Doc Paskowitz

Doc Paskowitz has been surf­ing for a very long time. And in that time he has learned what it means to be a man, how to have a good rela­tion­ships, and surf with Aloha. In this issue, he shares with us his deep wis­dom and love for the ocean.

What was it like grow­ing up?
My life began the day my Uncle Harry let go of me in Galve­ston, Texas at the age of nine in the Gulf of Mex­ico. All of a sud­den I was air­borne! From that time on, every­thing of high pas­sion for me has been about the salt water. Once I learned to swim, I learned that there were waves. By the time I was eleven, I had learned to ride the waves by tak­ing a lit­tle piece of board and jump­ing in front of the white­wa­ter. My favorite toy or game from that point to this age – it has been the ocean. My real pas­sion is for saltwater.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young man?
That was a big thing in my life and it still is. I con­sider myself a nice, wimpy lit­tle Jew­ish boy who learned to surf and who became much more of a man than if he had not. So, being who am, I have always looked up to other guys for inspi­ra­tion and they are very clear cut in my mind.

The first, was a deaf and dumb or mute life­guard, who lent me my first surf­board named Leroy Columbo. He was once fea­tured the Guin­ness Book of World Records for sav­ing more lives than any other life­guard known. He would lend me my first board and he was my first hero.

My sec­ond hero was Pre­ston “Pete” Peter­son. He was in my esti­ma­tion, the best “white­wa­ter” man in the con­ti­nen­tal United States. Close behind him was Lorne “Whitey” Har­ri­son. And finally there was “Peanuts Lar­son” George Zim­mer­man. These are men that were close – that I could actu­ally reach out and touch.

But some­one that was out of my reach was the great spirit in my life, Duke Kahanamoku. Later, as we became friends, it became more of a reality.

Tell us more about Duke Kahanamoku
He was beau­ti­ful as a man. Just hand­some! Tall, ebony dark, with big hands, big feet and beau­ti­ful white teeth. Black eyes and black hair with gray­ing tem­ples. He was a man of such dig­nity as to be awe-inspiring, and yet he was very approach­able and down-to-earth.

He didn’t par­tic­u­larly like me – although he liked my wife a lot. And he didn’t talk to me – he talked to my wife! He and I did a lot things together: We surfed together, we were on the open sea together in small boats. But he never talked to me much. He didn’t really like me. And the rea­son he didn’t like me was that I liked him too much.

Now I didn’t see this, but he rode some pretty big waves at Waikiki as a young boy. He was such a gen­tle­man. When I had a child, I would put him in his arms and say, “Hey Duke, give me some manna for my lit­tle boy.” He was so gracious.

What code do you live by?
I want tell you the finest com­pli­ment in all the years of my surf­ing. I was walk­ing down the street in Waikiki, and I was stand­ing in front of The Duke statue when Duke Boyd walked by with a young lady who I assumed was his girl­friend. It turns out it was his daugh­ter. Boyd was a very astute man and he and Tom Morey were the philoso­phers of the surf­ing com­mu­nity at that time. Boyd turned to his daugh­ter and he said, “You know, Paskowitz reminds me a lot of Paul Strauch.” And that was the finest com­pli­ment I have ever gotten.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in my life?
Nobody has ever asked that ques­tion before. The great­est thing I have learned in my life has to do with “peo­ple” rather than “things.” If I was Ein­stein and had dis­cov­ered the The­ory of Rel­a­tiv­ity, I would still believe that the great­est thing involved peo­ple – other human beings.

And of the phys­i­cal things that I have learned was from George Down­ing. Once were sit­ting out in big waves and we look to shore at the trees and he shows me two trees. And he says, “Every­thing in life is about align­ment.” You’ve got to line things up care­fully. Even a “phys­i­cal” thing like that reflect upon my basic feel­ing that the great­est wis­dom involves me and my fel­low man.

The most strik­ing, awe-inspiring, or enlight­en­ment I have expe­ri­enced has to do with women. And it is the love of a mother toward her child. Emmanuel Kent once said, “I am pressed by two great things in the world, the starry heav­ens above and the moral law within.” And that describes the feel­ing I have when I wit­ness the love between a mother and her offspring.

What are you most proud of?
I am most proud of my fam­ily. What I wanted in life was to be a man. I’m not talk­ing about machismo or rid­ing Mav­er­icks. Sec­ond, I wanted to find a good mate. And thirdly, I wanted to be a good father and to par­ent my chil­dren. Being a good man, a good hus­band, and being a good father is the goal of my life. And noth­ing ever trumps that mis­sion or duty.

What sin­gle piece of advice you could give to a young per­son?
If I was talk­ing to a young per­son who surfs, I would refer them to this pas­sage. The Jew­ish Tal­mud says this: “As Israel has kept the Sab­bath, The Sab­bath has kept Israel.” In other words, as Jews take the Sab­bath and kept it holy and cel­e­brated it – so the Sab­bath has cel­e­brated, or pros­pered them.

In our fam­ily, we have the same Tal­mu­dic say­ing but it goes like this: “As the Paskowitz’s have kept surf­ing, so surf­ing has kept the Paskowitz’s.” If you really love surf­ing, and you keep surf­ing – surf­ing will keep you.

The sec­ond piece of advice I would give is to keep surf­ing with “Aloha.” Always feel that if any­thing goes wrong, it is your fault. If you hit a guy with your board – it’s your fault. If a guy hits you – it is your fault.

Keep surf­ing and know that surf­ing will keep you. And always surf with Aloha.

Where is your favorite place to surf?
It is very dif­fi­cult for me to decide between San Onofre and Waikiki. If you said today, “Hey Paskowitz let’s go surf,” I would say let’s go to Waikiki. If you asked that same ques­tion at age 16, I would say let’s go to San Onofre. Those are the two great surf­ing loves of my life.

What is your favorite meal?
It is prob­a­bly beans. Mex­i­can beans the way my wife makes them. There is some­thing almost sacred in them because they are so cheap and they taste so good. And peo­ple all over the world can afford to buy them and eat as much as they want. Although I must say I am also really fond of really hard dark bread.

What is your favorite music?
A period of music between 1935 and 1955 called Swing. These years were in the golden years of my surf­ing when San Onofre was avail­able to me and when surf­ing really dom­i­nated my life – the music accom­pa­nied that. Benny Good­man, Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw. Every time I hear their music, which in in the morn­ing hours on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day between 6 and 9 on a pro­gram that plays Swing music, it brings a real tran­quil, excit­ing, and ful­fill­ing feeling.

What inspires you?
Last Sat­ur­day, I had the most uplift­ing expe­ri­ence in my whole life. I got to spend the day with the 24 surfers that will com­pete at Mav­er­icks. To meet guys like Jeff Clark, Flea, and Peter Mel – these guys are absolute gods! Won­der­ful peo­ple on land and just gods in the ocean. It was if I was in a mys­ti­cal place with these men in the water. Behind them I could see Mav­er­icks itself. I just felt that these men had really achieved some­thing that most mor­tals will never really achieve in life.

What’s next for Doc Paskowitz?
Next is death. And every day I pre­pare for that. The next step from now to “kick­ing out.” There are a lot of com­pli­ca­tions both phys­i­cal and men­tal. In order for me to kick out there looms a whole sce­nario of peo­ple of peo­ple cry­ing and the money for a cas­ket my fam­ily does not have. There is all kinds of bull­shit that goes on with dying.

So, I am try­ing to find a nice shark that will eat me. I found one at Waikiki but he wasn’t that inter­ested in me. I saw one out in the blue water of Samoa, but I kinda chick­ened out. Now I am think­ing if I can get to Tonga, maybe that same shark is there. And that would be mag­nif­i­cent just to have that shark just eat me up and that’s it! Period. Espe­cially in an area when your chil­dren, wife, and friends are not around. And there you are – a nice end to it.

How­ever before the end, as a physi­cian for over 60 years, I want to share with the world my knowl­edge about the impor­tance of health. The book I wrote, “Surf­ing and Health,” is truly life-saving. It is a group of nar­ra­tive sto­ries that all lead to one sim­ple thing: How to keep your weight at an ideal level. And it is about the equals: diet, exer­cise, rest, and atti­tudes of mind.

The aver­age Amer­i­can male for exam­ple, is almost never really hun­gry in spite of hav­ing food of all kinds. His food is high in fat con­tent. It’s why ani­mals in the wild are kept at an ideal body weight (about 5–10% fat) while the aver­age Amer­i­can male is about 25% body fat or more!

I want my book “Surf­ing and Health” to be pro­moted in a way so that I can save lives, decrease human mis­ery, and spread a word that will pay back a lit­tle for what I’ve got­ten in my life. I want my final days to be filled with that because the end is in sight. I want to surf the reef a lit­tle bit before I kick out.

The book by Doc Paskowitz “Surf­ing and Health” is avail­able here. Sur­f­wise, the doc­u­men­tary about Doc Paskowitz and his fam­ily can be found here. Pho­tos: Art Brewer.