{"id":2325,"date":"2013-09-05T00:44:38","date_gmt":"2013-09-05T07:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scotshonor.com\/?p=2325"},"modified":"2013-09-05T22:19:48","modified_gmt":"2013-09-06T05:19:48","slug":"flight-of-the-mothe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scotshonor.com\/?p=2325","title":{"rendered":"FLIGHT OF THE MOTHE"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was 1968.\u00a0 I was enrolled in flight school at Goodfellow AFB in Texas, preparing for my first combat tour in South East Asia.\u00a0 Goodfellow AFB is located in San Angelo, Tex.\u00a0 One weekend a group of us drove down to San Antonio to attend the Hemisfair.\u00a0 I was rather disappointed until I came across a sight I will never forget.\u00a0 There was a sign saying that Henri La Mothe would dive 35 feet into 12 inches of water.\u00a0 I turned the corner and sure enough there was this incredibly high and flimsy looking ladder next to what looked like a kiddie pool.\u00a0 The show started with a young girl in a bikini walking in the pool with a yard stick.\u00a0 She measured the water at several places and it was exactly 12 inches.\u00a0 I wondered what was the trick to make the water look so shallow.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t see how it was possible that someone could really drive 40 fit into 12 inches of water and survive.<\/p>\n

Then Henri La Mothe made his appearance.\u00a0 He was dressed in a white suit that resembled the long underwear we wore in the upper peninsula of Michigan. It looks more than a little out of place in the heat of San Antonio, Texas.\u00a0 Since La Mothe was born in 1904, I now realize that he was sixty years old at the time.\u00a0 He certainly looked old to me and I became really curious if this was really possible.\u00a0 I simply had to watch.\u00a0 Then the moment came.\u00a0 This rather frail looking man, wearing his long underwriter climbed that rickety latter.\u00a0 In some ways the most dangerous part of the stunt was climbing that ladder.\u00a0 He stood there on a tiny shelf, swaying in the wind, for several minutes and finally took his leap.\u00a0 To my shock and horror, he did a full-fledged belly flop into that kidde pool.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what I expected, but I do know it wasn\u2019t a belly flop.\u00a0 I thought he was probably dead.\u00a0 But to my surprise, La Mothe jumped up and started celebrating his survival.\u00a0 After the show he was interviewed and someone asked him how he trained to do this.\u00a0 He described belly flopping off a kitchen chair onto a hardwood floor.\u00a0 My chest hurt for days just thinking about this.<\/p>\n

I went on to serve three combat tours in Vietnam, and completely forgot about Henri La Mothe.\u00a0 I began to wonder if I had really even seen this and whether or not Henri La Mothe was for real.\u00a0 Then one day in 1974 I heard a news report that Henry La Mothe had celebrated his 70th<\/sup> birthday by diving 40 ft into 12 inches of water from the Flat Iron building in New York.\u00a0 Sure enough, a few days later there was a picture of Henri La Mothe, in his underwear, belly flopping 40 feet into 12 inches of water.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t help but smile and say\u2026hey\u2026I saw that guy.\u00a0 In case some of you are skeptical, attached is a link to a contemporary report about this and a picture of Henri La Mothe, in his long underwear, making that dive in 1974:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/new-york\/wildest-stunts-new-york-city-history-gallery-1.1170709?pmSlide=5<\/a><\/p>\n

The 1974 dive turned out to be his last.\u00a0 Henri La Mothe performed this stunt for 20 years from 1954 to 1974.\u00a0 He died in 1987, at age 83 and the only known injury was to his nose.<\/p>\n

At a time when there is so much going wrong, I thought it would be fun to reflect upon the flight of the Mothe.\u00a0 It is a reminder that sometimes when we least expect it, we see something really wonderful.\u00a0 It is also a reminder that there are people out there who will pay\u00a0any price for success. \u00a0It is impossible to overestimate what a determined man can accomplish if they are willing to endure enough pain.\u00a0 \u00a0I am relatively sure that every belly flop by Henri La Mothe was a painful experience.\u00a0 It sure looked that way to me in 1968.\u00a0 Somehow I don\u2019t think the long underwear was that effective in softening the blow.<\/p>\n

Tonight I watched a show on the Guinness world records and another man was trying for the world record by diving 37 feet into 12 feet of water.\u00a0 He seems to have inherited Henri\u2019s long underwear suit.\u00a0 Assuming this was accurate, it would seem that the dive I saw in 1968 was only two inches lower than the current world record.\u00a0 I wonder if the current guy practices by belly flopping from a kitchen chair onto a hardwood floor.<\/p>\n

TDM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was 1968.\u00a0 I was enrolled in flight school at Goodfellow AFB in Texas, preparing for my first combat tour in South East Asia.\u00a0 Goodfellow AFB is located in San Angelo, Tex.\u00a0 One weekend a group of us drove down … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-headlines"],"yoast_head":"\nFLIGHT OF THE MOTHE - SCOTS HONOR<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scotshonor.com\/?p=2325\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"FLIGHT OF THE MOTHE - 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