Vic Deveau, D-529

[howardwhite 5]

Vic Deveau, D-529, has left us.
"The Silver Fox" died of cancer Nov. 20 in Connecticut.
He was a long-time regular Nationals competitor in style and accuracy, and also a pioneer in RW. He was a Marine. And he loved a good party.
One well-known long time fellow Nationals competitor shared with me two Vic memories:
"His Tee shirt that we wore at Nationals long ago in Tahlequah, OK.
'Take my love and shove it up your heart.'
"His conversation with a young 15 year old upstart that wasn’t learning about life very fast. Vic told him: 'We’re both adults, I just have more time in grade than you do.'”
Vic put me out on jump #21 in Orange, MA in March, 1966, in one of his on-and-off stints as a Parachutes, Inc., instructor. (It was only a five-second delay, but I managed to pull on my back) When I told Jacques Istel this summer about Vic's illness, he recalled, "Ah, yes, I fired him five times."
One firing came in the late sixties, when Vic's picture appeared on the inside rear cover of Life Magazine, in freefall over Orange and identified as a Parachutes Inc. instructor. He had a broken leg and was jumping wearing a very obvious cast.
But Vic's longest affiliation was with Connecticut Parachutists Inc. (CPI); he was one of its earliest members and its president in 1972.
Vic made his "retirement jump" at CPI in October, 2006. Pictures by pilotdave are at
http://www.skydivingstills.com/keyword/vic#103752944
The funeral home guest book is at http://www.legacy.com/JournalInquirer/GB/GuestbookView.aspx?PersonId=98491803&PageNo=1
I've attached a couple of pictures I took of Vic in the late sixties, one of him in freefall over Orange, another of him about to board a Norseman with "the incredible packing machine," Pete Peterson.
Ironic coincidence: the December '07 Parachutist, "This month in History" (p. 21) notes that in December, 1967, Vic and Bill Ottley, both lifetime USPA members, received their Gold Wings, and Vic received his Quadra Diamond award in 1998.
I expect others here will share fond memories of him.

HW

[JerryBaumchen 1,051]

Hi howard,

Quote

Vic Deveau, D-529, has left us.

We'll all leave one day!

I understood that he had been a POW in Viet Nam for quite some time, any truth to that?

JerryBaumchen

[skr 1]

Hey, Howard, thanks for telling me about Vic.

It seems so long ago.

I don't know how he got my name, maybe through
PCA, but he showed up one day in 1963 in Raleigh,
North Carolina.

Actually it was the day before my master's orals.

So I stayed up most of the night drinking beer and
listening to jump stories - Hey, are you a math major
or a skydiver? Was there ever any question :-) :-)

Until then it was just me and another guy, Dennis Quinn,
jumping around Raleigh.

I had just over 100 jumps but Vic had about 350,
and a D license, *and* he was the first person I had
met from The-Outside-World. Well, actually I had
also met a guy named Squeak Charette when I went
down to Ft Bragg to get somebody official to sign off
my C license.

About 3 seconds after my orals the next day we drove
off to some little airport and made some jumps.

I don't remember how we talked somebody into
taking us up and letting us jump out, but we went
there for the next 2 or 3 days, and then he left.


Next year, 1964, we ran into each other again
at the Professional Meet in Las Vegas and he
came over to Los Angeles for a few days after
that.

I was still theoretically in graduate school, but
you know ...

So we went down to Oceanside in the middle of
the week. It was just the two of us since Oceanside
was a weekend dropzone, but Jack Zahnizer, the
owner agreed to fly the 180 for us.

Unfortunately there were clouds at 2,000 ft, so
there was only time for one quick hookup and
then separate and pull on each jump.

But to add flavor to the day we rigged Vic's rig
up with a static line on one jump, with the other
end hooked to one of my D-rings, and then climbed
out on the strut together and jumped off.

And then he left and drove straight through, nonstop
from Los Angeles to Connecticut.

We ran into each other several other times over
the years.

I learned a lot from him.



> "Ah, yes, I fired him five times."

:-) :-)

Yes, I think Vic was a good influence on a lot of people.

Skr

[piper17 1]

No truth whatsoever.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

[wdy_bnckr 0]

I remember Vic from some of the National meets ( Orange '65, Plattsburg '70, and several of the Tahlequah Meets. He always drew a big crowd after jumping was over and the partying started. I always wondered what was truth and what was embelishment .

[skr 1]

> wdy_bnckr

Now there's a name I haven't heard in a while.

I remember Plattsburg too, it was my 8th and
final tree landing.

> what was truth and what was embelishment

I don't know either, but after being around him
a number of times I tended to believe the stories
because even in their stretched versions they
sounded like the kind of thing he might do.

[wdy_bnckr 0]

Glad to see you're doing well! I get to learn alot about the 'old days' and see who is still around...Woody