Yes, it is my second White Stage wetsuit. My aunt, Gracie Conklin, worked for White Stag, and I got my first two wetsuits from White Stag. My first White Stag wetsuit can be seen in the above photo, which was on New Year's Day, probably 1962. I am with my high school sweetheart, Elaine McGinnis, and we had just floated down the Willamette River from Eola Bend to Salem, and were under the bridge at Salem when this photo was taken of two thoroughly chilled young people in wetsuits. Note that I'm already out-growing that wetsuit. And, yes, those are Duck Feet fins that are on the ground after our bobbing swim downstream.
The second photo shows the second White Stag wetsuit, and was taken with Bob LeBar, who I believe owned a sporting goods/dive shop in Salem at the time. Note that I'm wearing three-finger mits, as we had just gotten out of the water, and a steel 80 cubic foot tank with an AMF Voit Forty-Fathom regulator (Voit's replica of the original USD Calypso).
We had just shot two wolf eels (which are actually fish, due to them having pectoral fins), a ling cod and some rock fish at Yaquina Bay, Newport, Oregon. I think I got the big fat one, and it was so ugly that my family didn't want to eat it, so I planted it in Mom's garden. The next year, she grew rhubarb over that decayed wolf eel, and it had six-foot leaves.
SeaRat
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