Riders on the storm -- Norman Ollestad's escape from tragedy

In the grand tradition of survival stories like Alive and Touching The Void comes Norman Ollestad's adrenaline-charged memoir, Crazy for the Storm. The book is a celebration of Ollestad's father, a larger-than-life personality who was both a trial lawyer once employed by Bobby Kennedy and an extreme-sports junkie who lived for surfing and skiing.

In 1979, a small private plane carrying Norman, along with his father and his father's girlfriend, Sandra, crashed into the face of the San Gabriel Mountains. Ollestad Sr. was killed instantly, as was the pilot; Sandra was mortally wounded. Suddenly, it was up to 11-year-old Norman to use the skills he'd learned during an unconventional childhood to fight his way toward safety.

Read Ollestad's harrowing story, after the jump.

An Uninhibited Life

Norman Ollestad grew up in the hippie-friendly, surf-crazed neighbourhood of Topanga Canyon, in California, USA. (A certain charming young man named Charles Manson used to frequent the area back in the '60s.) Though his parents were divorced, Norman's father lived just across the street and was an active part of his son's life.

"He would surf in the mornings," Ollestad explains, describing the way his dad drove him to school. "He picked me up in his little '56 Porsche and his hair still had beads of water on it. He's brushing his teeth in the car. All the mothers would be dropping off their kids; here my dad rolls up, no shirt, brushing his teeth. Seeing the contrast between him, his attitude, his big smile, to the other people -- more buttoned-down, more inhibited -- I noticed that." And Norman's father wanted to make sure that his young son got a taste for the ocean himself, which sometimes meant strapping the 1-year-old boy to his back when he went out to hit the waves.

At the same time, Norman Sr. was no California slacker. He was a highly successful trial lawyer -- albeit one with a taste for bow ties and unconventional suits. Aside from working for Kennedy he was once employed by the FBI, later writing a book ("Inside the FBI") that attacked the agency and J. Edgar Hoover's leadership. "He didn't believe that you only have one thing -- he thought you could do everything," Norman says. "He just had a general, beautiful, uninhibited approach to life."