profkf's Blog

The current state of the universe is, by any description, changing by the minute. Perhaps the biggest discomfort for all of us is the true lack of a constant, comfort zone. I am a creature of habit, change is very tough for me and pretty stressful in my personal life. Yet, as I was reading a small piece about the surfer Stephanie Gilmore this morning one thing rang true. She was quoted as saying “Surfers have to adapt all the time. I think that’s why a lot of us are quite chilled out; we’re used to being at the mercy of the ocean”

That led me down the rabbit hole of thought as it really struck a nerve, it had me thinking about my profession and some of my favorite activities: teaching kids, golf, running and surfing. Each one of those pursuits requires constant adaptation not only to simply survive at it, but to improve.

After two years of teaching back in 1975-76, I was “excessed” and found a job as an operations analyst for an international British firm in the NY Financial district. While it was lucrative (for the time, and occasionally I do lament the $$ I gave up by not staying the course) I HATED it. It was the same day in and day out, gathering statistics, compiling them, providing feedback as to the efficacy of satellite office operations around the country, and sometimes traveling to those offices to lay people off due to the numbers (trips that cost the company far more for the three days of travel than they were recouping getting rid of the people I was sent to “excess”). It was the same day in and day out, most contact was with buddies at lunch, but other than that it was suit up, take the train, subway, go to the office, compile data, write reports, leave the office, take the subway home. The next day it was get back, Jack, do it again…wheels turning round and round…

The tipping point was on a trip to the Overland Park Kansas office where I had to make a decision of which of three clerical workers I was going to recommend be “excessed” Their annual salaries ranged from $5700 to $6100 per YEAR…(again, 1976 remember). On that trip, I flew business class, had an open ended expense account, stayed at a very nice hotel, was taken to play a round of golf at a local country club, met and played a few holes with Tom Watson, had lunch the next day at Arrowhead Stadium with the Hunt Brothers, had an amazing dinner in the stock yards. I was in the hotel that night looking at the data and the notes I had taken during my interviews with the three “candidates” all of whom were integral in supporting their families, looked at my expense data (never mind the country club or Hunt Brother’s lunch as they were covered elsewhere) and realized exactly how dumb this trip was from a cost effective standpoint. Loooonnnngggg story short, I went back to the office the next day, told the three people I hadn’t made my decision and asked them to resubmit some data to me over the next two weeks in a slightly different fashion (yes it was rigged). With that data I was able to justify all THREE jobs for at least another year, and having done that, handed in my two week notice, at which point they offered me a 40% salary increase and a new job title to stay, nope couldn’t do it…at 24 years old I kissed corporate life goodbye and went back to teaching, something I’ve NEVER regretted. That was my very first professional “pivot” or adaptation.

For the next 44 years I realized that teaching requires constant adaptation and “pivoting” (a very overused word these days), face to face, and even now during the last 3 months of distance learning it’s totally different then the face to face daily exchanges.

That brings me to running…No route is ever the same, the roads can be dry, wet, sandy, filled with potholes, dogs, walkers, even the terrain changes from day to day, you always have to be on the lookout to adjust your gait, your speed, while the motion is pretty much the same, the efforts are in constant flux.

Surfing: whether it’s on a board, or body surfing, you have to be constantly aware of changes in wind, keep an eye on the set, feel the flow of the water, and just tune in to your environment. Even knowing when to pull back from what seemed to be a perfect wave can be the difference between serious injury and moving on to the next opportunity.

Then there’s golf: One of the things I’ve learned is that you can play the same course every single day, and almost never have the same shot. You not only have to adapt your swing to the location of the ball, to the terrain you are standing on, you have to look at where the pin is located (another constantly shifting change). You can also make a perfect swing and have a sudden gust of wind, or bounce, change everything about the result . Even the way the cup is cut can change the result of a perfectly struck putt. You then have to put that all aside and hit the next shot as it is also totally unique. Even the simple act of teeing the ball up is never exactly the same. You need to adjust and adapt on the spur of the moment. The biggest adjustment has been coming to the realization that at almost 68, even with the new equipment, I can no longer hit the ball as far as I could at 38, I’m about 20-30 yards shorter now so where I could mash a 5 iron maybe 180, now on a good strike I can count on about 160. That changes how you approach a hole from the tee to the green.

Adaptation, adjusting, being flexible, pivoting, changes, all incredibly valuable tools for life, all things I’ve learned not by reading alone or by listening to lectures, but by doing, by being thoughtful, and by considering all the variables that go into these things (most of the time making 5 decisions per second based on these facts). All of these “lessons” have served me very well in dealing with the current state of the universe and for that I am thankful beyond words.

“You can talk to a stone” my wife has said a number of times and she’s probably right, and I probably have more often than not. I talk for a living, have for 44 plus years, and there’s no end in sight for that. I enjoy writing, I enjoy debating issues, I enjoy exchanging ideas. All that said, I have been really struggling with exactly how to frame the past few days.

I’ve been fortunate, in a sense, to have been alive long enough to have experienced protests for any number of things. The Bronx riots way back when, Vietnam, Kent State, “My Country Right or Wrong” parades in NYC, RFK giving an incredibly poignant speech trying to quell the upheaval after the shooting of MLK, The Stonewall “massacre” in NYC,  Phil Ochs songs (still, sadly, apropos 50 years later), I’ve also seen lots and lots of people pulling together when times demand it…9/11 being the most powerful example.

What has taken place in the past few weeks is nothing new, the Amadou Diallo shooting was more than 21 years ago, Eric Garner and likely many, many more unreported, or at least unaccounted for similar instances. The visual horror of what happened to George Floyd is no less horrific than any of these other crimes (and make no mistake, they are crimes, and many, likely most, are not “happenstance” they are premeditated in the sense that the perpetrators are simply waiting for opportunity as they are most clearly predisposed to some kind of “cleansing”. These are not crimes of passion, the are opportunistic lashing out. 

I don’t know what to say or how to frame it otherwise.

Here is what I believe…the overwhelming majority of people are good! I am acquainted with, and in fact, have family members who are on various police forces. I respect each and every one of them. While we may not agree on everything, they currently or, if retired, have in the past, gone out each day of their working lives and put THEIR lives on the line for the community they serve(d), I remain in awe of their dedication to their craft. There is not a single profession, be it a “closed group” or a wide open collection that does not have its very small percentage of “bad apples” Pedofile priests do not diminish the incredible efforts of the majority of that calling. Incompetent $$ chasing doctors, a very small group, do not represent the majority of the medical community, who work for the good of all around them. My brother and sister educators are constantly bombarded and criticized due to the few terrible members of the profession.

We all share the same make up, we are human beings. Skin color, religion, sexual preference are individual distinctions not targets that are placed on our backs for others to shoot at. Diversity is precious and wonderful, It is up to our leaders, administrators, “bosses” to attend to the occasional problems, and by not taking it to heart and removing the problems, they are as complicit as those who perpetrate the abhorrent behavior in any circumstance. Our nation was founded by those who were protesting injustice from abroad, the current injustices are not from across the pond but are still require a rebellion of sorts. I’m not advocating violence, I abhor it, the “right to assemble” is another one of those sticky “rights” that some take issue with. We only have to remember Kent State (current closest example) to remember what can happen when caution is not the watchword. If you kneel on an athletic field, you might lose your job and be ostracized, but what really is wrong with that? So if that’s the case, how can you not understand people of all kinds, having their emotions and actions taken to another level?

I don’t understand the need to buy, own and carry weapons of any kind, however, most of the folks I know who believe in it, are really good conscious owners who take great pride in what they do. We, as humans, need to ALWAYS call out bad behavior, to teach our children that such action is wrong and, in the end, to know better and to do better.

Have been taught on or near or even by the ocean. From the time I was very small I’ve loved the beach, when I turned 13 my folks had started renting a summer bungalow in Far Rockaway, NY affectionately known as the “working man’s Riviera”. The bungalows were tiny, likely under 500 sq ft, most had 3 separate bedrooms, there was a small kitchen, an equally small living room, a bathroom with all the proper fixtures. It was not the inside that was the draw, it was the front porch and the rocking chairs and the courtyard where 95% of the non sleeping time was spent (and on the occasional brutally humid nights, where you slept as well). The bigger draw was the beach…open ocean, a few hundred yards away up a steep ramp to the boardwalk and down some fairly steep steps to the sand. Most of my years there any day without rain was taken up with somewhere between 8 and 12 hours on the beach and many of those hours in the water. Swimming, body surfing, eventually real surfing, touch (really tackle) football, and as we reached the magic 18, Colt 45 cans, Vodka and Fresca, and eventually some incredibly cheap (but potent) tequila. After a day on the sand, most early evenings were spent playing two hours of incredibly competitive paddle ball, followed by dinner (the working parents usually arrived home while we were playing paddle ball and dinner was almost always ready upon our return, of course we used the outdoor showers first to wash away the sand and sweat. Post dinner usually meant gathering on one porch or another, in the delightful rocking chairs, listening to music playing cards, sipping more beverages: “who needs coffee,?” my mother always used to ask when the venue was our porch (it was always a moveable feast),  thinking that would immediately sober us up [always a polite decline from everyone]. 9 pm always marked daily Fireworks from Playland about 60 blocks up the boardwalk, but visible up and down it’s entire length. More beverages, stories, philosophical exchanges while we tried to answer the question “Why the Universe?”  Now that we also all had cars, we would inevitably head out to Friendly’s for a Fribble  and fries (we were, after all, growing boys who had spent 8-12 hours of reasonably strenuous activity), and later on, some evenings would wrap up with some herbal treats, always stashed as the local constables came by (always making sure they signaled their approach well in advance <wink, wink>). As we got a bit older, we would then decide, mostly after midnight, to body surf backwards to look at the sky as we were being pounded by the waves [the idiocy of the immortal youth…though when Jaws came out we did stop that practice….for about a week….] Each day was a glorious reproduction of the previous day and it went on from mid June till the sorry of Labor Day when we all packed up and headed home for the winter. When we were driving, we would begin spending weekends from Mid May till the close of school so it got even better…though some nights were damn cold (there was no heat of any kind).

By now, you must be wondering about the title…well, I learned a lot during those times, more, I think, thank I ever learned in formal education. I learned to be self sufficient, I learned to deal with weather interruptions, I learned to be reliable since all our working parents left us in basically our own care and we cared for those younger. I learned to trust the ocean, to not be afraid of it, but at the same time to deeply respect its power and ferocity (well, not after midnight necessarily while in an altered state). I learned to look forward to what I enjoyed but to not hide from change. I learned to compete against and with people who were far better than I was at certain sports, but I also learned that the only way to get better was to play against those who were better. I learned that no matter how many times you fall off the board or off a wave that there will always be another and it’s not how many times you fall it’s how quickly you get back up. I learned that disappointment is something that’s going to happen. I learned that while I was not the luckiest guy on the beach with the girls, I was still ok and that at some point as Shirley Silverman always said “there’s a cover for every pot” and I’d find mine. Mostly what I learned was that there is nothing more soothing, restorative, uplifting, than the feel and smell of salt water and the sound of the ocean. 55 years up the line that’s still how I feel, I was lucky to have learned those lessons, to have had those experiences and they have been very helpful not only these past months, but in the past days…

While I’ve not been to the shore yet this year, I can state without any hesitation: “The cure for anything is salt water” That is the lesson I learned then, and a lesson I’ve never forgotten