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kkeenan

Sad News

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I'm sad to report that Paul Quandt, known to all in the CRW world simply as "Q", suffered unsurvivable injuries in a motorcycle accident on Friday.

Q trained lots of new CRW folks over the years. He was known and loved around the world for his superior flying talent and the good vibes he spread wherever he went. He will be missed terribly.

Marcie Lovell has generously set up a website where photos and rememberances of our Q can be posted and viewed.
http://www.crwdiva.org/q-memorial

Fly on, Buddy,

Kevin Keenan
_____________________________________
Dude, you are so awesome...
Can I be on your ash jump ?

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I got the news last night.

I didn’t know Q that well, but I always saw him around Jumptown. For a guy with god knows how many gold medals he couldn’t have been nicer, and more approachable. Always said hello and always had a huge smile on his face. He was one of those guys that you were just happy to see even if you weren’t his best friend. He had a good vibe about him.

I know I can speak for all of Jumptown.
He was loved and will be greatly missed by all of us.


Be looking for Diamond shape clouds in the sky. He is on gods crew team now.

RIP Q
I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." - Kurt Cobain

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Here's the CRW formation I was in with Q. I like the small dives with a few friends, but now and then, the big-ways are cool, too.

On one of the practice jumps, Q did a swoop through the gate of a 8 ft. chainlink fence topped with barbed wire. His flying was awesome.

Kevin
_____________________________________
Dude, you are so awesome...
Can I be on your ash jump ?

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I got the news last night.

I didn’t know Q that well, but I always saw him around Jumptown. For a guy with god knows how many gold medals he couldn’t have been nicer, and more approachable. Always said hello and always had a huge smile on his face. He was one of those guys that you were just happy to see even if you weren’t his best friend. He had a good vibe about him.

I know I can speak for all of Jumptown.
He was loved and will be greatly missed by all of us.


Be looking for Diamond shape clouds in the sky. He is on gods crew team now.

RIP Q



After the services for Q today I drove to Jumptown to see what his home DZ was like. I was planning to just stop by and see the place, maybe meet some people. Then I started talking to some and watching the airplane and decided I ought to go ahead & jump.

The staff at Jumptown had a student rig they let me use.. along with jumpsuit/alti/goggles. Bubbles and I did a 2-way RW jump from the twin otter & had fun. Then some talk started about CRW. I didn't bring a rig or a Lightning, but amazingly the DZ has a Lightning 160. They let me put that into the student rig and four of us did a couple of 2-way fun rotation formations on the sunset load.

What a beautiful area around Jumptowm! I enjoyed the seat by the door while the plane was climbing because I could take in the vivid colors of the countryside on the way to altitude. I can see why Q enjoyed the DZ so much.

Chris

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Bubbles and I did a 2-way RW jump from the twin otter & had fun. Then some talk started about CRW. I didn't bring a rig or a Lightning, but amazingly the DZ has a Lightning 160. They let me put that into the student rig and four of us did a couple of 2-way fun rotation formations on the sunset load.

What a beautiful area around Jumptowm! I enjoyed the seat by the door while the plane was climbing because I could take in the vivid colors of the countryside on the way to altitude. I can see why Q enjoyed the DZ so much.

Chris



Q would have been proud of our jumps! The RW was fun (although the other people on the plane forced us to close the door around 6500 feet while going to Alt.), and the CRW was just as great! It was a beautiful sunset, and a wonderful time to get some CRW in. The weather was perfect, the dropzone (as always) was so accommodating to our needs. Looking forward to the next CRW event at Jumptown! Thanks to everyone who made such a difficult day survivable. :(

CReW Skies,
bubbles
"Women fake orgasms - men fake whole relationships" – Sharon Stone
"The world is my dropzone" (wise crewdog quote)
"The light dims, until full darkness pierces into the world."-KDM

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a wonderful time to get some CRW in.



I think that's the absolute best anyone could have done that day, Bubbles. Q would have loved that you were doing CRW over his DZ. It is a really nice place, and I know I'll never go there again without thinking of him.

Thanks, Bubbles and Chris for flying our Freak Flag at Jumptown and representing us for Q. He was such a shooting star and we'll really miss him.

Kevin
_____________________________________
Dude, you are so awesome...
Can I be on your ash jump ?

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Thanks, Bubbles and Chris for flying our Freak Flag at Jumptown and representing us for Q. He was such a shooting star and we'll really miss him.

Kevin



Vinnie and Genn from the Ranch also partook in the 4 way CRW jump! I honestly can't think of a better way to honor Q. It was a great jump!

CReW Skies,
bubbles
"Women fake orgasms - men fake whole relationships" – Sharon Stone
"The world is my dropzone" (wise crewdog quote)
"The light dims, until full darkness pierces into the world."-KDM

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Roger and Marcie Quandt prepared a memorable eulogy for Q, and Marcie read it at the end of the funeral. They gave me a copy after the service and I have just transcribed it.

----
Eulogy for Paul --9/15/06

God blessed us with two wonderful sons, Roger and Paul. Paul "Q" is our second son, who is a member of the fifth generation of the Quandt family here in Wilmington. He was born on November 30, 1967, the year of "The Impossible Dream" for the Boston Red Sox.
Paul communicated with us from the very beginning of his life. He was not to be ignored. Since then, he has touched the lives of more people than we could ever have imagined. His smile and zest for life have taken him on his journey from his small town here in Wilmington to many parts of the United States and the world.
His years between childhood and adolescence were filled with many experiences; Youth Hockey, Little League Baseball, high school band and track were the highlights of those years. He was also an altar boy, here in this church, during that time.
His dad and I have tried to write down a brief story of his life, but this task has proved to be impossible. He has lived more in his 38 years here on earth than most people ever do. We will mention a couple of memories, and you, his friends and family, will have to share other "Q" stories with each other.
We are somewhat responsible for introducing Roger and Paul to exploring life and adventure from their earliest days. I took them to gym and swim at the Lawrence "Y" two mornings a week when they were three and eighteen months. They got to visit their grandma and grandpa Praetz.
They became fishes. While other parents were watching their toddlers at the edge of the water, ours were diving off the end of the dock at Long Lake, Maine. We anchored our boat near a golf course and they would have a contest to see who could dive down and bring up the most golf balls for dad.
When the boys were four and five, we took them skiing. Some of their cousins will remember this well.
When Paul was about six, we sent them to hockey camp. Paul called home (collect) one day. He said, "Mom, this call is free. I put in a dime and I got that back." He called several times after that. Paul continued, in his life, to reach out for more. Snow, water, and sky were his playground.
He flew little diamond stunt kites that were clipped together. They looked like a rainbow. He could make them loop and soar. He could make them whirl and take the hat off your head before they soared once again into the sky.
We didn't know then that he would soar in the sky some day, and look like a birdlike flying rainbow. He was destined to be in the air. We can imagine that Paul was last seen leaving this earth with his life experiences tucked under his arm, headed for the stars. We know that he will arrive early, will land safely, and will be greeted by a shining light that will last forever.

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Roger and Marcie Quandt prepared a memorable eulogy for Q, and Marcie read it at the end of the funeral. They gave me a copy after the service and I have just transcribed it.



Marcie did a wonderful job reading it, being as tough as it could have been for her. Thanks for transcribing and posting it, i think many people will realize that Q was always Q, and lived life to the fullest. He's going to be missed dearly by all!

CReW Skies,
bubbles
"Women fake orgasms - men fake whole relationships" – Sharon Stone
"The world is my dropzone" (wise crewdog quote)
"The light dims, until full darkness pierces into the world."-KDM

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Met another friend of Q's who was touched in the same way anyone who knew Q was. It was very special to still hear how Q is still one in a million.

I really, really miss Q.

I have hard days with it, but I'm so lucky to have known such a great soul.

Ah, shit, it's one of those days - I just really miss him.

Love you Q.

April
Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.

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Hey you guys,

Here's something I thought would be nice to share with you, in case you don't catch it. I just happened to see on the Jumptown Facebook private page some present day members talking about the Q boogie and Q, and never having met him. I ended up wring a comment in reply that got a lot out. I definitely sat here doing some laughing and crying as it went. I hope you enjoy it similarly.

I also want to mentioned this as far as being a reply to Howard White's comment. Howard's been gone for several years now too, and I miss him quite a lot as well. He was fine guy and sometimes grump, but his bark was WAYYYY worse than any bite. In fact, I don't think he ever bit anyone :)

Here's what I had for some recollections about Q:

I was a student at UMass in the parachute club, at Turners Falls Airport, when Paul started jumping. I don't remember when he started getting called Q but whenever it happened, it stuck forever, after that :)

We ended up having an unusual relationship. Just plain friends and acquaintences for many years, like everyone else and each other in your own skydiving family. Then we hit a few rough spots that really were only the result of mistakes people make with each other when the partying on Saturday nights gets a little too far out of hand and then someone gets pissed off about something! ;)

At some point Q was the owner of a Jeep Wrangler. It became a favorite night time activity to take it out '4-wheeling' in the Montague Plains area near the airport. It's a lot of dirt roads in and around high tension power line towers and scrub and brushy terrain. One of those nights, in drunken stupors, I was sitting in the back area of the Wrangler and Q had the rag top folded down. We were driving along on the dirt roads through the dark and I must have become uncomfortable with the wind or the dirt or something and decided I'd put the rag top back up. I only remember trying and trying to get the thing to unfold from the way it was stowed down but I just couldn't get it to unfold and come up. And Paul kept hollering back at me about it but I was only paying half attention to whatever it was he was yelling at me.

The next day I remember Paul was extremely unhappy and displeased because however the rag top had been retracted, I had ripped and/or destroyed the shit out of it trying to yank it up into position. I had no idea at the time that I'd done that but then the next morning when I realized that he'd been trying to tell me that at the time, I felt really bad I'd damaged it. And Paul was never very happy about it ever, even years later.

Another time on Saturday nights, one of the favorite extreme pranks on several occasions became abusing those who'd had too much partying and become unconscious out in the open somewhere. One such form of abuse was shaving off someone's eyebrow. This happened to Paul at some point. Everyone later (except Paul) thought it was hillarious that for a few weeks he had to go around and go to work with a fake eyebrow drawn on with an eyebrow pencil so he didn't look like a circus sideshow freak.

Well, no one ever forgets things that are so hillarious like that. So of course, probably a couple of years or two later, more partying, Q lost his eyebrow AGAIN. On this second occasion, it was me who thought of it, and goaded a more innocent accomplice (Joe Peterson), into actually doing the shaving. And everyone remembered all the details the next morning, of what happened and who did what. Even though I didn't wield the razor and shaving cream, Paul knew it was me who instigated it, and how I really coached Joe into getting a really nice, clean, close shave. Paul was so angry at me. But not so much at Joe, I don't think.

I never did anything to Paul out of wanting to make him feel bad or being mean or picking on him. It was just the comedy of behaving outrageously, after the beer light went on, that led to these kinds of incidents. Another time, in the winter, Paul parked his Wrangler up on the very top of a maybe 8-10' tall pile of snow out in front of the clubhouse. It was quite a sight. Attracted a lot of attention. It was probably a lot of Jose' Cuervo that gave me the bright idea that I could dig out all the snow out from under all four wheels. It really worked just like it seemed it would have to. The Wrangler ended up completely resting on top of it's frame on the top of the snow pile. Again, everyone thought it was a real hoot. I don't know where I was when Paul had to get the thing off the snow pile, but I just remember that he was really pissed about it because it had been extremely difficult.

And then of course, things can always go the other way. After what must have been at least several years later, one afternoon I was at Pepperell making some jumps. This was now during the period of time where Paul was jumping and hanging out at Pepperell most of the time. I think it was early afternoon and I was just out in front of manifest with the regulars, doing whatever, and not paying much attention to anything in particular.

All of a sudden, before I knew what had happened, before I could really process it at all, I just remember hearing Paul saying really loudly and excitedly, "HAHA!! I got you back!!!" and he threw something on the ground in front of me. It was my pony tail of hair off the back of my head. Probably a good 8-10" long, at least. At the time, I realized that I'd felt something on the back of my head, and realized the sound I'd just heard was the scissors doing a couple of chops to my hair.

I couldn't have told you beforehand how I'd have reacted to something like that. In hindsight I reacted as if I'd just been violently assaulted, and acted reflexively. The next thing I was consciously aware of was that people were grabbing my arms and keeping my hands from getting to Paul's neck. I can remember thinking that at that moment, all I wanted to do was have Paul on the ground on his back, with my hands around his neck and my thumbs in his windpipe, NOT to kill him, but, to look in his eyes and make him understand that I could, and almost wanted to, for doing that to me. But I never got even that far. Once I realized people were holding me back and I wasn't going to be able to do that, I just turned around and went straight to my vehicle and left. I went through shock for a few days and then just went on with life.

But after that I didn't run into Paul very much anywhere, and we didn't really communicate. For a long time I was really angry at him for that, but eventually my hair grew back, of course, and I stopped feeling angry about it. I remember that we did at some point see each other again after that and were friendly enough to each other, and I even apologized for his eyebrow, but my recollection is we could have used some more time to work on that a little more. But then that never happened, because Q had the motorcycle accident. Nighttime Jose' Cuervo drinking, and the fun of zooming down a dark runway at a DZ in Florida, and not stopping in time for the end of the runway. My heart really ached after that. I wished we'd had more time to have some more fun together and mend the emotional bruises we'd given each other over the years.

There's a vague, obscured line somewhere between good, clean, (sometimes or frequently substance enhanced) fun and games after jumping is over for the day, and taking it so far that it all goes wrong. And I think just fate, and chance both can cause the location of that line to shift around, too. The problem is no one ever knows when they're going to end up on the wrong side of it and lose everything. Everything seems fine and normal and a total scream of fun in the moment, but if something goes wrong, at the wrong time, then suddenly things go irreversably bad.

Whenever I'm reminded of Paul's untimely death, I'm reminded of my heavy feelings and sadness that he's gone. But I also remember all the fun we all had out there at Turners Falls, for many years, back and forth at each other's expense sometimes, and just in general all the time.

I hope these recollections help others feel like they've gotten to know a little bit of Paul himself, even if you never met him. I also hope it helps you think about and remember to check in with yourself now and then to consider where you are, generally, when it comes to that vague, obscured, shifting boundry line between outrageous fun and games, and exceeding the limits, and not surviving it. My days and nights at the DZ were some of the best fun and adventure and excitement of my life so far. And I'm also thankful that I'm still here to talk about it. I wish Paul were still here too. I think we'd both probably say something similar to you all at this point, about having lot's of fun, but also remembering to make sure to come away from it with the opportunity to come back again for more, the next weekend :)

Blue Skies, all you guys and girls :)

John Jackson
(toad)
D-12027

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