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Iron Chef & Just A Short Walk


Just a Short Walk

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SADLY LIFE CHANGES - By "Just A Short Walk"

(History)

In the Early Days of Geocaching there were about 3 or 4 Geocaches around Monterey and a Few around Santa Cruz.

 

Iron Chef had placed a Cache and I drove up to try to find it, As I was Heading back after finding the Cache a Very young Iron Chef sees me on the trail and comes over and says Hi.

Well that was the Start of something wonderful.

 

Me? I am "Just a Short Walk" Started playing on 06/28/2001, Iron Chef and I became the best of Friends and decided that we needed to place some caches around Monterey And South, our motto was place a Cache and they will Come. SO WE DID! We bought HUNDREDS of AMMO Cans, Placed many Caches and later this thing called a travel bug came out. So we started replacing our traveling caches, ( That is a geocache that was a Mini Cache you moved from Cache to Cache.

 

During that time I was having a rough time with a collapsed disk in my back due to a 35 foot fall. My Doctor told me to gradually walk uphills as your bent over going up but your forced to Stand Straight when you decline...

Well Matthew ( Iron Chef ) took me under his wing and was there anytime I wanted to go Hike with him, I was the slow poke and he was waiting right there in case I had issues.

 

You will Notice for that reason many of the JUST a Short Walk Caches are up hills, Thus the reason.

 

IRON CHEF and myself got MAny many Caches placed and more and more people started to come. The biggest influx when the Monterey Herald did a feature about geocaching with a Reporter Iron Chef and me. Great Article and we started seeing more people getting involved.

 

Back then there were few Mini Caches and Lots of big Ammo Cans Around..

 

(Life Changes)

So after a few years iron Chef became as much as my Family as a outsider could, Having Dinners, sleeping over , camping, Besides he was the same age as my daughter.

As Life went on he graduated Santa Cruz, and moved off to the San diego area working on his first and then Second PHD

 

Needless to say my back was worsening and I took a early retirement and moved North,, as time went on Iron Chef and me got separated, his email changed, and his Cell ( before porting of numbers).

 

Iron Chef and I sent mail now and then and then it stopped as he moved again.. I ended up in a bad Divorce and ended up moving all around for a few years and I totally Lost Iron Chef.

 

For several years i tried to connect when I would look through my photos, I left messages here with no luck. Every now and then I would use the internet and try to search and again no luck.

 

(Last Night)

 

last night I was searching for him again, and VERY SADLY I found a a memorial Page for Iron Chef's real name ( http://www.santacruzrandonneurs.org/MatthewRIP.pdf ) and I read in Disbelief how tragic this was... I could not hold back the tears, it was like loosing my own Son... Needless to say the hardest part was knowing we got seperated from just being too busy and caught up in life and forget to send someone your contact info... So Sad... ( have Tears in my eyes as I type this) Ironically it was found on EXACTLY on the 2 year anniversary of his death.

 

So here is a couple links I have found about Iron Chef

 

https://www.facebook.com/remembermatthewoneill

 

http://www.changealanesavealife.com/

 

(Today)

Sadly my Geocaching days are very Limited. I am handicapped, Have a very hard time walking and use a cane all the time....

 

I check in here every now and then but seldom leave anything here...

 

I am so pleased to see many of those original Caches are Still there some 15 plus years later keeping people filled with fun.

 

The World lost a wonderful young man two years ago and I will never forget what he did for me and my Life... You can't take those memories away I have hundreds of photos where Iron Chef and I were out for the Hike and Camping...

 

Rest in Peace my Friend.. You always have been missed.... I still have a few caches out there in your memory and they are still collecting spoons....

 

Sheds Several Tears for you tonight.. Had to come onto the forum and post my thoughts of you to share...

 

THANKS FOR ALL YOU HAVE DONE IN MY LIFE....

 

Don Younker AKA "Just A Short Walk"

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Great to hear from you Don! I have one of Matthew's caches on my Watchlist, and that is how I found out about his accident and passing:

 

Iron Chef Mom's log entry

 

Sadly, it looks like the cache is missing (...again). A very popular stop along Hwy 1, and not an easy place to keep a cache in place. Unfortunately, with all the State Parks and Los Padres National Forest closed at this time, due to the Sobranes Fire, it may be awhile to get down that way to check on things. I suspect the nearby Bohemiam Rhapsody and Ladybug Lookout, both near the start of the fire, were more than likely destroyed.

 

Some great memories.

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Great to hear from you Don! I have one of Matthew's caches on my Watchlist, and that is how I found out about his accident and passing:

 

Iron Chef Mom's log entry

 

Sadly, it looks like the cache is missing (...again). A very popular stop along Hwy 1, and not an easy place to keep a cache in place. Unfortunately, with all the State Parks and Los Padres National Forest closed at this time, due to the Sobranes Fire, it may be awhile to get down that way to check on things. I suspect the nearby Bohemiam Rhapsody and Ladybug Lookout, both near the start of the fire, were more than likely destroyed.

 

Some great memories.

 

Thanks TouchStone

 

I am Disabled now and walk with a cane, I try to walk around but can hardly make a mile. I use a cane all the time now.

For the longest time I did not Geocache at all, ( Disabilities and had a bad time in Life ) i am starting to pickup a few SIMPLE urban caches and hope to get back into doing a bit more easy caches. I have listed most all my Geocaches up for Adoption if you care to help out..

 

I even turned on the premium account in hopes of geocaching a bit more. i am in Salt lake City Utah now.

 

here is a link to a great writeup about I.C.

http://www.santacruzrandonneurs.org/MatthewRIP.pdf

 

Also

https://www.facebook.com/remembermatthewoneill/

Edited by Just a Short Walk
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Wow ... I am in tears to read the story of Matthew (Iron Chef) from the perspective of Don (Just A Short Walk). Life has such an ironic way of getting our attention.

 

I arrived "here" while trying to discover a way to reach Just a Short Walk about adopting his caches. I am not sure if he is seeing the email I have sent. Now the unanswered questions about this long-time member with old time hides have somewhat been answered. There is a reason I looked at one of those old caches yesterday, and explored.

 

Just this week I published a tribute cache to oldBadger. It actually became a tribute to the value of friendships that endure. oldBadger's hides are being maintained by a long-time friend ... a 50 year friendship. The caches are all unique and very worthy of remaining active to show how creative caching (hides) can be done.

 

My purpose in wanting to help out by adopting some of the caches Just A Short Walk currently owns is because they are so old, and have withstood the tests of time over and over. That is a great tribute, all by itself, to the historical value of those hides.

 

We all face life-changes that take us away from friends and activities we enjoy ... usually at a time when we really need something to "enjoy". If it wasn't for friends it would be so easy to give up. If it wasn't for geocaching the best friends I have would never have found their way into my life. In my recent oldBadger tribute cache I also expressed, as a holiday wish, the following (keep in mind oB named his caches "tiny"Something).

 

The cache name is tiny Boulders * oldBadger style * TBXchange

 

On the cache page I say: May the Challenges you face in life be as tiny boulders to overcome. May the Life you Live include, at your side, those people who Rock Your World.

 

Yes .... I am rocked to read the story of the friendship of Iron Chef and Just A Short Walk. My world is Rocked today by the open sharing of heart-felt grief, but more important ... the honest love shared by these friends. Yes, RIP IC ... and hang in there JASW.

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Not to diminish your tribute to Iron Chef I just want to say that JASW caches were very important to us back in 2002, 3 an 4 when there were not so many caches around. We travel the I-5 corridor and roam around the Mojave desert a lot and you always gave us something to look forward to. We never met you but you were a regular feature for us during those first years.

 

For your "I-Hate I-5" caches where you wanted one coin in the container and people always left them stuffed so full you could hardly close them I would clean them out and leave one new quarter (as well as replacing logs and drying out the tins). I would then give all the proceeds to the Washington State Geocachers Association in addition to my annual dues. It amounted to about $10 per year supplemented from coins from a few other caches.

 

I should also say that I LOVE I-5 from Olympia to LA and never get tired of driving it (the rural sections) especially the Central Valley and the high passes on each end. Oregon is fun too. Saying I Hate I-5 back then always meant something good.

 

Thanks for your early work supplying caches and fun for this game.

 

Ed

Team Sagefox

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