Surf yesterday :) :) :)...and overcoming stereotypes.

In this video you can hear the hard blowing wind, you can see the violent white water, and the swirling tidal stream, with the charging lip blown backwards off each wave.

On the backside of the wave, one can feel the sensation of riot hosing when the wind and spray pulverize each surfer with buckshot-like pellets of water. It’s exciting!!!

I stood in the parking lot when I got there trying to decide whether to surf or boogie board. Since I’m going to ski for the first time in 20 years at Jackson hole this feb with my kid, I realized I had to get my legs in shape, so out came the fins and the sponge, despite the ribbing that was a certainty when people who know me saw me. I get made fun of when I bodyboard. It’s perceived as a wimpy surf choice by surfers, a sensation not lost on me.

Its easy for me to understand how they think, because often I am one of them, looking down my nose at people who aren’t on a short board, silently criticizing those who choose other forms of ocean love... but my attitudes are changing slowly in and out of the water.

Here is the surfer’s hierarchy:

top dog= short boards
second= hybrids (between long and short board)
down the ladder= long boards (beginners/old ppl)
elder care = paddleboards
body boards= child care
knee boards= assisted living
​inflatable body boards= one foot in grave

When I body board, I do it for a reason... ITS FUN!!! I catch an insane amount of waves, ten times the number of waves as anyone else. The wind does not affect me at all, I’m not afraid (at all) at late takeoffs or gigantic monsters, I can power myself through the water no matter how violent with four limbs instead of two, alternating between tired arms and rested legs, and visa versa. I can power back to my spot with less effort, and my body is totally wrecked/ruined for a full week afterwards, sometimes not able to get out of bed the next day. Duck diving is twice as easy.

The thursday after this surf session which lasted three hours I took off from work, stayed home, and just hung around the house, incapable of moving, cleaning, doing dishes... went to bed at 6pm because of the toll it took on my body. Totally wasted shell of my former self- no good to anybody.

So even though bodyboarding is perceived as the “children’s choice “ in the surfer’s hierarchy here on the east coast, I challenge any short board session to surfing in comparing the attributes of each. After I surf I’m NEVER as tired afterwards as I am body boarding.

Here it is Sunday morning, and I can still feel the ache in my neck and the soreness in my thighs from the pounding I took Wednesday. Feels damn good!

As a result of the above, I am increasingly more tolerant of the choices others make in choosing equipment when they surf. To each his own, live and let live- blah blah blah.

Parallels (I’m always looking for a moral to each story) can be found in this experience to racism and intolerance in general, I believe.

It is usually not until one feels the scorn of others in any group or society directed at oneself (not a good feeling) that that person begins to feel empathy towards others in the similar situations.

My theory might possibly be of some benefit to the world if the current occupant of the residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC could experience it. That lesson might take several decades to penetrate his consciousness but eventually it might sink in. I’m not holding my breath for that to happen.

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