A duck named Zippy. An impulsive wedding proposal. Immense
musical knowledge. What do they have in common? They’re three guys
named John who live in the South Valley
As regular readers know, we have this theory: Everyone has something noteworthy about them. We proved the theory earlier this month by picking a random name – Sara – and looking up three ladies by that name in the phone book. Each had a unique story. Today, we continue proving the theory with another name, again choosing people at random from the phone book.
Here are three very different stories about a guy named John.
John Clements of Gilroy
John Clements and his wife, Karin, are at a stalemate. He has a car she hates and she has a duck he hates, but if one goes, they both go.
“I have a 1965 Corvair, which is part of my midlife crisis,” John said, deadpan. “I’ve had that car longer than I’ve had my wife – at least 17 years. It’s not running because the engine needs work, but it is fully restored from the ground up. It’s painted red, with all new rubber bushings. I’ve put a lot of time and effort into that car, and I think my wife still feels she has to compete with that car.”
John, 40, freely admits that as part of his midlife crisis he wants to relive his youth through the Corvair, which he’s had since his 20s, but he is quick to confirm he definitely loves his wife more than his car. But as much as his wife wants him to get rid of the Corvair, John said he’s not ready to do so.
“I think I can pinpoint the exact day my wife started hating that car,” he said, smiling. “Back when we were dating, we went to an event at a nice hotel in San Francisco that we needed to dress up for. The (Corvair’s) engine was running at the time, so that’s the car we’d taken even though reverse wasn’t working. Even though they had valet, I insisted on parking the car myself. I found a spot, but I couldn’t reverse into it, so I made my wife get out wearing her cocktail dress and heals and push the car backwards while I steered it into the spot.”
Karin’s answer to the Corvair is Zippy the duck.
Zippy is a duck that lives in the Clements’ backyard. He spends his time eating and swimming in the Clements’ pool and trying to attack John.
“My wife tells me he’s too tame and can’t be returned to the wild,” John said in a resigned voice. “His wings aren’t clipped, so he can leave any time he wants, but he simply won’t. I have tried every which way to get Zippy to go. I have no love for Zippy.”
A few vet bills in the hundreds of dollars range have contributed to John’s lack of love for the duck. The fact that Zippy tries to attack John and will peck at his kids is another unendearing aspect of his personality.
“According to my wife, I’m not part of his brood, his flock,” John said, laughing. “But she’ll take Zippy to the park on a leash. So, I guess she puts up with my car, and I have to put up with Zippy the duck.”
John Nelson of San Benito County
John Nelson will tell you he’s a practical man, but most other people would probably consider some of his extremely practical actions wildly romantic.
Case in point: the way John proposed to and married his wife, Kaye.
“I’m pretty practical and I don’t like attention, so when I asked my then-girlfriend to marry me, it seemed like a smart idea to go to Tahoe,” John said. “We’d been dating about a year and a half, and we were at a pizza parlor or something and I just asked her, ‘Hey, do you want to get married? How about this weekend?'”
Kaye asked if she could think about it, and when he jokingly said not to wait too long or he may change his mind, they settled on eloping to Tahoe the following weekend rather than the coming weekend.
“It just seemed like the practical thing to do,” said John, 37, shrugging. “We didn’t want too much attention and we didn’t have a lot of money, so by going to Tahoe, we were able to get married on a $300 budget.”
John and Kaye spent well under $100 on matching silver wedding rings, and they both wore slacks and shirts to their wedding. They had never met the people who served as their witnesses. John said he wouldn’t change the way he and his wife were married even if he could.
“She intrigued me, and once I knew I wanted to marry her, I didn’t want to wait,” he explained. “I was tired of dating.”
The only thing John said he may change if he could was the way he proposed to Kaye – he may have picked a different location.
Neither Kaye nor John’s parents were pleased that they had eloped, and now that the Nelsons have two daughters – ages 14 and 16 – John said he could understand that. But he’s pleased with how his practical move to run off and elope about a week after proposing worked out: a 17-year-long marriage and counting.
John Garcia of Gilroy
John Garcia’s knowledge of music – particularly jazz and blues – is encyclopedic, and he’s played guitar with musical legends as BB King and Paul Simon. It all started with a guitar instrumental on a surf album by Dick Dale and the Deltones.
“I heard that music on the radio, and it nearly knocked me out,” he said. “I thought, ‘Hey, I really like the sound of that,’ and that’s when I decided I wanted to play the guitar. I was basically self taught for the first 10 years or so, but I eventually took classes at Gavilan and I learned a lot from just going to watch people and listening to recordings.”
As John’s taste in music morphed from the surf-era sound to rock ‘n’ roll and eventually to blues, jazz and R&B, he made every effort to go see the musicians who influenced his playing and compositions.
“Around the early 70s, all this music was merging into a hodge-podge of sounds that were just great,” said John, 58. “I got to go see all these diverse people in San Francisco at the Fillmore West. I used to go to these jam sessions and see a lot of people who weren’t famous yet, but who– if you were in the know–were really up and coming. You could go see Carlos Santana and his brother, George, you could see Janis Joplin, Buddy Miles, Harvey Mandel … it was really exciting.”
At those jam sessions, John was able to play along with the likes of BB King and George Santana. From there, Garcia made contacts that eventually led him to start traveling with bands that played for big-name artists such as Albert King, and playing in top-tier venues such as Carnegie Hall. In his spare time, John was playing in a number of bands, including Gary Smith Blues Band, The Three Colors and Heritage.
These days, John teaches music at Monterey Street Music Academy in Gilroy and School of the Blues in San Jose, and composes music and records albums. He received a Grammy nomination for a CD he did with John Lee Hooker Jr., has three CDs currently available online and at Music for a Song in the Gilroy Premium Outlets, and has a solo album on the way.
“Whatever you do, you have to enjoy doing it, or else it’s a bust,” John said. “You know, when the band’s cookin’, the audience is receptive and you’re feeling good, it’s magic.”
