Ehukai

Laie-Hauula, Hawaii, 1973

On the way to Japan, the family stopped in Hawaii. It was supposed to be a two week layover while Dad finished up business in NY, The Roppongi Club.

Roppongi is a district in Tokyo that is well known as the city's most popular nightlife district among foreigners, offering a large number of foreigner friendly bars, restaurants and night clubs,

By this time, my dad was a jewelry/gem dealer, doing lots of deals on 47th street in New York City. Having made several trips to Japan, he found that Japanese businessmen would go out, hang out at hostess clubs and drink into the night. These kinds of clubs did not exist in New York, but Japanese businessmen did, so my Dad made a destination for them. The Roppongi Club took up an entire floor in the Lexington Hotel on 48th street and Lexington Avenue. It included a hostess club, a steakhouse, a mahjong parlor, a shiatsu parlor and a miniature-golf course on the terrace.

We packed my mother, Hannie, my aunt Sacha and 8 boys, into two hotel rooms at the Waikiki Surf West, a small hotel with a swimming pool. Two weeks passed. My mother came to the realization that my Dad wasn’t coming when he said he would. We would need a better solution than hotel rooms.

We all got into two station wagon taxies and drove around the island in search of a place to live, a big enough house. We found a realty in a small town, Laie, on the windward side of Oahu. For $600 a month we rented a beachfront house. My life had taken an incredible turn for the better. The transformation from the concrete jungle of 46 W 96th street, half a block to Central Park, to 55-609 Kamehameha Hwy right on the beach, was nothing short of a miracle.

Laie turned out to be a Mormon town. No Alcohol. No caffeine. Everything closed at 8:00 pm. It was home to the Hawaii campus of Brigham Young University (BYU) and the Mormon Temple. At BYU they would not let me borrow books from the library because “my hair was below my ears.”

What’s left to do under such a circumstance? Surf! And when the surf’s not “up.” Dive! Not scuba, that would cost money. We didn’t have a lot of money.

I learned to surf in Laie bay, at a local break called “Genegators.” Surf breaks are often named after something on shore near the break. The surf break was named after a 1930s movie star who had a house on the beach at a time when there were no other houses and the only way to reach Laie from Honolulu was on horseback. Her name was Janet Gaynor.

I soon made friends that would take me to surf the North Shore. The North Shore is famous for Sunset, Rocky Point, Banzai Pipeline and Waimea Bay. I surfed Gas Chambers, Pupukea, Haleiwa. They were no quite as gnarly as the breaks where the pros surfed.

A newcomer to the sport I was not comfortable in waves that were much bigger than me. These were the days before leashes, devices that connect your ankle to your board with some 6 feet of line with a little stretchy part to keep the wave from causing injury as it tries to take your board with it on its way to shore. It was also the days before there was a reliable surf report.

One day I was out at Gas Chambers. As the day went on, the waves grew in size to the point where I could not surf them. They became too big for me to surf. It was afternoon and it had been awhile since I caught a wave. I thought to myself, “I really don’t want to get stuck out here after dark.” The current would eventually pull me out to deeper waters. My surfboard and I would be dragged off into the ocean in the dark. That could easily make me “lost at sea.”

I made up my mind to tackle one of the more reasonable waves in the next set. Waves come in sets, something like five waves in a row with the middle one being the biggest. I took off on the first one, but I did not have the speed to stand up and reach the bottom of the wave. The wave pulled my board out from under me. I was in free-fall at this point. I dove straight down and entered the water far below the lip of the wave which was now passing above me distorting the blue Hawaiian sky. My plan was to enter the water and swim towards the back of the wave, then surface. This maneuver worked perfectly. I ended up behind the wave in the blue water. At this point, I had no board and I was behind the waves that were too big for me to surf, not good.

There was a rip-tide channel between Banzai Pipeline and Gas Chambers, in front of Ehukai Beach park. It was so strong that waves were not even breaking in this channel. I tried to swim behind the waves, in the direction of the channel, but after swimming for some time, I realized that I had made no headway. There was a current that moved the water along the shore at about the same speed as I could swim. This was clearly not going to work. The only way out was in. I would have to swim through the whitewater on the reef. Between me and the white water were the towering waves. My only choice was through the waves.

I tried body surfing a very large wave, but it was too big to bodysurf. It picked me up and I went “over the falls.” The wave crashed into the whitewater below. It threw me around like a leaf in a cup of tea. It would take me some time to figure out which way was up. When I figured it out, I would swim up to the surface to get some air before the next wave hit. The next wave would once again pick me up and send me flying over the falls. After the third time I went over the falls, I found myself in the churning white water over the reef.

I was in a strong longshore current moving the whitewater off the reef and into the rip-tide channel. If I ended up in the channel, the rip-tide would drag me right back to the deep blue water outside the waves. I would have to start all over. I needed to avoid this at all cost.

By this time, I had been swimming for quite some time. I was really tired. One hundred feet of whitewater was still between me and the beach. Then I got a cramp.

The back of my right thigh muscle froze and sent my brain a sharp pain signal. My muscle was on fire. It was useless, I thought, “If I continue doing what I’m doing, I will surely die today.” I was facing death. Time slowed down. “Am I really going to die here?” I thought.

I’ve had several near death experiences. They all seem to feature time slowing down combined with a moment of clarity. My next thought was “No, I’m not going. I still have stuff to do.”

Whitewater is lighter than water, that’s because it has bubbles in it that give it its white color. Water with bubbles is lighter than water without bubbles. Ships have been sunk because they entered water with bubbles and were no longer able to float. I was in whitewater.

I was exhausted. I was having difficulty swimming the whitewater. I got a cramp. I was in really deep shit.

I took some “slow-time,” to think through my predicament. I could not longer depend on the muscle that was cramping. I had to find other muscles, ones I had not yet used. That was it! I had to change to a different stroke that used new muscles. I switched to a backstroke, my mother’s stroke. While this meant that the remnants of waves would pass over my face and cause me to swallow water from time to time, it gave me enough energy and speed to get across the longshore current and onto the beach.

I literally crawled onto the beach and out of the reach of the waves. Waves cause water rush up on to the beach and slide back to the ocean dragging whatever they find with them. Tourists regularly get pulled off the beach and drown because they underestimate the power of the surge. I crawled as far as I could up the beach and collapsed. I felt like Robinson Crusoe. I could see my board in the distance, by Ehukai Beach park, being dragged into the ocean by waves and re-deposited on shore by subsequent waves.

It took me a good 15 minutes to regain enough strength to be able

to get up and walk to my board.

I survived.

I still had stuff to do.

Don’t F*ck With Me

My name is Henk Rogers. I’m generally a gentle person that gets along with just about everyone. I’ve never hit anyone in my life.

I’m the guy who brought Tetris to the world. You can enjoy my adventure to Moscow in 1989 in the movie “Tetris” on AppleTV+. After my computer game career I became an active environmentalist.

I came back from COP28 in Dubai a week ago. My mission is to end the use of carbon based fuel. The mission of my non-profit, the Blue Planet Alliance, is to end the use of carbon based fuel by 2045. No deadline. No result. That's why I was at COP28. I was there to put an end to the Climate Crisis.

I went to Junior High School and High School in New York City (Our Lady of Sorrows, Corona and Stuyvesant, Manhattan on 15th and 1st.) I’m back in the city after roaming the world for decades. I would say that I’m a New Yorker.

My girlfriend Lisa and I went to dinner with a good friend, Beverly. We were to meet at Fiorello’s, a classic Italian restaurant across the street from Lincoln Center at 6:00. It’s Beverly’s favorite haunt as she lives around the corner and it’s the best and closest restaurant for her.

As usual, Lisa and I rode our electric assist e-bikes (fancy Trek bicycles). We ride bikes instead of taking cabs or Ubering for environmental reasons. It was December so it was cold, but not cold enough to keep us from riding. We lived on 43rd and 11th. It was mostly a straight shot up 10th and its new bicycle lane, right on 62nd, right again on Columbus, left on 63rd, left on Broadway and two blocks to Fiorello’s.

The Christmas lights at Lincoln Center were gorgeous. We parked our bikes right outside the restaurant. I think it was the pole that supported a “NO STOPPING” sign. As usual, I put my U-Bolt around the pole and around the pipe that goes from under my saddle to under my handle bars. To the U-Bolt I attached two cables, one through the solid metal vertical tubes on both bikes, the other through both front tires. It seemed secure enough. There was a constant flow of people walking by. Cars stopped to let people off or pick people up in the “NO STOPPING” zone.

Fiorello’s was packed. We sat outside in the Covid plastic covered greenhouse seating which New York City has decided to make permanent. Overhead heaters kept the situation from being unbearable.

We got a seat in the corner closest to the street. I could see our bikes from there, about 50’ from where I was sitting. It was hard to see them through the plastic as it distorted the image of the bikes. Also there was that constant flow of people between me and the bikes. I tried looking at them from time to time, but they seemed fine every time I looked.

I ordered eggplant parmesan with a side of spaghetti and had a fake beer. We spent the time downloading our experience at COP28 in Dubai to Beverly. I had 15 speaking engagements. I sponsored two events, a 300 people reception for island leaders and a 40 people Jeffersonian Dinner (each person got 90 seconds to tell everyone who they were and what they did). We signed an agreement with the President of Palau and the Prime Minister of Curacao that starts to put them on the path to 100% renewable energy.

In the end it was no to dessert but yes to hot chocolate. So, we took our merry time. We left the restaurant, said our goodbyes, and went out to where we had left our bicycles.

Holy smokes!! Lisa’s bike was gone! The cables were neatly cut with what must have been massive bolt cutters. My bike with the Dead Bolt was still there, unharmed. We were both going, “shit!” We knew that this kind of thing happens regularly in NY, so we should not be surprised. Lisa was going through a bit of negative emotion. I was thinking, “It’s just stuff.” Should we call the cops? It seemed like a waste of time. It would just be a report.

We spent a couple of minutes thinking about how stupid we were to trust the cables. We would learn from this. I would make sure that both bikes would be dead bolted next time. We were just getting to the point of calling Lisa an Uber to get back home when I remembered something. I had put an Apple AirTag in the depths of the bag attached to the rear of her bike rack. We quickly turned on the “Find My” app. Her bike was on 68th and 12th.

I said, “Call 911 and keep calling me with updated information about the location of the bike.”

I jumped on my bike and headed for 68th and12th on the bicycle path. I didn’t find anyone. “Refresh the app, maybe it will pick up a new location,” I said.
 
After a while, we got a new location, 66th street! Just two blocks from me. I was there in no time. Again, nobody. After some back and forth, I got a new location, 66th between 12th and 11th. I headed that way in “hot pursuit.” I crossed the Hudson River Greenway (12th) and rode into 66th.

There they were! Two guys. One standing next to an electric Citi Bike the other standing next to Lisa’s red Trek. It was a dark street with no people. I didn't relish the idea of confronting two guys in a dark alley. The bike was definitely not worth me getting hurt. I passed them by and turned into a parking lot half way down the block. I called Lisa and told her to send the cops to 66th between 12th and 11th and take an Uber to where I was.

Lisa was there before the cops came. She waited at the corner of 66th and 11th, having given 911 that as the meeting place. Where are the cops when you need them? I guess they have more important things to do than catching bike thieves. After a while, the pair took off in the direction of the Greenway.

Lisa and I joined up and tried to figure out which way they went, uptown or downtown. It took awhile, but finally we got our answer. They were near Horatio–downtown I took off again. I headed down the Empire State Trail, the bike path that parallels the Greenway.

The next location was two blocks past the Little Island, a park built on stilts in the Hudson River near 12th street. I rode past the island and passed the spot on the map Lisa had sent me (a screenshot of the Find My app). Nobody there. I rode all around the place. Nothing. I thought that maybe they had thrown out the bag, so I spent time looking for it in the bushes. Nothing.
I got the next set of coordinates. Warren street. That’s a block past the new Stuyvesant building on Chambers Street. I flew down the Trail past my alma mater. They were supposed to be a half a block from the Greenway. I turned right on Warren to search for them. Nothing.

“Are they on the river side of Warren or the other side?” I asked.
“They are on the other side between Barnes & Noble and Whole Foods,” Lisa said.

I crossed the Greenway and slowly pedaled down Warren. Past Barnes & Noble. Nothing. All the way to the corner. Still nothing. I turned the corner onto Greenwich. There, in front of a store next to Tribeca Whole Foods, was Lisa’s bike. I rode over to it and dismounted. I looked around. It was a very wide sidewalk. There were some people, but I didn’t see the guys. For some reason, they had taken the bag off the back and hung it on the handle bars.

I proceeded to take the bag off the handle bars and started working on attaching it back to the luggage rack on the back. All of a sudden I looked up. There was a guy headed straight for me, a white guy mid thirties, beanie, green jacket and blue jeans. He was about my height and build, but half my age.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he said in a menacing way, acting like I was about to steal his bike.

I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my blood vessels. It’s the fight or flight hormone. I had to choose. Fight or flee? At this point my instinct took over.

I noticed that there were some people just entering Whole Foods at that moment. I yelled at the top of my lungs “YOU STOLE MY GIRLFRIEND’S BIKE! DON’T FUCK WITH ME!!”

The people who continued entering Whole Foods acted like we were not even there. So much for backup.

The guy, startled at my reaction, stopped in his tracks, turned around and went back to a distant bench where his buddy was waiting. From there, they took off.

I moved the bikes into Whole Foods, just inside the entrance, by the shopping carts. From there I went inside to get warm. I hadn’t been prepared for a long night biking in the cold. I could see the bikes from the fresh vegetable section. I called Lisa and told her to Uber her way to Tribeca Whole Foods.

Next time each of us do a deadbolt. Also, it might be better to have two AirTags, one in the bag and one somewhere else on the bike. I might just need a taser or bear spray. Just in case.

Oh, and in the end, they got Lisa’s gloves.