This is too long and too personal. Skip it. Just some therapy for me.
"Life is the only art that we are required to practice without preparation,
and without being allowed the preliminary trials, the failures and botches,
that are essential for the training of a beginner."
-Lewis Mumford

We experience so much of our lives on a very superficial level. We sleep, eat, work, go to school, have a little fun, endure the everday aggravations of modern life and try to find some humor, comfort, pleasure, peace and understanding of what it all means. Many of us can count on one hand the number of significant events that have shaped our lives and truly made a difference; Something that happened which is so profound that the experience became planted, like a seed in our soul, thriving & growing under good conditions or lying dormant during bad.

As a young man I took up the sport of surfing because of peer pressure. I joined the "surfer clique" at school 'cause I wasn't a jock or a brain and the lives of my friends and I revolved around the surf culture of the time. Happy as I was, I realized early on I was not well suited to the sport. Large, uncoordinated, freckled and very fair-skinned with strawberry blond hair, I was also socially unsure and passive. Like everyone, I wore the Pendleton shirts, puka shells, Katins, zinc nose, plastered my VW bug with decals, grew my blond hair long and pissed off my parents. The word "KooK" was giving me a lot of credit. As much as I wanted to be part of the sport, I always felt inadequate compared to those of my peers who excelled at it.

In the early morning hours of a crisp Fall day, in 1969, I drove to the beach house of a good friend in West Gilgo Beach, Long Island, NY. We met in the predawn darkness and walked the short distance over the dune to the beach. I'd been riding a new 6'10" slot bottom for about a month, but I still had not mastered it's blazing speed and whiplash turning capability. We were greeted that morning with some remarkable surf conditions consisting of a fairly large swell that produced some hollow waves with 8 ft faces. The steady offshore breeze and unusual high tide combined to form the break way inside creating a thick-walled semi-shorebreak. In addition, a freaky backwash was wreaking havoc with the shape and form. As a result, maybe one wave of every set was certifiably makeable, and it wasn't until you were well into the wave that you actually could see what the backwash would do.

What we faced was a surfer's version of Russian Roulette. If you were lucky, you made the barrel. If not, the barrel made you (die)! My friend, Tomas and I paddled the short distance out to the lineup and waited for several sets to pass. Finally Tomas thought he had it wired and took off on a middle set wave. I lost sight if him until he came blasting out the top of the wave, high in the air just as the wave closed. He scrambled back outside just missing getting caught by another hammer. He had that "deer-in-the-headlights" look in his eyes. I thought, "How bad could it be?" and took off on a reasonable looking wall only to be seriously planted in the sand. Scrapes and cuts tattooed my back and arms and I did not like the feeling of being clueless about the waves.

Sitting out in the lineup, with only Tomas to talk to on that beautiful morning, I began to wonder as I watched several challenging waves go thundering by, "Is this what I really want to do?" I was unconvinced that surfing was really for me and felt I'd been easily influenced by my friends. I truly wasn't very good at it. Maybe it was a phase I was going through? Maybe I was really a biker?

Suddenly a long wall formed up outside and I sprinted out to meet it. I spin-turned my board at the last second and deep-stroked into the face. Standing quickly I faced a steep drop and a 50 foot long, 8 foot wall of verticle moving water. No way was I going to make this. For some reason I figured, "What the Hell!!" took the drop with my foot on the tailblock and my arm buried to the elbow, then stepped up to the speed zone on my board. "Might as well Eat it Big - it builds character." What a dope I was in those days.

As my board picked up speed, involuntarily I crouched down to keep my balance and prevent falling off. A curious wave of feeling enveloped me mixing fear, wonder, happiness, anticipation and finally serenity. I had put myself in harms way with absolutely no power over what would happen next. (Pretty masochistic, wouldn't you say?) I remember putting just two fingers in the wave face, marveling at the smoothness of it's surface and delighting in the little spray grooves my fingers were making. Time and space seemed to slow down, and compress (does this ALWAYS happen?) and I don't recall hearing anything as I looked and absorbed every detail of the ride.

I was certain I would get pounded but out of nowhere a backwash swell launched its power up into the wave face causing the lip to throw out far over my head like the wide roof on a Southern style porch. This would be my first authentic barrel ride and as the wave reconfigured itself due to the backwash, it lined up in a big, long, symmetrical (and makeable) wall. I exulted in the speed, and felt giddy about the smooth effortless glide which gave the illusion of being weightless. I was seized with happiness by the fact I was actually going to come spitting out the end. As I angled over what was left of the shoulder, I simply sat down on the tail of my board. The wave expired on the shore and my feet were touching the sand. I was left sitting in about 2 feet of water.

Amazed and shaken, I was also deeply moved by this experience. I picked up my board and walked up the beach. This was some serious magic for me and I could not longer concentrate on riding these difficult waves. For the next hour I sat and watched Tomas have fun (and get drilled).

Finally I knew. I could love this sport, whether I could do it well or not. The seed of stoke, in the form of a single ride, had been planted deep in my soul. For years after my stoke for the sport grew, eager to recreate that feeling on every ride. I rode bigger and better waves after that, but gradually I realized that episode was unique and would never be repeated. The feeling of that day was something I would never quite have again. It was the day I gave myself over freely to the sport, no questions.

There was a very dark period in my life. One of those black emotional wells we sometimes drop into and allow to envelope and dominate our lives. My spirit was broken with personal problems and I stopped surfing for years, replacing it with some very destructive behavior. Friends and family warned me my life was spiraling out of control.

One night, in the deepest, darkest, winter of this personal nightmare, I found myself unexplainably driving to the same beach at West Gilgo. At 3 am in the morning of a bitter February night, I walked the shore of that beach and willed myself to recall every nuance of that wonderful day years ago. The memory flooded back and brought me to the brink of emotional collapse as I gasped and cried and shouted my anger into the black night. My recollection helped to melt away my bitterness and I swore I would never let this personal beast consume me like it had. In a way, the tears of that night watered the seed that was dormant in my soul.

Soon after, my personal life turned around. I went out and bought a new board, took leave of absence from work and traveled to Florida for a soul searching surfari. When I returned I was not quite a new man, but one who was definately on the mend. Everyday I carry with me the feeling of hope that came with just one wave. It still breaths life into my interest for living and surfing. Yes, I am a surf lifer. Should that day come when I can't do it anymore, I will still go to the ocean and watch every wave, as every surfer does, and dream what it must be like to ride it.

"Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time
is for the good of that man at that time."
- Marcus Aurelius

Foondoggy