The Sugar Alpha Chronicles is a two-book tale about the life and times, and crimes and adventures, of my father, Roger Nelson. It is a true and largely factual story, the original draft of which was written by my father not long after the epic skydiving adventures and audacious drug smuggling escapades chronicled therein. My father kept a meticulous log of events, so he was able to accurately recount them when needed. Of course, he also had access to the equally meticulous law enforcement records and court transcripts that resulted in the prison term he served effectively of what he once called “pioneering outside the sport” of parachuting, the prison term during which most of the Sugar Alpha Chronicles were written.
My father was released from prison in December 1992 after four and a half years behind bars. He then printed the original manuscript and let many of his friends read his story. He always knew how to captivate an audience with his stories, but the written manuscript still needed serious editing. Unfortunately for the manuscript (though not the sport of parachuting), my dad’s focus was on more on the future than the past, so he devoted his energy and attention to bigger parachuting projects and adventures and his incredible story sat on a shelf collecting dust.
Then my dad died in a 2003 skydiving accident, perhaps the last way anyone who knew him expected him to pass away, given his knowledge, experience and approach to the sport. His death reminded everyone that, no matter how good you are, how careful you are, danger still lurks every time you fly in the sky and one day you may meet your end there even if you’re doing everything right.
My dad also died without completing Sugar Alpha, so the dust got thicker as our family sorted through the aftermath of his death and all the loose ends that come with such an event, no matter how well organized (or not) are the affairs of the departed.
In fact, three years passed before we even thought about Sugar Alpha again. That was when I decided to take a break from full-time skydiving to do some soul searching and self seeking—and when all family fingers suddenly pointed at me to finish the book since I would now have so much free time.
Those fingers pointed at me to move forward with the project because my immediate family and a few friends were privy to my mostly covert life as a writer. I’d been writing since I was 12 and counted among my works several dozen short stories, a number of articles for skydiving magazines, and a journal that spanned almost two decades.
Begrudgingly, I agreed to do it because I knew it was a story that needed to be told, but I also knew it would take my soul searching and self seeking in a different direction. There was a whole new world lurking in those pages and I knew I had to be ready for it.
As a child, I knew only that my dad was away from home a lot, “working” for long periods of time, that he often came and went at night, that he regularly left and returned abruptly. I was in the first grade when the police first started knocking on our door, when they started calling the house, when men without uniforms but with badges would visit. Soon after these visits started, my pre-school age brother started asking: “Are they here to take Dad away?”
I wondered about that myself, and I remember one day when the police pulled us over and my dad very sternly warned my brother and me not to say anything, no matter what.
“No matter what,” he said.” If they ask you anything, say, ‘I want to speak to a lawyer,’ then we’ll talk about it later.” I was about eight, so of course I didn’t know what the truth was even if they had asked, but I know now that my dad was trying to protect us from the trauma of being questioned by the police. At the time, however, it aroused my suspicion that either the cops were very bad people or my father himself had done something bad.
Another lesson my father taught us was, “It’s better to get caught by me than by the cops.” I understood that better when I was in my teens and being my father’s daughter in certain ways I won’t further detail here.
I also remember that, about the time I turned 12, my dad had an adult conversation with me and told me that he might have to go away for a long time. By then, I’d heard rumors that my dad had done illegal things. I assumed it was probably drugs, but, as my mother had done when I was younger, I wasn’t interested in being a detective. It always seemed better to enjoy him for what he was when he was with us, and to willfully know nothing about what he did when he was away.
That’s why even holding Sugar Alpha in my hands was hard—and why even after I picked up the manuscript it took me 18 months to actually open it and read the first page: Reading it meant learning the whole truth about his life and his outlaw ways, about the good things he did as well as the illegal things that many people would and still do consider to be bad—very bad. It meant I would discover why he was gone so much during my childhood—and what he did when he was gone. It meant I would have to accept the fact that his family life—and that I myself—was not his first priority, even though he did the best he could when he was around.
Somehow, I sorted through the discomfort and resentment that grew in me as I read, even though it sometimes was so intense that the tears flowed. And don’t misunderstand; the discomfort wasn’t always from learning about his smuggling, about his lawbreaking, or about his sometimes ruthless behavior. No, sometimes it was from pride and admiration—the way he led his team to the Nationals, how he backed one teammate all the way to the podium, how he outfoxed the authorities so many times, how he treated his fellow smugglers and especially how he treated the people of Belize.
You’ll get to know him too in The Sugar Alpha Chronicles, along with the rest of my family. You’ll see how the two generations before me become parachutists, and get a deeper look into part of the drug smuggling world of the early 1980s as well as my dad’s efforts to organize the biggest skydiving events of the time, from wild “Freak Brother” conventions to buttoned-down world records recognized by international sport organizations. And you’ll find out how torn my father was between the clandestine, money-fueled and adrenalin-charged world of drug smuggling—and the sweetness and low-key routine of family life.
I was torn too as I read it, and as I added my own research and writing to the narrative, I felt the thrill of his adventures: flying around the world for his outlaw lifestyle, managing a successful skydiving business as well as being an internationally respected pioneer in the sport, and struggling to be a family man. Going through it all made me feel compassion for him and helped me to understand him better because I truly am my father’s daughter; I too love jet-setting for skydiving events and just traveling to exotic countries (legally, of course, and under the real name on my own passport). He was a difficult man to love, but he was an innovator, a pioneer, determined to seek and achieve great things, all while maintaining his integrity and demanding nothing less than excellence from himself and everyone around him. So no matter how hard it was to understand him, Roger Nelson was an amazing man—and I am proud beyond words to say that he was my dad.