and California since my first visit in 1962 when I was kicked out of the twelfth grade.
I started surfing in 1959. Living in Southern California, it seemed like the thing to do. Attending Santa Monica High, I was only about four blocks from the beach, so my surfboard resided in the back of my 1955 Ford station wagon at all times. Surfing at lunchtime or before school became a daily routine.
My next-door neighbor Ron and I would head up to Malibu Point before school. I remember perfect five- to six-foot glassy waves and the water shining like a mirror as we paddled out at dawn. On beautiful, sunny days, with perfect waves and a gentle offshore breeze, I was in total bliss. Taking off on a wave on my nine-foot-threeinch Velzy and Jacobs board and turning in to a wall of water made everything else disappear. While surfing, I was completely in the present moment. All my problems, stress, and anything weighing on my mind were completely dismissed. It was just me, the water, and the sound of the surfboard slipping across the wave’s face, like a rock skipping across the surface of a windless lake.
I would look up as Ronnie was paddling out on his knees. As our eyes met, no words were necessary. He knew what was going on inside me, and we just smiled at this beautiful moment—the perfect wave and the flawless ride. During these moments in the ocean, I understood connectivity to myself, to others, and to nature. Although the ride usually lasted for only seconds, it seemed like an eternity.
Experiences like this bring a person completely into the moment. Later I learned from my meditation practice that being in the moment is where real happiness is found. Today, as I move through my life, I practice being in the present in all of my activities—it’s like riding that wave.
By the time I entered high school, the separateness had become a regular part of my life. I was extremely shy and unsure of myself in unfamiliar situations, especially with girls, and there was no way I could ever ask anyone out on a date. My self-doubt was enormous, but once I discovered getting loaded, a whole new world opened up to me.
My parents were social drinkers who had booze in our house for get-togethers when their friends came over for the evening. I remember my first drinking experience. My friends and I filled quart jars with a little vodka and some bourbon and scotch—a nice toxic mixture. Then we drank it. As the alcohol went down my throat, it burned and gagged me. I could barely get the stuff down. But at the same time, this wonderful feeling of warmth surged throughout my body. For the first time, I felt truly okay. I felt complete.
I got exceedingly drunk, threw up everywhere, and woke up the next day with a terrible hangover. I didn’t remember much about the night before, but I sure wanted to do it again—and really soon. Alcohol had magically taken away that terrifying feeling of separation that had become a powerful part of my life. The aftermath the following day left me shaky, dehydrated, and torn down, but it seemed like a fair trade for that momentary state of self-assured bliss. What another may have viewed as degradation, I simply saw as part of the experience— jagged around the edges, but smooth enough for me to endure.
So the adventure had started, and there was no turning back. I thought it was a marvelous experience. From a shy person who was too timid to ask a woman for a date, I had turned into a wild man who went to parties and ended up running around naked and out of my mind. I began to feel connected to a world from which I had previously felt so separated. Alcohol had become my friend, and my world was okay when I was hanging out with this new friend. I began to develop a sort of selective amnesia, my mind forgetting all the nightmarish scenes that would ensue. I was learning the art of bargaining with myself. Or was it the gift of denial?
I was open to anything that got me high. My new principle to live by was: Try anything once, and if the resulting damage is in any way negotiable, a second time will settle any doubts. I soon began sniffing glue. I became a regular at hobby shops, buying model airplane glue and squirting the glue into a sock.
Surfing and getting drunk or loaded went together for me at that time. The drugs and alcohol did for me what I couldn’t do for myself. I used my station wagon for surfing and dating, with the backseat in a down position at all times. This served two functions: It was great for surfing trips when people had to ride in the back with the boards, and it was great for date night at the drive-in movies. Now I had the courage to ask girls out, but I had absolutely no social or dating skills. Where other guys may have used tried-and-true standbys like flowers or a serenade from a guitar to court a girl, I would bring out the beer and glue socks. It’s easy to imagine what a healthy teenage boy wants to do while on a date with a beautiful girl at the drive-in. My problem was that when I got close to making out with my date, I would stick a glue rag between our mouths and say, “Try this.” I always wondered why the girl didn’t want to go out with me again. The disconnect between reality and how I was starting to operate only deepened, and the line between myself and “them” was unmistakable.
So drugs became my best friend, especially grass and pills. Chemicals were now my confidant, seductress, lifestyle, and destination all in one. I remember the first time I took a stimulant, those little white cross pills called Benzedrine, or “bennies.” My then-girlfriend Cindi, a beautiful Asian girl, lived about twenty miles north in Malibu, so I took three bennies and started driving up the Coast Highway. All of a sudden they kicked in, and my first thought (being a true addict) was: “I have to have a thousand of these things.” The second thought was: “Where is a hitchhiker when you need one?” I was so wired out by the pills that I was talking to myself nonstop.
I would have been a graduate of the class of 1962 at Santa Monica High School, but by the eleventh grade I was slipping away from student life. Consistent with my surfer lifestyle, I began growing my hair long, resulting in frequent expulsions from school. I also missed many classes to go surfing at lunchtime, often not returning to school, or sometimes I went surfing before school and didn’t go to class at all that day. Teachers, classrooms, and a formal education seemed like trivial things I had moved beyond. I had evolved into a creature who spent his days surfing the sunlit waves and his nights stoned under the moon- and starlit sky.
The summer before my senior year, school officials told my parents I had to get a haircut before I would be allowed to attend classes. I thought, “That’s great, let me just quit now.” But my parents wouldn’t go for that, so I got a haircut and was allowed to enter the twelfth grade. I had already given up on school and reacted to everything with total rebellion: missing or getting expelled from classes, talking back to my teachers, not doing homework. I worked diligently at dropping out. My plan worked. Eventually, I just reported to the dean’s office in place of certain classes, and finally I was kicked out of school for good.
What does a typical California surfer do after being kicked out of school? He heads for a surfing heaven like Hawaii, which is exactly what I did in April of 1962. It was my first trip to the islands, and I stayed on Oahu for about a month. I arrived late at night and was picked up by some friends I had surfed with in California who had arrived in Hawaii a few weeks before me. As I stepped off the plane, the warm, balmy breeze swept over me, and the fragrant air was especially sweet; this tropical environment felt so good. This place felt like home. The spell of the islands had been cast.
Early the next morning, I headed for the ocean, strolling through the empty streets of Waikiki. Watching the coconut trees swaying in the morning breeze, I walked across the sand and dipped my foot into the water. It was like a heated pool. I dove in, and my body immediately tingled with the warmth of the water washing over me. In contrast to the shockingly cold California ocean, this water seemed to embrace me. The ocean’s heavier salt content kept my body buoyant and stung my eyes as the water rolled down my face. I had played in the ocean my whole life, but this first experience in the waters of Hawaii was like stepping through a portal into another consciousness.
It was as if part of my being had been hypnotized, and the magic waters shook me awake. I knew in that moment I wanted to spend the rest of my life in the islands.
That
