Passages

The past 24 hours have been so ...........different. I got a real upclose glimpse of the periodic hell Kim endures when Mr. Migrane comes a calling. Oh my. I promise to rub her shoulders, rub her feet, whatever it takes to alleviate that hell.

It was just a twinge earlier before its full blooming. But bloom it did. It felt like the side of my head was going to blow out in an earthshattering explosion. I was sent to bed with an ice pack. During this time period I took something like 8 sundry pills before the blend and an ice pack let me slip into the void. My oldest gets these interludes also.

I'm lucky in that it rarely strikes me. Mostly sinus headaches. I don't drink like in days of yore, that hangover thing is fading into obscurity. Thank God.

The second oddity was the news of someone passing. As a kid and into early adulthood, Gordo was a friend of mine. We both started surfing at the same time and became friends through our love of the ocean and surfing. We were initially just nodding acquaintences who admired each others surfing skills until junior high.

Mr. Caldwell's English class changed that. I think we were reading some Shakespeare, when one of our classmates mangled a pronunciation of some key term in Romeo and Juliet. Mr. Caldwell passionately loved this work of the Bard of Avon and was utterly appalled that we could not share this appreciation. He literaly worked himself into a frothy condition. His passion came forth verbally in words of profound wisdom, along with some saliva.

On and on he went, relating to us the tragedy that was about to unfold before and how most certainly our lives would be forever changed. As this was occuring, I looked at Gordo's desk and he had neatly drawn a Bullseye and was tracking the aim of the Shakespeare fueled saliva. Upon seeing this, I lost it. God, I was like 12:) Gordo and I were asked to sit outside the rest of the class period and we bonded.

We were surfing buddies. We prowled the coast. We ditched class. We lied to each other about girls. We got drunk together the first time, smoked weed together the first time, took acid together the first time. A lot of firsts were undertaken. I remember talking to Gordo after the mind and body shattering experience of losing ones virginity. I said I thought I had changed, how everything was and would be different.... He heard me out and offered this well needed reality check, "You know Dave,you're still the same asshole." Well put and oh so true.

One of my oddest memories of Gordo was when we hit the party circuit on a Friday night along Del Playa. He drank some wine out of a jug that had some real dosage of acid in it. He wouldn't talk for a week. Freaked us out. He was scarce when the swell came up. I called his house and his Mom said he wasn't there and oh could I please stop by and talk to her because Gordon has been quite odd lately and she doesn't know what to think.... I said I would and grabbed the board and the wetsuit and headed to Sands Rivermouth.

The faces of people in the cars heading the opposite direction were sunburnt and stoked. All thumbs up was the sign. Some quite emphatically so.

Walking down to the break I saw him. Gordo. He was destroying the place. Big, fluid cutbacks, spraying rooster tails from the back of his board as he carved up the waves face. Gordo was good but this was something else. Instead of rushing into my wetsuit and heading out, I just lay my stuff down and and sat down. God he was on. Along with the aforementioned wave lacerations, when the opportunity offered itself, he would tuck himself into a spinning cylinder of a wave and emerge after some curtain time. Another running buddy of ours Ron, stood by me and said,"I don't know what was in that jug, but I should have drank some. "This snapped me out of it, I laughed and went out. Somehow, some way Gordo had reconnected the synapses and was back among us. When I heard the news, I flashed back to the way his face looked when I paddled up to him that winter's day long ago.

I heard from a mutual friend this morning that Gordo had died changing a flat tire for a stranger along the highway going into Morro Bay last weekend. He was hit by another motorist who was probably driving too fast during the twilight hours. As I get older, and I am, I know I will get more and more news of someone vacating this plane. It's sad but its not the end. Basic science tells us that energy can not be destroyed only altered.

I know if there are the amount of good things out there that there are in here, this isn't the final story. Perhaps when you pass you go on a series of journies, the path of connection and reflection. I hope I paddle out to the Rivermouth one last time and see Gordo turn around and drop in on a piece of peeling perfection and shout,"I see you"!

I saw you too Gordo, I saw you too.....

Aloha Gordo