Jon Alan Christiansen

From the very beginning Jon did things that created memories. It was May and he was not due to be born until July, but his mother’s water broke and his Dad got a speeding ticket while trying to rush home. Then his mother had to spend four weeks lying on her back in bed waiting for him to cook a little more before delivering him. Even after his birth he had to stay at the Long Beach Hospital while his mother was released to come home. Then after he did come home we had to go into Long Beach to get compatible water for his formula.

Most Kids spend their first 7 years at the same school. Jon started at Eastwood School but due to overcrowding was transferred to Boos School in the second grade and had to make new friends.

About this time Jon joined the cub scouts and as was the tradition back then his mother became a den mother.

After Boos, Jon start at Stacy Middle School where he was in the choir and earned his first trophy for singing.

One day Jon came home and told us he wanted to join Karate with his best friend. The style was Kenpo and the studio was Red Dragon. We thought he would be good for him to learn coordination even if he did not stick with for very long.

Jon attended Westminster High School. Here he started to show his independence. One teacher lost Jon’s homework paper and marked Jon down for it. Next thing we know we get a message from the school that Jon had stopped turning in home work. When asked he said ,why turn it in if the teacher was just going to lose it ? After a short discussion of who would suffer more Jon started turning his homework in to the teacher.

By now Jon was progressing though his Karate belts from white to the various colors. His friend he joined with had dropped out but Jon had found his true love and it was Karate. He enjoyed going to the various local tournaments and got very good in both style and fighting.

About this time the Red Dragon Studio started going to Las Vegas to compete in regional tournaments. Because of the ages of the students we all stayed at Circus Circus . The kids could play at the Arcade when not actually competing in their age groups. The Arcade was on a second floor open in the middle. The slots could be seen from the rail. Jon and his friends would point at a slot and tell me to play it. I thought this would be a good time to show them you lose money when you gamble. But it did not work out that way. I keep winning on their slots and after a while would go up and turn the winning quarters over to them to use in the Arcade.

My next lesson in the sins of Gambling came when Jon and his brother Kevin wanted to go to the local quarter horse track and bet. Again my plan failed because again they started winning on the bets they had me to place for them.

Every year the national Karate Tournament is held in Long Beach and the Red Dragon Studio would always attend with a good group of Students. In 1983 Jon at the age of 17 was in a match to determine who would fight the next day on stage for the championship in his grouping. He lost but got the third place trophy in that year’s National Tournament.

After High school Jon attended California State University of Fullerton. He graduated in five years with a degree in Computer Science and Math with honors. It was now time to interview for a job. He had many interviews but one really appealed to him and it was a job at Toyota data Systems.

Toyota decided Jon was a good fit and made him an offer to join them as a trainee to applications. It was in applications that Toyota decided he was good enough to join the operating systems group. After several years as an operating systems programmer again Toyota decided it was time to promote Jon and he became a manager in systems programming.

Jon was a lover of sports. He and his dad would go to the Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix each year and continued going after they replaced Grand Prix cars with Indy cars. Then when they started racing NASCAR in Fontana, he and his dad started going there.

While the Lakers were at Forum Jon and his brother Kevin got season ticket to the games. If Kevin could not make a game Jon always had a friend ( usually a girl ) to take Kevin’s place at a game.

Jon was a Rams fan while they were in Anaheim but became a San Diego Charger season ticket holder when the Rams moved out of town.

Jon loved to run races at all distance. He finished two Los Angeles Marathons and ran countless 5 and 10 kilometer races. His first marathon was run in unbelievable heat where they ran out of water on the course. His dad met him at the 20 mile mark and would go into stores along the way to get him water. The second marathon was just the opposite in that it rained during the race.

Jon also loved tennis and would play on Saturdays with his dad and brother Kevin. But Kevin was the best the three and we played something called Australian doubles where Jon and dad on one side of the net and Kevin alone on the other side. And Kevin always won.

If any one word defined Jon it was ‘Friend’. To know Jon was to instantly be his friend and there was no limit to what he would do for you. If you know Jon I know you agree with me.

Our church would put on skits at the various holidays. Jon never had to volunteer, he knew they would ask him to take a major part in every skit. And boy could he ham up his part so it was funny. Sometimes he would drag his dad into it if they were short a body.

He was active in serving his church on their council and in the various activities. He would do the cooking at BBQ or set up and take down structures at the activities. And he was involved in many of the church preschool activities.

Jon taught Karate at two different YMCA’s to children and young adults. For that he received $1 because he was not allowed to do it for free.

Jon loved history and was really good at a game called trivial pursuit. Teams met on Wednesday night and competed against each other by answering trivia questions. Sometimes he would find some of the question hard and would bring them home to test his mother who was very good also at it.

Jon loved to go backpacking into the various national parks. These adventures required hiking in over several days. Then after it was over the routine was to stop and rent a room in Las Vegas , take showers and take in a show before returning home.

He also liked trying something new. It was a year or two before he told his mother he had gone bungee jumping on one of his trips.

Jon sometimes travel with his family in their RV and sometimes he flew back if time was short. He was loved by all and the family get together where there was a BBQ Jon would take over the cooking job from the host so they could enjoy the socializing.

Arrangements under the direction of Westminster Memorial Park, 14801 Beach Blvd. Westminster, CA 92683. (714) 893-2421

Arrangements under the direction of Westminster Memorial Park, 14801 Beach Blvd. Westminster, CA 92683. (714) 893-2421