Wednesday, October 17, 2001
September 11th hit me hard. It was only the commitment I’d made to teach a “Life Skills” class to ex-cons in San Francisco the next day that snapped me out of it. I uncurled from a fetal position, holding photos of my family next to my heart, wiped the tears from my face, and pushed myself into my car to head to the city.
There, another aspect of this new reality confronted me. I looked around the classroom full of ex-convicts. They were all enrolled in the Northern California Service League Life Skills Program. They were trying to start a new life. One face struck me in particular. I realized it was because he looked Arab. He was a Palestinian, actually, though in truth only by birth.
Now he was Greek Orthodox, with a Jewish girlfriend, even. But prejudice doesn’t wait for a life history. He’d already been harassed, told to “go back where he came from.”
As an ex-con, that could mean back to jail, if he broke parole by defending himself in a fist-fight.
The night’s newscasts held other stories like his. Verbal harassment, racial profiling, even murders – hate crimes against Arab-Americans and Jewish-Americans had begun. I felt compelled to do something. I postponed my plans for an adventure on the Rock of Gibraltar, so I could instead contribute to the healing of Americans.
My life’s work has been to create, design, and guide adventure sport challenges that make connections to diverse cultures in exotic places in the world. My birthplace, San Francisco, qualifies as a venue. On October 17th – a powerfully significant and memorable date in the Bay Area, because of the World Series Earthquake of 1989, we held the “Freedom Over Fear Pentathlon.” I gathered local athletes from different cultural and religious backgrounds to circle the colorful city of San Francisco with me by swimming, kayaking, tandem biking, running, and mountain biking.
The Freedom Over Fear Pentathlon began with an opening ceremony with blessings by a Reverend and a Muslim Imam. (A meaningful Rabbi unfortunately received the wrong directions.) Their words were inspirational:
“We ask your blessing upon this journey, praying that it will bring wholeness and healing and be representative of who we are as a community,” said Reverend John Anderson of St. John’s Presbyterian in San Francisco.
Imam Berhaan of Vallejo’s words were just as encouraging. “We are meeting people today to unite our hearts, on different levels, on different grounds, to take back unity and brotherhood wherever we go.”
It was a warm, beautiful day. The event began. Three of us jumped into the chilled water under the Golden Gate. Marcia Colhour, a San Francisco Deputy Sheriff, and I wore wetsuits, while my good friend Stu Etzler relied on the his own insulation. The current was flooding into the Bay, yet bucking a back eddy near the shore made the swim difficult. After a half mile, we prepared for the kayak section.
Bob Licht, owner of Sea Trek Kayaks in Sausalito, kayaked with his friend, Khosorow Kaligi, an Iranian-American doctor. As we paddled for three hours all the way to Candlestick Park, I watched the cooperation between this “good Jewish boy from L.A.,” as Bob described himself, and his Muslim friend.
“We’ve been friends for the past few years and this is the first time we said we should do something together, simply because Khosorow is a Moslem and I am a Jew,” explained Bob. “It was a very odd objectifying of ourselves, but we thought it was a good chance to do something together to contribute to the cause.” Khosorow added, “I hold being an American is a very precious thing. We are in a small way providing a tiny model. . . that unity will overcome fear.”
I myself paddled with an Egyptian desert guide named Osama, who now calls himself “Sam.” My buddies Stu Etzler and Ron Rahmer doubled up. The paddle leg was a journey from a different perspective. The view from the Bay into our gorgeous city was magnificent and ever changing. I became aware of the wide range of new buildings on the Embarcadero built since the ’89 quake – an encouraging example that New York, too, can be rebuilt. Three hours and ten minutes after we started, we landed on the beach in front of Candlestick Park – all three kayaks together.
The tandem bike to Ocean Beach was a new event for some of us, but we had some help. James Graham and Fancy Bulley, who rode their custom-built tandem across the country just last year,
revealed the secret of success on a tandem. “There has to be a lot of communication between the two riders,” explained James. “You truly do work as a team.”
“It’s a hell of a responsibility as the most powerful, richest nation on the earth,” said Jim Nunan, Vietnam vet and a senior VP at Non Stop Solutions, who had ridden a tandem across America with his daughter 15 years ago. “We can show by example. I just hope people can stop hating in this country long enough to start believing that we can heal. Maybe this event is the first part of it.”
Jim’s riding partner, Isaam Ideen, a Moslem and executive at the Northern California Service League, had never been on a tandem. Add to this his 6’5″ frame and things were harder than they looked.
“Riding the tandem took me back to my athletic roots of team play,” said Isaam, a former All- American and U-Mass Hall of Fame basketball star. “It is a team effort, but I felt confident with Jim as my captain.”
I struggled on the tandem with Stu, while James and Fancy whipped by us with smiles on their faces and matching red and yellow spandex suits. Marcia rode solo, along with my assistant Morgan Stockmayer, whose eagerness to join the event could not be curbed by simply standing on the sidelines. After a challenging ride over the San Bruno Mountains, and a flat tire by Jim and Isam, we eventually made it to Ocean Beach.
By then, a group of firefighters had already finished running the beach. The rest of us – Ron Rahmer, Stu Etzler, Marcia Colhour, and myself – followed suit, running three miles on the sand of the Pacific to Kelly’s Cove near Sea Rock under the Cliff House. Surfers rode the breakers while dogs jumped for frisbees and other runners and walkers passed.
Finally, three of us – Stu, Jim, and I – mountain biked back to the Presidio. We hugged the narrow northwest coast trail, through the wilderness into the road along the Lincoln Park golf course, and passed the Legion of Honor Museum. With a fabulous view of our destination – the Golden Gate – we sped through the affluent Sea Cliff neighborhood into the Presidio, flying down the hill to a waiting party of friends back at Crissy Field.
A picnic awaited us, laid out thoughtfully by my girlfriend, Marcia. We ate. We drank. We lit candles. And I heard the song “Happy Birthday David” for the 63rd time in my life. More importantly, I was thankful to create an event where people could express themselves in words and actions. As the sunset blurred the sky from red to pink, the Golden Gate’s pillars stood high and steady, reminding me of the unity I felt.
San Francisco is an inspiring and beautiful city. I was fortunate enough to gather a group of friends to celebrate the freedom of America, to celebrate athletics, to work together and to play together. We circumnavigated San Francisco through the Bay, over the mountains, on the Pacific Ocean and back to the Golden Gate Bridge. It was swimming the Golden Gate 37 years ago that gave me a start in international athletic adventures. It’s been a healing journey learning compassion and tolerance. I’d like to share that healing energy with the world.
