PAT ZANG – Mad Respect for a Happy Man

I hate cancer. It’s a vicious enemy that exemplifies the fall of man the way it randomly attacks cells, corrupting good with bad, invasive and violent. It takes something so normal – like growth – and speeds it up to a disease. May God give us ever more wisdom to explore, discover, learn and whip this evil beast.

I wish that his body would’ve been able to defeat this cancer a second time. I was so glad for him when he beat it the first time about a decade ago. When it came back I was nervous for him, but it’d been a few years and it looked like he was doing well. Just a week ago I saw pictures on Facebook of some mountain trips he took with Karen. He looked healthy to me. That made me glad. That he died just two days ago comes as a shock.

My best friend from high school has left this place. I had thought about him just a couple of days ago, telling my wife about the way he used to run full speed towards a YIELD sign, launch his body in the air and take that thing straight to the ground, severing the sturdy 4×4 post at its base. That was fun for him. He did similar things on the football field, where he manhandled any opponent that tried to get in his way. I described him in my novel about high school football and time travel as like a cross between Randy White (aka “the Manster”) and Dick Butkus. Strong like an ox and as bold as a lion. He was so good at football that he eventually went both ways and every ways – playing on the defensive line, offensive and every special team we had. Imagine never coming off the field for a breather.

“I’m the team captain, mom. I need a good pair of cleats.”

I played inside linebacker in a really cool 4-4 scheme where he lined up across from the guard and usually took an outside charge, which occupied two of the opposing teams’ linemen, leaving us linebackers to make all the tackles. Turns out he was so good, though, that he had almost all the tackles. I can’t say I ever saw him throw opponents around like rag dolls, but that’s what it felt like. He started as a junior and played every game of his varsity career.

I won’t mention the time that he and I were suspended from playing against Trona in our sophomore year for the junior varsity.

I tapped open the Facebook app on my phone last night while waiting for my lovely wife, Jenn. There I scrolled through a few posts before I came upon one with Pat’s name tagged to it. It was from his daughter, Suzi.

They say they give the toughest battles to the strongest. ♥♥

Oh no! It can’t be. I kept reading, fearing the worst.

My dad was the strongest person I knew and fought some tough battles.

I didn’t want to read, what I knew was next: “Last night heaven gained the most kind hearted, loving, life-loving, story telling soul.” ♥

Everyone that knew Pat loved him.

There might have been some people that resented him (maybe jealousy?), but probably not forever. I remember when we were freshman and a kid named Andy decided he was going to fight him. I think we all met outside of the Youth Center and Andy had some nun-chucks that he was proud to show off. Pat just charged him, picked him up and threw him down. It was over in an instant. That Pat Zang dude was a stud. I was glad he was my friend.

One of my greatest athletic achievements was competing against him in a skateboarding contest – ramp riding. He was one of those fearless cats that used GO FOR IT as his mantra. We were each gliding to the top of this wide quarter pipe ramp in the parking lot of the Officer’s Club at Edwards Air Force Base. He would nail perfect three-wheels-out kickturns at the top, which was the peak of each of our skills, I think. I was fortunate to go second behind him for the final run and I figured we’d tie or I’d crash trying to outdo him. I decided to try something for the first time – a spinning bunny-hop at the top of the ramp where I grabbed the edge of my short 27″ Alva skates, Tracker Midtracks and soft, red Kryptonic wheels and pulled it around in a counter-clockwise turn (I was a goofy foot rider). I pushed one more time on my approach, which would force me over the edge and I was able to pull it off and get four wheels out. I think it was the only time I ever beat him at something, because he was pretty much good at everything. If he would’ve had the chance to take a run after me (instead of vice-versa), I’m sure he would’ve found a way to win that contest.

One of Pat’s next door neighbors, a quiet guy named Gerald, built a massively tall half-pipe in his backyard. We weren’t as advanced and radical as our further Southern California neighbors – the pros from Dogtown, like Alva, Adams, Peralta and those guys – so our ramps weren’t steeped in several feet of vertical, but it had something else at the top that was over vert. Gerald had found a canopy from some jet plane. He somehow mounted that at the top of the south side. And Pat, of course, was the only one brave and crazy enough to push hard enough off the roll-in on the other side to get that high and have his wheels glide, slip and gyrate on that curved plexiglass surface.

One time our Physics class took a field trip to the flightline at Edwards. Hal Needham and his team of stunt drivers were out there to try and break the sonic barrier in the infamous Budweiser Rocket Car. The lakebed out there was so massive and flat that it was used as a backup runway for test flights, making it the ideal spot to try and break the sound barrier on land. As we surrounded the car, Pat told me that he wiped a booger on it.

“Maybe it will throw off the aerodynamics of the car and I can say I made it crash.”

I don’t think Pat really believed that, but it sure was funny (at least to my demented mind).

He was a well-rounded individual. He not only dominated on the field in sports, but he was a MATHLETE, too. We had a Math team that would compete with other schools and he was one of its stars. He became an engineer and put those math and science skills to good use.

He was one of those lucky few that married his high school sweetheart. Karen and Pat started dating in our junior year, I believe, and nothing ever separated them. I remember writing letters back and forth to Pat during our freshman years in college. Karen was going to a school in Southern California, while Pat went to the University of Missouri. He wrote of his undying love for Karen and how that’s all he wanted in life – to come home to a woman like that every day.

I remember visiting his mother near Dayton, Ohio, during my college years. (Pat’s mom is named Suzy Zang. I think it’s such an honor and a cool thing that Pat and Karen named their daughter Suzi…) Anyway, Pat’s mom was telling me about how hard it was for Pat to be away from Karen for his freshman year at Missouri. He was getting stomach pains – so severe that he went to the doctor. She said that he was lovesick. He ended up transferring to college in California and they married soon after.

He treated his wife with great respect and went out of his way to honor her. I remember visiting them a few times out in California City. It was always fun to return to my old high school stomping grounds out in the Mojave Desert and both Pat and Karen Zang were lucky (or crazy?) enough to land jobs at Edwards AFB and have careers out there. He would show me pictures of him mountain climbing. He’d go to some of the highest and most famous mountains around and pose at the top with a sign that said, “I love you Karen at 10,400 feet” (or whatever altitude it was).

I think one time when staying out there he set me up in his study, where he showed me photos of the stealth B-2 bomber that was still fairly classified at that time. He told me to help myself to anything in the fridge, etc., the next morning. I think I joked about ransacking his place and taking all his stuff and he said, “You can take anything you want, but you can’t have my treasure.” He opened the door to his sleeping son and daughter and said something like, “There’s my greatest treasure.”

Pat achieved his dream. I bet his family time, vacations and just every day life was fun for everyone involved.

We both got motorcycles about the same time. I remember him coming into the locker room before a football game with the biggest smile on his face. He explained to me about how he’d been riding out in the desert and came upon our school’s cross country meet and how he started chasing down a runner from Mammoth High School. He said the kid had to jump into a sagebrush to escape his approaching bike. It’s not funny and I’m not supposed to laugh, but it was hilarious.

When I came out to his place to do some final research for my novel about our high school football experience (mixed with time travel), he basically told me to approach his younger self and tell him, “Just catch the ball.”

You see, on the final play of regulation in our first-round CIF playoff game against the Mammoth Huskies, their quarterback tossed the ball into the end zone as if it were a fumble. Pat saw the ball coming to him and he just batted it down. ‘Game over.’ Only their offensive lineman jumped on the ball as they had practiced (according to a conversation between our QB Dusty Wince and their tailback, Troy Rowan, where Rowan confessed they used to practice that fake fumble in case they ever got desperate enough to use it. “I’m sorry it had to be you guys.”) You can see why this game left such a sour taste in our mouths and why I just had to write a novel about righting that wrong with time travel, but I digress. If Pat would have just caught the fake fumble/pass, the game would have been over. The real truth is if the other team hadn’t cheated, the game would’ve been over (and our victory).

Pat was one of those guys that led the pack. He came up with nicknames for people, which is kind of a fun trait. He was nice, but normal. I’m not proud of the fact that we sometimes made fun of people, but I still kinda laugh. I won’t tell you why some kids got the nickname “Smallhead” and “Bean Stepper.” You had to be there. We lived in the middle of the desert. It was isolated, but we made our own fun.

It was endearing that some of our high school personalities remained intact over the years. I remember visiting him once and he introduced me to one of his friends. He informed me that this person liked to talk a lot. And when I later got trapped in a conversation with the person, he laughed at me and smiled, as if to say, “I told you so!”

We were both fans of Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush. If I had the chance to hang out with his friends in California City and memorialize and celebrate his life this week, I would no doubt crank up the song, “Electric Reflections of War,” a massive guitar solo/sonic assault that we loved so much. When I first discovered the band Type O Negative many years later, one of the first things I thought about was, ‘Pat would have loved this band.’ We would have sang along to gang choruses like “Too late for apologies, uh-huh!” and “Black, black, black num-ber one” with much gusto.

We both loved motocross. He favored the bigger bikes, like 400s or even larger engines, while I favored a 250cc – something I could throw around in the air. His house had a backyard pool, but was surrounded by a giant motocross playground outside his yard’s walls.

I remember he liked the Los Angeles Rams while we were in high school, while my family and I were diehard Dallas Cowboys fans. When we connected again in the early 90s, he asked me if I still liked the Cowboys. After I affirmed so, he said one word: “Emmitt.” As a fullback in high school, he obviously respected a running back with talent, grit and toughness.

I remember giving him a hard time when I found out that he volunteered as a coach for the Mojave Mustangs.

“Dude! You’re a traitor!” His son went to Mojave High School, so it made perfect sense for Pat to help out. I bet Matt was a great football player. If he was anything like his dad, he was. Mojave was one of our cross-town rivals (like the Boron Bobcats).

I’ll never forget my best game as a Scorpion. It was our final regular season game in our senior year. We were playing Mojave at home and some jackwagon on the other team had been insulting or making unwanted advances on Pat’s girlfriend (future wife), Karen, and we hated the guy for it. All of us wanted to knock this guy’s block off. I recall he was even trash talking to us during the game. We killed them that night. I think the final score was 35-10, but it was most satisfying to shut the kid from California City up. No one messes with one of our own, and Pat’s girlfriend was off limits. I think the jackwagon’s name was Joe Tacket, but it’s been 38 years, so I am not sure.

Random memories.

Pat is going to be dearly, dearly missed. We lost a good friend. To those that lived and loved most closely to him – I can’t imagine the grief. He is such an awesome, kind, fun, funny and big-hearted person that his absence will leave a giant void.

I wish I could be more like Pat. I admire his loyalty, his conversation skills. His ability to tell a story. The way he would stand up for people. The way he would laugh.

One thing that actually really helps is knowing I’ll see him again at some point.

When we were in high school, we went to separate churches with our family. We went to the Protestant chapel on base and he and his family went to the Catholic one. I remember him going with us to visit my grandparents in Garden Grove one weekend. He was told by his priest that he should take advantage of an opportunity like that to visit a Protestant church. I had never been to a Catholic church, so I made him go with me to a local Catholic place instead of bringing him with us to a Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa or some other place. We didn’t talk about religion much in those days, but I was surprised to learn then that he wished we had gone to a Protestant church that weekend.

I’ll never forget the night that I came back to the Lord (June of 1983). A close friend in Florida had been praying for me and one night I was confronted with where my life was headed. I knew I needed to write a resolution to the Lord and change my direction (and give the leadership of my life back to Him). Coincidentally, my friend gave me a pen that was sitting on his floor. ‘I’ll write the resolution with this pen,’ I told myself. When I arrived home there was a blank card waiting for me on the kitchen table, sticking out of the Bible I had been reading earlier that day. ‘Here was the card. I have the pen. God really wants me to write this resolution.’

The next thought that came to my head was my two high school buddies – Pat Zang and Steve Ivory. Surely I need to tell them about Jesus, so they can be forgiven and spend eternity with God after they’re gone. Now I had a dilemma: write the resolution about my path or try to share the light with two dear friends. What to do? What to do? I told God about my confusion and asked Him to help me decide. I opened up the Living Bible to a random spot and plunked my finger down.

The passage read, “Don’t worry about the speck in your brother’s eye when you have a log in your own. First take care of the log in your own eye and you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” That was a direct answer to prayer if I ever saw one!

Awhile later I told Pat about that story and he thanked me. “I, too, have fallen in love with Jesus,” he told me.

Do you know what that means? I’ll see Pat again in Heaven.

Losing someone is a terrible loss. It hurts, because something special is gone. Hearing or reading a religious platitude can seem hollow. Bringing up salvation like an invitation to follow Christ can even seem opportunistic and offensive during a time of grieving. Unless it’s true.

If it’s true, it brings a hope for the future. Even knowing that I can’t pick up the phone and leave a humorous message for Pat again… Knowing worse that his family must miss him dearly. Knowing that sorrow is huge and real and painful… Having hope for a future reunion really is like an anchor that helps us cope. One day we’ll meet again.

While Pat and I had not stayed in close contact throughout all the years, living miles apart, we could still seemingly pick up right where we left off.

I’m better off as a person having known Pat Zang.

He did something good with his life that I hope to emulate. He lived and he loved well. I have no doubt about that.

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