Raising A Soul Surfer by Rick Bundschuh, Cheri Hamilton Page A

training to live my ocean-bound life.
    My parents were probably the most regular swimmers at the hot springs pool. We have photos of my sister and me jumping into the pool as babies. It must have been easy to become water babies where the land is covered with several feet of freezing snow and the pool water is warm and wonderful!
    After two years in snowy Glenwood Springs, my dad took a new job in the dusty, dry desert of Arizona, at Yuma High School. We found a house in a family neighborhood with lots of desert critters. We missed the hot springs pool back in the mountains of Colorado, so my mom came to our rescue. She had our backyard paradise fenced in to keep out the rattlesnakes, and then she made a water park playground to cool us off. We turned brown from playing in our kiddie pool under the blazing Arizona sun.
    My younger sister, Karin, soon arrived. When she got big enough, she was put in charge of squirting us with the hose. My mom kept busy washing diapers, which were completely dry by the time she hung the last one up. This was a big change from the frozen diapers hanging stiffly on the line in Glenwood Springs! My mother took great care of us. She sewed beautiful little dresses for Easter, enrolled us in ballet dance classes, curled our hair and made the best taquitos ever! My dad, though, was California dreaming. He worked extra after-school hours selling cars to save up vacation money to scout out San Diego.
    During the summer break, our family would pack up our station wagon and go camping on just about every beach in California. We went everywhere along the ocean, which helped my dad confirm his decision to move to San Diego. He loved the beaches, the zoo, the beautiful harbor; and he set his course to eventually move to this wonderful beach-lined city. It wasn’t long before his winning reputation as a wrestling coach at Yuma High caught the notice of a football coach at San Diego High. I once asked him about his two state championship victories in Yuma. He said the real secret to his success was the amazing talent of his team who were mostly Navaho indigenous people.
    At last, our ocean-bound destiny became a reality. We packed up our Ford Fairlane station wagon and moved to San Diego.You might get the impression that my parents liked to move around a lot. But the truth is, once they got to San Diego, California, that was it. Looking back, I can only thank God.
    Like Tom, my family ended up living near the beach. But you can hardly get any farther removed from New Jersey beaches than sunny Southern California, where I grew up. Once I hit elementary school, I was firmly ensconced in the idyllic fifties-era childhood—Barbie dolls, roller skates (they had steel wheels back then), and Saturday movie matinees, complete with Giant Sweet Tarts, Milk Duds and sticky floors.
    Today, with all the dangers to children that we see in the news, it’s hard to imagine a time when the only real rule was to be back home by the time the street lights turned on.
    We had a limited spiritual education as children. My mother would take us to church on Christmas and Easter—like most people. Because we had just moved to San Diego, and we didn’t have any friends yet, Sunday School would be a great way to meet some other neighborhood children. We’d walk to a nearby church, probably to enjoy wearing our pretty homemade dresses of frilly taffeta and our white gloves. It was only when, one Sunday, I happened to pick a rose growing over the fence of a house along the way to church that everything went wrong.
    He must have been deranged, because some old man came rushing out of the house, swearing and yelling at us. He swung a shining butcher knife over his head. We didn’t stay to see if he was crazy enough to use it; but because of that terrifying experience, we stayed home on Sundays from then on, and that stunted my spiritual education. Occasionally, our folks would take us to a beach area church that was having Vacation