"When Did You . . . . . "

"When did you ever get into boating?"

This question asked recently by a training client, one that in one way or another seems to come up often in casual conversation with both clients and friends. So, a trip down memory lane . . .

In those summer days between eighth grade and starting high school, a favorite pastime was to ride my bike down to the East Palo Alto marina, a few miles from home in Menlo Park, hangout on the docks, making a bit of change helping wash down a boat or two, getting a hoped-for ride. doing a bit of sail-handling.

The local yacht club sponsored a Sea Scout ship there which had a war surplus small patrol boat, probably around 35 foot. They also sponsored a second boat, I think it was 32 foot, a double-ender lifeboat, 'bought' from war surplus for the great sum of $5! The USN was almost giving away boats at that time; surplus jeeps were being sold for $25 or less, and other vehicles and small boats were being barged out into the Pacific and dumped. This, of course, was 1945-46, right after WWII.

Sea Scout Able Seaman,
my highest rank

I'd been in Scouting, but Sea Scouts (today I believe they're called Explorer Scouts) was new and exciting to me, so I joined and became part of the group organized around this lifeboat-soon-to-be-sailboat. The boat was bare, just hull plus one sweep and a few old oar locks - - no rudder or tiller. We spend days cleaning her up, giving her coats of paint.The local yard donated and stepped a mast on her. Someone else produced a set of sails. An old boatright supervised building the house on her. Within a year of many, many weekends, plus a few days here and there of school days skipped, the SSS Intrepid was "launched". Nothing electrical (kerosene lamps, only), no bunks, just hammocks, wood/coal stove, and two heavy long sweeps (oars) for power when needed. She was wishbone rigged with center-board, and her sails actually matched and fit. (Wishbone is how today's sailboards are rigged.)

And out we'd go every weekend, prowling South San Francisco Bay, occasionally ending up on a mud flat, and comfortably wait for the next tide. We took soundings and made our own charts. In the evenings we practiced semaphore. We taught ourselves how to "shoot" the sun and the stars. We prided ourselves coming to dock under sail, with one kid (usually the most junior) having to jump off at the end of the finger pier and dash around to lean against the bowsprit as we came in to keep us from crashing. We were quite good at it.

Sometimes we'd make a "grand cruise", perhaps all the way up to San Francisco (it took a day to tack up, three hours to come back running wing-on-wing) staying at one of the swanky yacht clubs there. Or a longer run up to the North Bay. We'd always go ashore turned out in our Sea Scout uniforms, cleaned and properly creased, looking just like real Navy, even mimicking a sailor's roll as we walked down the streets and hoping that everyone would think we were. It was a great life!

Farallon Islands, a national wildlife refuge, is closed to the
public. the area is heavily shark invested.

Perhaps our grandest cruise was out and around the Farallon Islands, some 20 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge. We had our adult skipper, yet we were pretty naive about green water. No radio or the like (remember, we were "primitive"). We navigated with chart and current books, compass and sexton. Our skipper was seasick and below deck most of the time. We had a ball, and two days later almost surfed back on a flood current under the Golden Gate with, of course, hundreds of spectators leaning over the bridge rails admiring our fantastic courage and excellent seamanship!

A year or two later, this time now with radios and navigation system (fancy for that day) we sailed down the coast to Monterey and back, a good two weeks, and again, a great time. 

The SSS Intrpid taught me more than I can now remembert, as well as gave me countless hours of youthful joy - - a truly wonderful time in my life.

Now, like many boats her age, when I last saw her ten years later she was beached on a mud flat on one of the many estuaries in the South Bay, her house and mast rotted off and only a single lamp still attached to what was left of the overhead. By now she is probably buried under a high-rise condominium.

And that's were it all started.

Sunday, August 5th, Oak Creek, Wisconsin

From a column by Eboo Patiel, and reprinted here from Soujourners, with permission.

Imagine the terror.

You are in a temple, a safe, sacred place, preparing for a morning service. In the kitchen, you are busy cooking food for lunch, while others read scriptures and recite prayers. Friends begin to gather for the soon-to-start service.

At the front door, you smile at the next man who enters. He does not smile back. Instead, he greets you with a hateful stare and bullets from his gun.

Such was the scene Sunday at a Sikh gurudwara in Oak Creek, Wis., just south of Milwaukee, where a gunman, Wade Michael Page, killed six and critically injured three others before being shot down by law enforcement agents.

As Page began his shooting spree, terrified worshippers sought shelter in bathrooms and prayer rooms. Rumors of a hostage situation surfaced, and those trapped inside asked loved ones outside not to text or call their cell phones, for fear that the phone ring might give away their hiding place.

The first police officer to arrive on the scene stopped to tend to a victim outside the gurudwara. He looked up to find the shooter pointing his gun directly at him, and then took several bullets to his upper body. He waved the next set of officers into the temple, encouraging them to help others even as he bled.

That magnanimity is a common theme among the stories of victims and survivors of the Wisconsin shootings. Amidst terror and confusion, Sikhs offered food and water to the growing crowd of police and news reporters outside the gurudwara as part of langar — the Sikh practice of feeding all visitors to the house of worship.

We now know that Page was part of a neo-Nazi movement. But let us not take these moments to look into the heart of hate. May we instead shed light on a religious tradition of peace and generosity, the kind of generosity that inspired distraught worshippers to feed others just minutes after they had been brutally attacked.

The Sikh community has been one of welcome and hospitality since its founding in India 500 years ago. With their belief in a supreme Creator and a deep respect for all human beings, Sikhs place strong emphasis on equality, religious freedom, human rights, and justice.

Sikhs from India began immigrating to the United States in the late 19th century, and currently the Sikh popuation numbers about 314,000 in America and 30 million worldwide. Today, Sikhs are successful business people, active community members, and advocates for social justice.

Their love for all humanity inspires the hospitality we witnessed so vividly outside that Oak Creek gurudwara, though it has not protected them from being the targets of numerous post-9/11 hate crimes.

In living out that hospitality, Sikhs remind us of our own quintessentially American generosity. A core American idea is that we welcome contributions from all different groups and build cooperation between people of diverse backgrounds. 

While today we hear news stories of division and hate, American history tells a different story.

The shooting in Oak Creek reminds us that the forces of prejudice are loud. They sling bigoted slurs and occasionally bring 9mm guns to places of worship. But we are not a country of Wade Michael Pages.

We are a country whose first president, George Washington, told a Jewish community leader that “The Government of the United States…gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

We are a country where Jane Addams welcomed Jewish and Catholic immigrants streaming in from Eastern Europe in the 19th century as citizens, not as strangers.

We are a country where a young black preacher, Martin Luther King, Jr., learned nonviolence not only from Jesus Christ, but also from an Indian Hindu named Gandhi and from a Buddhist monk named Thich Nhat Hanh.

And we must be a country where a new generation of leaders rises up to write the next chapter in the glorious story of American pluralism, or else we will forfeit the territory to those who would shoot at our neighbors while they worship.

Already we see the forces of pluralism in action. Donation sites for families of the victims have sprung up, and supporters have updated their Facebook profiles with pictures saying “I Pledge Humanity.”

Groups in Madison, Minneapolis, and Detroit have held vigils in solidarity with those affected by the shooting, and survivors of the recent shooting in Aurora, Colo., have reached out to Sikh victims via social media.

There have been periods in American history when the staunch opponents of pluralism have won the battle. But they didn’t win the war, because irrepressible people of good faith refused to surrender their nation to such fear and hatred.

Let us remember that we cannot cede this moment in our history to the forces of intolerance. And may we draw inspiration from our Sikh neighbors as we build a world where people of all backgrounds are honored for their unique contributions to America.

Eboo Patel is founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based international nonprofit that promotes interfaith cooperation. His blog, The Faith Divide, explores what drives faiths apart and what brings them together. His latest book is Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America