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Charles Richard Blakeslee
Skin
Diver Magazine Founder
I was born October 29, 1925, in Manitou, Oklahoma, where
I lived for my first five years. I spent most of my
growing up and school years in
southwestern Missouri
near Joplin and Neosho, first attending a one-room
school house. Frog Pond, with approximately thirty
students from first through the eighth grade. My father
was a telegraph and station operator on an oil pipeline.
We moved to southern California when I was thirteen. I
attended Lynwood, CA, and Clearwater, CA, junior high
schools, then Compton High School and Compton Junior
College, Compton, CA. I also took several technical
courses relating to the oil industry and maritime radio
at that time.
After working as a machinist in the shipyards and
aircraft industries during World War II, I was employed
by Texaco, Inc. as a lab technician, essentially in
Bacteriology, for nine years in Long Beach, CA. |
Chuck and Jeri in New Orleans in 1994,
DEMA Reaching Out Award |
In 1948 I married, Geraldine Stone (Jeri), my lifelong
diving companion, to whom I have now been married 61
years. We have four adult children, Chris, Jim, Carol
and Renee.
I started diving in 1946 after a lifelong interest in
what lies beneath the waters of the earth. First
receiving an LA County Diving Instructor's
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Certificate
(#2UICC) m 1954, I obtained a NAUI affiliate status in
1963.1 am the inventor of the C02 speargun, "the
Barracuda", receiving a patent in 1953.
In 1951, Jim Auxier and I founded The SKIN DIVER. As
co-publishers and co-owners of the magazine, a
California Corporation, Jim became Editor and I was
Advertising Manager, while we alternated annually as
President and Vice-President We published the magazine
for 12 years before selling to Peterson Publications in
1963. In my opinion, SKIN DIVER MAGAZINE of the 1950's
and 60's is, for the most part, the only American source
for reference material relating to recreational diving,
its activities, personalities, |
and the manufacturers and retailers of early diving
equipment. Many myths exist about the history of skin
diving, as so few records were kept early on. SKIN DIVER
began to investigate, to record, to follow and dispute,
to compare and add to, and to question. It was a forum
for divers and historians, a place to post one's opinion
and ideas.
During my years of involvement with SKIN DIVER MAGAZINE,
I received many awards and honors, personal, as well as
professional, in the 1950's
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and 1960's. As a member of the Dolphins Diving Club of
Compton, CA, I dived with the winning 1954 Pacific Coast
Champions in 1954, and competed in the 1954 National
Competitions in Key West, Florida. Jim and I received the
NOGI award for Art in 1960. I was a regular contributor to
Colliers Encyclopedia Yearbook and Selling Sporting Goods,
was a member of tile Board of Directors of the International
Film Festival, a NAUI organization participant, and served
on numerous ad hoc committees, such as that of selecting and
promoting the Diver's Flag. I appeared at numerous Fish and
Game meetings in support of divers' rights and beach access,
and served as an advocate for safety in diving through
restriction of ads determined not to be safe - "a good
friend to all that was good and wholesome in the industry." |
Jim Auxier about 1960 |
After selling SKIN DIVER MAGAZINE to Peterson
Publications in 1963,I retired to devote my energies to
raising avocados in Carpinteria, CA. for 23 years, where
I continued to dive regularly along the California
coastline and the Channel Islands, along the coast of
Mexico, the Gulf of California, Baja California and its
islands, British Columbia, Hawaii, Fiji, Tahiti, and
Australia. Over the years I also dived in the Florida
Keys, the oil rigs in Louisiana, the Mediterranean on
the Grand Congloue wreck and the Aeolian Islands, and
most recently, in the Cayman Islands.
I was inducted into the DEMA Diving Hall of Fame and
received the Reaching Out Award in 1994, was a
Historical Diving Society Conference speaker in Santa
Barbara, CA. in 2002, and was inducted into the
International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame in the Grand
Caymans in 2003. My interest has continued in the
underwater world and the industry that supports
responsible diving.
My wife, Jeri, and I live in Nevada City, the Sierra
foothills of the Gold Country, of California. I am now
84 and owe my longevity to my years of breath-hold
diving and ocean swimming.
HDS Speech, History of Diving,
2002, by Chuck Blakeslee
Autobiography and Speech transcribed in December 2009
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