SOUTH PORTLAND – Jerome Cloutier liked to tell a story, and he had plenty of them.

Like when he rode his bicycle to California, or sailed across the Mediterranean or fell out of an airplane in mid-flight.

“From the time he was a kid he always did the most unusual things,” said his daughter Jonna Johnsen of Bowdoinham. “The man lived a very full and adventuresome life.”

“Red” Cloutier, a World War II veteran and longtime South Portland resident, died Friday at the age of 87. He leaves 10 children — five sons and five daughters — and lots of stories and newspaper clippings about his adventures.

As a boy growing up in Waterville, Mr. Cloutier and a friend made a diving helmet. One of them pumped air into the helmet while the other put it on his head and dove to the bottom of a river.

“He was the guy who went underwater,” said Margaret Karwowski of Topsham, a daughter. “Don’t dare him to do anything. That was when he would spring into action.”

Mr. Cloutier would later spend a lot of time diving with real scuba gear, one of the many ways he enjoyed the ocean along the Maine coast.

Karwowski remembers when she saw a notice posted at work about a sailing vessel, the HMS Bounty, looking for a crew to go from Malta to England. “I told my dad about it and he said, ‘I’m going!’” she said.

He was 66 at the time, but had worked many years as a lineman for the New England Telephone Co. and Verizon and had no trouble climbing the rigging of the tall ship.

When he was 63, Mr. Cloutier rode his bicycle solo across the country. He made it to the West Coast in 55 days.

He also biked across France and Canada’s Gaspe Peninsula. And for many years he rode his bike around town, still managing to make it exciting from time to time.

“He was hit three times in South Portland on his bike over the years and never once went to the hospital,” Karwowski said. Even when his bike was destroyed and he was thrown into traffic, “he just would pop up.”

Mr. Cloutier’s knack for adventure earned him some publicity in 1943 when he was in training for the U.S. Army Flight Corps in Massachusetts.

He was late to catch the flight and jumped into the back seat of the open cockpit plane. He apparently didn’t have time to strap in or to properly adjust his parachute.

“When the instructor (rolled) the plane over, my father fell out,” Karwowski said. “And when he went to grab his rip cord, he couldn’t find it.”

“So he’s free falling,” said Jonna Johnsen. “He got his chute open just before he hit the tree tops, and he got caught in a tree. They had to come and cut him down.”

Johnsen, Mr. Cloutier’s first child, was born the following day.

For his 80th birthday, Mr. Cloutier’s family arranged for him to fly in the same type of airplane he flew in the Army. He sat up front and took the controls during the flight, although he wasn’t allowed to try any stunts.

“Dad wanted to do a loop,” Johnsen said. “He hopped into that plane at 80 years old like he had been doing it every day of his life.”

Mr. Cloutier shared his sense of excitement and adventure with his children, too.

He would take the family to the ocean, but not to sit on the sand. They would walk across the breakwater at low tide to get to Richmond Island off Cape Elizabeth, or stand on the rocks at Two Lights State Park to watch waves crash after a hurricane.

“When it was foggy, he would take (us) out to Two Lights and stand in front of the foghorn and wait for the blast,” said Paula Adams, a daughter who lives in Ocala, Fla.

When he turned 87 last summer, Mr. Cloutier would joke that he was “87 on my way to heaven.”

Despite not feeling well about a week before he died, Mr. Cloutier decided to drive to the grocery store. He fell during the outing and went to the hospital, where they found cancer in his liver and his lungs, Karwowski said.

When he got to the hospital, “they said, ‘Do you know where you are?’ And he said, ‘I’m on my way to heaven,’” Karwowski said. “That was Dad.”

Staff Writer John Richardson can be contacted at 791-6324 or at:

jrichardson@mainetoday.com