Movie and Discussion at Galveston College

The movie, SURFWISE, an amazing true odyssey of the Paskowitz family is a documentary by Doug Pray. Members of the Galveston community gathered to watch the movie and participate in the discussion following the film. After the movie, Alan Griffin led an animated discussion about the movie, covering parallels and contrasts of the lives of the Paskovitz family versus the Walls family, from the Galveston Reads book, Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls.

Thanks to Gracie Otin, Galveston College librarian for coordinating with her colleagues in publicizing the book and the movie; specifically, Dr. Dale Taylor for incorporating the book in her classes, and Michael Berberich for being part of Galveston Reads; Henry Newkirk for organizing the participation of the African American student club to provide pop corn and cold bottled water. Special thanks to Paul Mendoza , Culinary Arts Academy instructor, responsible for making the cookies, and coffee. He and his students provided a delectable treat, including biscuits with apricot jam, mint, chocolates and cakes, as well as Mr. Jose, in facilities for setting up the room, and Robert Taylor for setting up the multimedia. Thank you to Lynn Burke for the program and her painting, and our chair, Karen Stanley, along with the Galveston Reads Committee for their support.

The movie was a documentary portraying the many different ways the Paskowitz family used to drop off the grid. The unusual style and urgency Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, the paterfamilias of what is lovingly, and at times, enviable described as the first family of surfing. It was an intensity in part born of his passionately felt engagement with history as a Jew, which took him from Stanford Medical School in the 1940s to button-down respectability in the 1950s and, thereafter, on the road and into the blue yonder with a devoted wife, nine children, a succession of battered camper trailers and the surfboards that were by turns the family’ cradles, playpens, lifelines and shields, featuring archival film footage.


The controversial method of child rearing in an isolated environment without the benefits of a formal education provided for good discussion. There was discourse regarding when the children left their bohemian/gypsy “just another beach boy” anti-establishment family pod to strike out on their own. The lack of society’s graces created an incredible culture shock when the adult children immigrated to live in the “real” world. What seems normal to many of in the audience, such as having a formal education, being able to manage households in a “modern” fashion, work, pay bills, formal public education, were examples of things they had to “learn”. The daughter even said that she felt like a fish out of water when she integrated into society as we know it. They were taught that life outside of the core family was something to be very careful of. Doc believed that you gain wisdom from life (not from Stanford). The children were reared, it seemed to some in the audience, in a Buddhist philosophical way. The children were not encouraged to have an attachment to material wealth, They had been being taught that money was the root of all evil.

The issue of survivor’s guilt for many Jews was discussed, regarding the scene of the famous photograph of the Nazi soldier in the field aiming his gun at a woman and child. How, from seeing that visual, with no sound, some people seemed to sense what happened next.. Doc Pascowitz felt personally responsible for her death, and the death of Jews. However this could have been a product of his time, and that many of the audience members who also were born after the depression era seem to feel that same guilt.

There was great discussion about the mother of these 9 children having breast fed all her children for as long as she could. Doc told her: If an ape breast feeds their young for two years, you will breast feed our children as long. “I won’t have a monkey being a better caretaker than my wife”. Doc believed that health is the key.

There was further discussion of how the family evaded Social Services. At one point Juliet (Mrs. Paskowitz) mentioned ‘if you don’t go into the system, they don’t know you exist.’ And so it was, that the children dropped off the educational grid.