Memories of Inventor, Jim Piper
Inventor and solar activist James R. Piper, 59, who for years vehemently opposed the use of nuclear energy to generate electricity, died of a heart attack in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Sept. 19, 1989.
He was one of the first to install solar panels on his roof on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. A mechanical engineer and one-time USC football player, the former president of Catalyst Thermal Energy Systems Corp. in Irvine, CA was infatuated with anything that whirred, purred or whined.
The fastest I've ever traveled in a car was in Jim Piper's $80,000 renovated 1977 Ferrari GTB, which had a 4.4-liter V-12 engine. Twice last year, once on the streets of Torrance and again in Irvine, I innocently hopped into that red Ferrari monster. With the former Marine Corps fighter pilot behind the wheel, it was like breaking Mach I.
When it came to classic cars and airplanes, Piper was a child at heart. On the subject of energy (he held nine patents on energy-conserving, solar-re-lated hardware), he was not only an expert, but had testified on several occasions before Senate subcommittees in Washington on the subject he knew best.
On Sept. 17, he called me from Mexico, told me that life was great; that he had married a woman named Socorro Lapine and was living in Guadalajara. On Wednesday, I learned of his death from a memorial announcement in the mail. Only then did I realize that Piper had died only two days after our phone conversation.
I won't miss his Ferrari. But I will miss Jim Piper.
Boots LeBaron's Amazing Career
Following in his father's footsteps, a world class stuntman, Boots began acting at age three. He played the brother of the Dionne quintuplets, was the stunt double for Johnny Sheffield in the Tarzan series, and was one of the cave children in the 1940 film One Million B.C. with Victor Mature and Lon Chaney Jr. Boots graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1950, and was honorably discharged from the Air Force in 1954. He played football and majored in writing and communications while attending Los Angeles City College. Boots began working for the Los Angeles Times as a Copy Boy and was promoted to the Television and Radio Desk with Walter Aims, Cecil Smith and Jerry Hulse as his mentors. Read More