Mentor case
January 6, 2017 § 16 Comments
One of the guys I ride with is Surfer Dan. When we first started riding together a long time ago I could beat him pretty handily. He was a tri-dork runner dude. But then he did the bike thing for a few weeks and I couldn’t beat him handily anymore. He did the bike thing for a few more weeks and I never beat him again.
We used to do suicidal attack-from-the-gun moves on the Donut Ride. Really stupid stuff, except for the one time we stuck it, which made all the failures worthwhile. Dan and I have had a lot of memorable rides together, like the time he fell on the bike path when he, Pablo, Holloway, Manslaughter, and I were on our way to do a super tough guy off-road ride on our road bikes.
He was pretty embarrassed because he’s an amazing bike handler, and the ultimate tough guy, so of course I named that part of the bike path Cobley Corner. He took it in stride, I think.
Dan is one of those guys who talks so much that sometimes you think he talks too much, especially about training. He’s super analytical, and well read, and is a superb athlete, and I’m none of those things except marginally well read, so on occasion I tell him to shut up, because he’s talking the training thing to death.
Of course it’s not me he’s trying to train; you can’t train a worn out old shoe. But if you are a new rider and you’re interested in getting better, and what new rider isn’t, Dan will share everything he knows with you, help you set up a training plan, answer your questions late at night, pat down your anxieties before a big race, lend you gear, and if you need it he’ll show up and do your workout with you.
Dan’s a mentor. Not a coach or a hired expert, just an old school mentor. He reminds me of the people I first rode with, guys like Fields and the Dicksons and Kevin Callaway the Good, riders who got pleasure in passing on what they knew. They all had different ways of mentoring; Scott’s was to take you seventy miles from home, get you lost, then check his watch and say he “had to get back” which meant you were either going to never get home or you were going to do a 70-mile TT.
Fields was much more analytical, and Callaway was exuberant. If he learned something, he had to tell you about it. Both of them loved it when they told you something, you used it, and it worked.
In any case, they were all mentors. They never got anything from it except the pleasure of passing on hard-won information so you could use it for your benefit. It’s as old as the human race, teaching people and getting pleasure when they succeed, or if they fail, getting pleasure out of knowing you tried to help.
I was talking to Dan about this one day and he laughed like he always does. There’s something about sharing what he knows that makes him happy. It’s his gift of giving that lets him receive.
Last night there was a big family blowup in my complex. Their family is collapsing. The mom had split for Japan, and the dad, who is a big, bullying drunk, was berating his teenage son outside. The son was so sad and broken and the dad hammered away at him.
“Get the hell out of here. You aren’t sleeping here, goddammit.”
The kid is probably 14, and I could hear him speaking softly, afraid. “Yes, sir.”
“Where’s your fucking mother? She go back to Japan? She catch the fucking plane?”
“Yes, sir.”
Then there was a bunch of unintelligible yelling by the drunk and stupid father. “Go to a fucking shelter. I don’t care.”
I could hear the boy standing there completely alone and defeated, nowhere to go, kicked out of his home, his mom on a plane, and nothing but the big, ugly, terrifying city of Los Angeles spread out like a claw.
“Ah, fuck it. Get the fuck back in here,” said the dad.
“Yes, sir,” said the boy.
It was the saddest thing I’ve heard in a long time, a kid being molded by the anger and failure and abuse of his father. That kid was in the middle of a maelstrom and he needed refuge. How was he going to get through school with his family falling apart? What was going to happen the next time, probably tomorrow, that his father blew up again? What was he going to do without his mom?
That poor kid. I thought about my grandson and felt guilty, a toddler who’s known nothing but love every single day of his short life, a child who’s got refuge and backup ten miles deep, and I thought about all the other kids in the world who are hungry, lonely, sick, abandoned, nowhere to go, no one to turn to, chained beneath the wheel with no way out.
Then I thought about my friend Dan and about how he selflessly reaches out to anyone who needs help, sharing his time, his passion, and if you ask for it, a place to crash in a pinch, a guy who cares about other people, and who, despite his imperfections, will lift you up and cheer you on if you need it, and who is always trying to help mold a better version of you
I went to bed that night and somehow slept soundly.
END
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Cycling in the South Bay 
Sounds like that “father” could use a little, hummm, “mentoring”. Hell, he’s probably treating his son like he was treated by his “father”.
The kid needs a Dan…..
Yeah …
We all need a Dan at some point. But better yet, we all need to be a Dan…..
Man can he ride. Really annoying!
Right?
Seth, while I certainly don’t know all the details it sure sounds like an abusive situation that maybe someone (or some agency) should get involved in, even an anonymous tip called in might help?
You’re right.
Maybe not. What he’s experiencing is probably better than the child welfare services system. Especially in L.A. (Thanks, voters)
The roundabout way to do it is to somehow get the parent on intoxication charges. Hopefully that sets off some court-appointed sobriety work. But, people can be pretty determined to keep at it even after getting involved in the judicial system.
Not a good situation.
The man can make me laugh like no other!!! Shapes beautiful boards makes me want to surf! Love DanC❤
So what your saying is Surfer Dan is a manifestation of dog?
-ish …
Back when The Simpsons used to be good there was an episode where a Krusty the clown doll was on a mad terror binge. When the doll was returned to the store the guy behind the counter sez “well here’s your problem Mac- this doll is set to EVIL”; he flips the switch to ‘GOOD’ and all is well.
I suspect your neighbor has a similar issue. Try peeling back his skull which should reveal a switch that is currently set to “DICK.” Toggle the switch to “NOT A DICK”, gently replace the piece of skull removed in step 1 and things should be better. At least for the kids sake something needs be done. What a sad sad situation
Definitely needs to flip the switch.
Wow, that bit was a lesson in contrasts. Surfer Dan is a great person. He makes me smile often with his interesting humor and big kindness. I see his tricked out mini-van along the beach, outside his board shop, and at Trader Joes. It makes me smile knowing he’s around. Then the drunken a-hole and his poor kid. That is a sad story. Maybe if you catch the fuckface on video and play it back for him sometime it will help him check himself.
Getting involved in domestic disputes = awesome way to get shot.
This is why I read your articles all the way from Vancouver, Canada. You managed to artfully cover two important points for me, and others, in one article (Guess that comes from reducing your cycling mileage allowing for covering more subjects per article).
I see how many of my friends children get amazing love, as it should be, every day. My Dad abandoned us in 1957, a wife who survived two concentration camps, a newborn baby girl, a son (me at 1.5) and a daughter at 8 years old. We never heard from him again, and as a result we grew up in a series of foster homes.
My older sister never talked about it, but when I pushed her once on the matter, she said to me “I thought he loved me” She had it worse than us, she knew him.
Two months ago, I discovered he died in New York in 1995, had married another woman and had in fact lived in Seattle, two hours away from me.
On the mentoring, side, this is something I am proud to say has been what I love to do all my life (In fact, I work as a Carer Coach) However, a few months ago, I taught a young cyclist how to ride rollers, and now he rides without hands while texting, neither of which I can do.
That is a such a sad story. Thank you for sharing it, and thanks for the very, very kind words. More importantly, thanks for mentoring. Being eclipsed is proof you’re doing it right.