Roger Zee Memoirs
Ride the Wind 06/27/20
My life seems to follow the same paradigm as love and sex. Long periods of low activity bookended by intense, action-packed, quantum, ecstatic highs. Too much of the former and not enough of the latter, LOL! But I go with the flow. Guess we all must pace ourselves... Welcome to the latest excerpt from my memoirs, "Life and Times of a Pandemic Musician."
So let's put aside the testosterone and estrogen for today and instead focus on the wind and water. For two summers, at ages 14 and 15, I convinced my parents to send me to Camp Beaumont in Naples, ME. Not sure why I pressed to go to this sports camp considering I never really felt comfortable or excelled in team sports. Maybe because I wanted to get in with the most popular kids in Great Neck Junior High -- who all went there, LOL!
Funny how that turned out. I spent most of my days lying on my stomach shooting a rifle, standing up and shooting a bow and arrow, or learning how to sail Sunfishes ( a surfboard with a small dugout for feet and one large sail. ) Once I mastered how to navigate the wind, I just loved, yearned, lived for that awesome, irresistible force to propell, no thrust me forward. Maybe that's why I love playing bass with strong drummers, LOL!
When I returned home the first summer. I explained to my dad how much I dug sailing. It intrigued him and he started reading up on it. Even took a course. After my second summer, he bought me a used Sunfish which we kept locked up in Steppingstone Park in Kings Point, NY, right near the US Merchant Marine Academy. Oh did I love that boat! Every weekend, I invited either my father or one of my friends to go out with me. The bigger the wind, the more we capsized, and the more fun we enjoyed.
But there's a downside to everything... At the time, we kids didn't care that we swam in a cesspool called the Long Island Sound. Whenever it rained, the nearby sewage plants would overflow and bless our water with all their nutrients. A dark brown, bubbly syrup ( think of the horror classic, C.H.U.D. ) -- no problemo! As teenagers, we knew we'd live forever! We loved to sail out of our inlet over to Shoreham nuclear plant near Brookhaven Laboratories. Better wind out in the middle of the sound! More likely to surf fast, capsize, and swim. No wonder I grew so much cancer and now glow in the dark. I partook of the best fertilizer, LOL!
But my dad soon tired of getting wet on this small craft. He yearned for something more dignified and suitable his stage in life. So he soon traded the Sunfish for my friend, Bobby Saddock's Rhodes 19. And that's when my enthusiasm for the sport began to dissipate. I loved getting down and dirty, close to the water - the wetter the better! More on life with my dad and riding bigger sailboats later.
So on another breakout weekend from the Covid-19 lockdown for so many people, I gaze in wonder at the Internet and try to plot my eventual return to society. I learned a long time ago in the computer business to let someone else test the waters. So today I'll take a short walk outside and spend the rest of my time learning the bass lines to the monumental, 1969 "Elephant Mountain" CD by The Youngbloods -- all the while longing to "Ride the Wind." And maybe watch some of those 1960s "Beach Party Bingo" surf movies on my DVR... One <3
YouTube - Ride the Wind - The Youngbloods
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