CHACONZONE

This is Jack.

Back to him in a moment.

When I was a kid there were two televisions in our house: one in my parents’ room, and one in the family room. While the TV in my parents’ master wasn’t off limits, I seldom watched anything in there. In fact, the only show I recall watching in their room was Wild Wild West with Robert Conrad. And that was because I pretended the pillows on their bed were bad guys, and I would punch, kick, and throw them around like rag dolls.

The shows and programs I remember most as a young child were Elvis movies, NBA games, and news. A lot of news! I probably watched more news than the average kid. Of course, it wasn’t by choice. I lived in a house consumed by news. Because of that, I got to know some of my dad’s colleagues through the screen. One of my favorite people is the person pictured here:

Jack Hanson.

During my early childhood, he was the weatherman at KGO. He was charming, gracious, affable, friendly, smart, and talented. I met him a couple of times; mostly though, I saw him on TV.

There is more to his bio than I’ll include here, but I’ll share this: Jack was a native San Franciscan, a San Francisco State graduate, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, and he worked at several TV stations over a 50+ year career.

Longtime viewers will remember some of his trademarks, specifically his cartoon illustrations, which he shared as part of his weather report. According to ABC-7, Jack used to draw a “shivering dog” on the weather map to indicate the coldest part of the country.

What I remember, are other illustrations, specifically one that he drew for me when I had the pleasure of meeting him for the first time. It was a cartoon of a guy lounging on a pool deck with his feet in the water. Poking out of the water was a shark’s fin.

I kept the drawing for years.

While I am also an artist, I’ve never considered myself a cartoonist. Still, I have drawn hundreds of scenes — replete with a shark fin sticking out of the water — with the character also pictured here on a paper bag. He is a bit ubiquitous: I draw him on the dry-erase board in my classroom every single day; I put him on thank you cards, birthday cards, and in the yearbooks I sign at the end of every school year. He also appears on the bags of prizes I give to my students from time to time.

I developed the character during art class in high school. My art teacher, who was also my wrestling coach, had illustrated a scene with a bunch of characters, which I drew inspiration from. And although the character was inspired by my coach, the “shark” scene — which dates back 45 years — came from Jack.

The simple and kind gesture I received from him so many years ago, turned out to be as timeless as he was.

Jack Hanson passed away last month at the age of 91.