Joseph Tomarchio approached me last year about contributing to his collection of short stories, Legacy of Stoke: A Collection of the Stories that Made Us Surfers (Volume 1). The instructions were pretty simple: tell a story about learning or teaching, how were you initiated, and/or how you passed on the legacy. In case it wasn’t totally obvious, I am passionate about surfing and all that it has done for me, so I gladly said yes. It was a treat to receive the bound copy last week of Volume 1. My story was included along with many other voices and experiences. It was fun to read through and hear from surfers around the world “talking story” about their experiences in the water. Some stories were similar to mine—learning to surf relatively late in life and having it change us, such as Karen Shatafian’s passage. Others were inspirational, like the one from Charlie Paradise, who was traveling down the wrong path in life when surfing saved him. Or the one from Kim Byrne, who overcame various medical complications to surf once again. Stoke fills the pages through the stories and excerpts from other books. I urge you to pick up a copy, available on Amazon.
Rebecca Heller 