Swept Out To Sea
His wife’s passing came as close to a Titanic Sinking of my friend as anything possibly could.
I am lucky in many ways.
One of them is having many friends (and relatives) who have been with me through my 75 year lifetime. One of them was born 3 months before me and because our parents were friends, we have shared most of our lives living in Southern California.
My friend and I attended elementary school together (I still have class photos of 3rd grade). Just before my folks relocated in 1960 ( I was 10) we spent a month at Mission Bay sharing an apartment with his dad who was doing an ad campaign for The Yellow Pages canvassing San Diego County. That is where we spent nearly every hour of every day on the beach. We rented surf mats, surf boards and bicycles. We went to Belmont Park several times, and it was one of the best Summer Vacations I ever had.
I was enthralled by his dad. He had a great job with The Yellow Pages. He was connected to every retail business in an intimate way. When our little league team needed new shoes, boom, they were delivered the next day! He was also a Magician. Could keep folks entertained for hours with card tricks. He was full of great stories and quick witted one liners.
But he was also an authoritarian and used fear to manage his kids behavior. When we disobeyed, bend over and expect a hard swat on the butt. My friend got many more than me because his dad knew my dad disapproved of physical discipline.
We were separated during high school years, but got together during Spring Break and Summer Vacations during college years. He attended San Diego State while I attended Cal State University at Long Beach. We both had Volkswagen Bugs and gas was cheap, so we went waterskiing at the Colorado River, attended Rock Concerts in Palm Desert and San Diego. We skied Mammoth Mountain, and eventually rented a house together in Hermosa Beach when we were both working in local LA area ski shops.
Then something happened. Not sure what, actually. He grew remote.
I got into a serious relationship. She was suspicious of him for some vague reason. We seldom socialized for many years. In 1977, after my girlfriend dumped me, I relocated to San Diego to start a business. A year later his folks bought a retirement condo on the Lake San Marcos Country Club golf course.
When he visited them, he decided San Diego was the place to be and he got a job with a popular ski and surf shop. We started playing golf and skiing a lot. But there was still an underlying problem. He was abusing drugs and alcohol. He would get crazy and abusive. He had bad knees and during a long period during and after replacement surgery on one of them, he started using oxycodone.
I chose to avoid him, and our relationship slowed way down.
Then, one day we were visiting his parents at the golf course condo, having a beer on the balcony, watching the last players come in at dusk, when my friend looked me in the eye and began crying. He was going to jail. Probably for 3 to 4 years. He had just been convicted of indecent exposure and was scheduled to start his sentence the next Monday.
I gasped for air. I was speechless. Eventually his mom explained the charges and what he was guilty of. It was clear that he had been exposing himself to young girls for quite sometime. You don’t get caught the first time. They had kept his arrest and trial secret, hoping for a better outcome.
After serving 3 years at a Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino, he found employment in the sporting goods business and got married. They had a son, and bought a home. Things seemed to have straightened out.
I was raising a family and so was he. But there was something strange about my friend. He was reclusive, tended to isolate his growing young son. His son had just turned nine, was doing well in school, and the family was settled into a bigger, better home in the exclusive La Costa neighborhood in Carlsbad. The move came as a surprise to me, and was consummated faster than any real estate transaction I had ever witnessed. But it was a really nice single story residence and perfectly located for getting early afternoon sunshine.
Less than a year later, his wife was diagnosed with stage 4 endometrial cancer. They took 14 pounds of cancer growth out of her in an attempt to save her life. A few months later he was a single parent and I found out the reason they had moved was because he had been charged with probation violations regarding a neighbors daughter. The family dropped charges once they were advised of his wife’s condition and he agreed to move away. The authorities agreed on condition he reinstitute continuing hormone treatments to reduce his testosterone levels.
His wife’s passing came as close to a Titanic Sinking of my friend as anything possibly could. He took consolation in the fact that his wife had a huge insurance policy through her nurses union, so he could be a full-time housekeeper and father.
On New Years Eve 2000 we attended a friends big “Y2K Calamity” party. It was a costume party, so most of us were wearing homemade disguises. My friend got recklessly drunk and ended up with his Big Yellow Cow suit torn off. I had to take him to my house to sober him up.
When I confronted him the next day, he didn’t remember anything. I knew at that moment more than alcohol was involved. And his compulsion to expose himself was not resolved.
Six months later I found out that sheriffs deputies came to his house early the day before, and in front of 10 year-old son, whisked him away to jail. Apparently this time he had exposed himself to a young girl in a Toys R Us store. His son was placed with an uncle and this time my lifelong friend was going away for a long time.
From that moment on my friend was a pariah. No one wanted to have anything to do with him ever again. His family was outraged and angry and essentially disowned him. Our circle of friends showed no mercy. He was excommunicated and sent to the gulags of history. No one I talked to ever offered an ounce of sympathy because they felt he had been given a chance and thrown it away. Unforgivable!
He was sentence to 4-7 years in a state prison. His lawyer said he was lucky, it could have been much worse. With good behavior he could be out in four years. The judge hoped having a son to come back to, to hopefully experience high school with, would incentivize him to get proper treatment and counseling while doing his time.
I was the only one who ever wrote him letters and offered any encouragement. His son never called or wrote. He told me he was mad because dad had betrayed mom’s memory as well as himself. He stated flatly, his relationship with his dad was dead.
I wrote my friend every couple of months. He would write back expressing remorse and looking forward to his release. He would always refer to jail as “Happy Land” because everybody there put the best spin on their circumstances as possible. Nobody spoke about their crimes, and everyday was like the TV show Survivor, which they watched on the common area TV.
I suggested he try to gain something tangible for his time, like an advanced degree, or write a book. Maybe he could learn a skill at something like playing guitar or swim instructor. Might as well gain something positive from what otherwise would be a gigantic waste of his best years.
He chose to read about and obsess on dieting. In jail the food is bland, high carbohydrate based and usually served cold. So he reasoned he could trade off his high carb sweet stuff for vegetables and fruit. He read a ton of health food guru stuff, committing himself to never go back to over processed high-in-sugar and fat foods again.
When he got released after 4 1/2 years, he never looked better. High school weight, bright eyes and no limp on his bad knees. We played golf and he played like his high school days. Kicked my ass. I couldn’t believe it! Then I realized he was the guy I grew up with. He had rediscovered his old self. He had forgiven himself, accepted the righteous anger of his family, and decided on a strategy for his future.
He agreed to meet with me once a month for no other purpose but to check on his mental health. “Ask me how I am doing, ok? And I mean, ‘how am I really doing!’ I can trust you and I promise I will be honest. Lying is a losers strategy. I know because I have been lying all my life. I’m done with that”.
I believed him. He does possess an amazing ability to focus his mind.
He acquired a Golden Retriever, spent a couple of hours every day walking her around the neighborhood or the nearby Batiquitos Lagoon. He was still sticking to his diet regimen, prepping a weeks worth of salad and homemade salad dressing on Sundays. Shopping at Sprouts and Frazier Farms, he was super price conscious, always calling me to advise when someone was offering discounts on salmon or jumbo shrimp. He took in two former Happy Land roommates. He wanted some company and security and one of the guys was a handyman contractor who could help around the house. The other guy was an ex-marine who would be his Junk Yard Dog (his Golden was useless as a guard dog).They seemed to have a mutually beneficial relationship and since they too were registered sex offenders, they all remained to themselves socially.
His address is registered on the public sex offender website, so his neighbors never approached him. Eventually through friends-of-friends he made friends with one neighbor. That took a decade to develop. But it was clear, they wouldn’t be holding any neighborhood barbeques at that house.
Today is June 18th, 2026 and my friends 76th birthday.
Unfortunately he is back in jail. But this time it is a nursing home not a penal institution. In March he had a massive stroke. Diagnosed as two blood clots on his frontal lobe, he barely survived the trip to the hospital, but he has made some progress. He can speak with only a small lisp. His vision is affected, blind in one eye, but ok with the other. His left side is most effected. He is not in control of his left leg or arm. He must have 24hr nursing care to feed him, change him, and help him move from the bed to a recliner chair.
When I visit we can discuss history and friends. But he gets very confused and then starts to point at friends in the room that don’t exist. He starts telling stories about things that never happened or that will never happen. The doctors don’t think those issues will ever be resolved. Many stroke victims suffer too much brain damage to recover their neurotransmitters in certain areas of the brain, and it will continue to try to rewire itself, which results in mangled memories and hallucinations.
In a way I can understand what is happening. He is inventing circumstances to override the ones he finds himself in. He is surfing in a massive storm and just trying to stay on the board.
He knows if he falls off he will get swept out to sea.