Charles Henry Buckingham

Charles (Chuck) Buckingham was born on September 29, 1940 in La Vale, a suburb of Cumberland Maryland to Henry and Elizabeth Buckingham. Charlie, as he was called as a child and by close family and friends throughout his life, was a fun and adventurous boy who enjoyed outdoor activities more than anything. Local to his childhood home, there was a forest where he built forts, caught snapping turtles, and lived Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer type of adventures. Charlie also enjoyed playing sports, especially baseball and basketball, which he made both varsity teams in high school. Charlie was also active as a Boy Scout in his youth and his love for the outdoors grew exponentially as he grew up. As a teen, he traveled in 1955 and 1956 during the summer to Maine with his father to fish for trophy brook trout and to camp. He told stories of nearly being capsized in his canoe by a bull moose while he was on a lake there. From 1957 to 1960, he and his father traveled to Minnesota, Ontario, and later to Montana, where he worked as part of a forest service surveying team in the mountains above Superior, Montana. In all of these trips he and his father had incredible adventures in remote and wild places that his father had access to because of his position as the head of the Department of Forestry in Maryland. Among his adventures included a near hand to paw fight with a black bear in Montana after the bear was found breaking into the cabins of the remote surveying camp. Charlie backed up his father with a large cast-iron frying pan, a formidable weapon, after the bear turned and charged his father. Luckily, the camp dogs and a rifle turned the fight in their favor and the bear turned tail within 10 feet of them. He told of this and many other amazing adventure stories he experienced during these teen and college years. He did things most people have never experienced. These stories are treasured favorites of his children and grandchildren, which he rehashed over countless campfires with a tin cup of whiskey.

After his graduation from Brooklyn Park High School in 1958, Charlie went on to study at the University of Maine, where he made the freshman basketball team and the track team. Although he loved Maine for its amazing outdoor places and fishing, he transferred in 1959 to the University of Maryland. Besides being closer to his home, Maryland also had an aeronautical engineering program that he enrolled in. In his high school yearbook, Charlie had said his ambition was, “To design the first rocket to the moon.” This was his way to make that goal a possibility. Besides rigorous studies, he remained active in basketball, winning an intramural championship in 1962. He also continued his adventures, including traveling to The World’s Fair in Seattle that year.

After graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in aeronautical engineering, he was offered a job in the summer of 1963 as an engineer with Douglas Aircraft Company in California, where he resided the rest of his life. He loved living in Southern California in the early 1960’s. The beaches were amazing and the Los Angeles area was a lot of fun for a young person. He started snow skiing and made trips to Mammoth and June Mountains after work on Friday nights with work buddies. He had amazing stories of the area and skiing so long ago. He also made trips to Aspen and became an avid skier for a while. In the spring of 1964 he made his first trip to Crowley Lake in the Eastern Sierra Nevada and began a lifelong love affair with the Mammoth Lakes area as a whole but in particular with Crowley lake. Through the years ahead, and particularly later in his life, he spent many weeks every year float-tubing Crowley Lake in pursuit of the large brown, cutthroat, and rainbow trout that live there. This was his passion.

California in the early 1960’s was also ground zero for hot rod cars. Chuck (as he was called as an adult) bought his beloved 1965 Oldsmobile 442 and never stopped talking about it even years after he had to sell it with a young family. He even had a framed artist rendition in his office-study area up until his passing.

On a Friday night in early 1967, he met Tara Smith at The Red Lion in Reseda. They danced to The Beatles song, “Strawberry Fields” when the band took a break and the DJ took over. That Sunday evening they went on their first date. Chuck made an impression with his new Oldsmobile 442 when he picked her up, so much so that her younger sister, who was checking out the window when he drove up said, “he’s cute and he has a nice car!” So began a lifelong love together, married nearly 56 years. Together they had 5 children, including a pair of twins. Steve was born in May, 1968. Next was Jennifer and Jeff, then Amanda and finally Mike in 1979. While Chuck was preceded in death by his oldest son, Steve, he is survived by his wife Tara and his other children as well as his sister, Helen. Additionally, he has 11 grandchildren, three of which were recently married. He has an amazing family legacy.

Chuck worked for Douglas Aircraft, which later was called McDonnel Douglas, and finally merged with Boeing. He was quite literally a “rocket scientist”, specializing in strength analysis as an aerospace engineer. Many of the major space exploration accomplishments the United States enjoyed he contributed to. Programs such as the Space Shuttle, Atlas, Titan and Delta rocket programs through the heyday of space advancement in the 1960’s through the early 2000’s. In the 1980’s in particular, he traveled to Cape Canaveral Florida, and Huntsville Alabama, as well as Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California for dozens of rocket launches. His expertise on the strength and integrity of the solid rocket fuel booster engines was imperative for mission control. He retired in 2005 after 42 years with the company. He was exceptionally well liked and respected by his coworkers.

A devoted husband and father of 5 kids, Chuck dedicated his life to the care and wellbeing of his family. Never one to focus on himself, he selflessly poured his time into his family. While raising 5 kids, attending school functions and sports games he still found time to build a van conversion during the original van conversion era of the 1970’s. Complete with porthole windows, shag carpet, a sofa bed and Budweiser curtains, he built the venerable “family truckster” that shuttled the family all over for many years, including a cross-country trip and high school dances. In his other spare time he read the building codes and drafted his own plans for a major room addition and remodel of the family home. Besides making the plans, he did much of the manual labor learning everything from framing to finish carpentry. He was a “MacGyver” extraordinaire with the ability to fix nearly anything including disabled vehicles with things like soup cans and duct tape. He coached baseball and basketball, attended games of all kinds for his kid’s sports. He attended dance recitals and cheer competitions. He was an ever-present figure at his kid’s events. His children and now grandchildren are the benefactors of his love for the mountains. We made countless camping and backpacking trips to the Sierra Nevada Mountains every summer. In an act of either devotion or insanity, he would take all 5 kids (ages 6-17) backpacking by himself. Either way, he instilled a love of the mountains and wilderness in his kids that stands the test of time.

After retirement, Chuck and Tara bought a motorhome and traveled throughout the United States and Canada, visiting 48 states. Over an 8 year period, from Alaska to the Florida keys, from Banff to the eastern Seaboard, they would travel for months at a time. During this time he was able to refocus his love for fly fishing for trout. Many of their travels took them to places like Alaska and Montana with incredible fishing he enjoyed. He was living his best life. Up until his late 70’s he would spend weeks at a time camping alone in Mammoth Lakes in order to be able to concentrate on his love for fishing Crowley Lake during the fall. He and Tara also enjoyed going on cruises to Hawaii and Mexico several times. A little known fact about him was his incredible artistic ability. He learned to widdle wood, and carved some incredible things. For each of his kids, he carved a trout that represented a fish they had caught during one of the trips they made to the Sierra. These are incredible replicas, hand carved and hand painted and they look straight up real. Each is different from the next. He also carved many of his grandkids a wooden walking stick that had a hand carved and painted figure on the top of their choice. From dolphins to other animals they liked. He was truly an artist.

After over 40 years living in Huntington Beach, Chuck and Tara moved to Encinitas, California. They built onto Amanda’s home a secondary dwelling and he once again had a hand in the design. They enjoyed the many great beaches and dining options the area has. Despite age and chronic conditions doing their best to trip him up, Chuck was still very active, walking 7,000 steps a day. He had just been in Colorado for his Granddaughter’s wedding where he had a great time. He was able to visit with his whole family including his older sister, whom he hadn’t seen in 7 years. He loved his family more than anything and would drop whatever he was doing to hang out or jump in the pool with his grandchildren or have a beer on the patio. He had a great laugh and was funny with his wit and dad jokes. Chuck had a love for reading, whiskey, and Hawaiian shirts, places like San Elijo and Paso Robles, and Crescent City. He loved to dance. He lived a full and meaningful life right up until the end. “The man is a success who has lived well, loved much, and laughed often” - Robert Louis Stevenson. By this measure alone, Chuck lived the fullest of life and will be deeply missed and loved.

In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to the Steve Buckingham Memorial Scholarship for the Edison High School Model United Nations program. Checks can be made to “Edison MUN” and mailed to Edison High School, 21400 Magnolia Street, Huntington Beach California 92646 or Venmo to “@MUNEdisonPayments” and be sure to mention in the notes for the scholarship. Thank you.