 5, 6 and 7, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

If there are ghosts, may they be the sort who enjoy a good sale.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @CJSPD.