Morrie Gardner

I never wrote an obituary for my friend and neighbour Morrie who died back at the end of June but here is one better than anything I could have written. It is by Morrie's friend of 40 years Murray Horton and appeared in Foreign Control Watchdog 118
August 2008 issue.

It is on hot days like we've been having recently that i most miss Morrie. I'd often take him over a couple of cold beers in the late afternoon and converse for a couple of hours. i always really enjoyed talking with Morrie as he full of knowledge & wisdom and was just enjoyable to be around. I learned a lot from Morrie and although he has moved on the wisdom gained will remain with me for life. Thank you Morrie! Keep surfing!


MORRY GARDNER
Obituary by Murray Horton

To use the hoary old rugby cliché (which he would have considered totally inappropriate), the life of Morry Gardner really was one of two halves. There were the first 24 years, until 1977, and then there were the remaining 31 years. In that year, at that dreadfully young age, Morry had a catastrophic hang gliding accident in Christchurch (he was into extreme aeronautical sports long before they became fashionable) which left him a quadriplegic for the rest of his short life. I knew both halves of his life and the contrast between the two was stark and irreparable. His paralysis (from the neck down, with limited movement in one arm and hand) left him permanently wheelchair bound, although in the final decade he was able to live alone and independent with the assistance of caregivers who stayed overnight to perform the multitude of vital daily physical functions (like turning over in bed and getting up) that the rest of us don’t even have to think about. Even laughing, which he did a lot whenever we were talking, was a real effort. The very last time that I saw Morry, in early 2007, made me realise with a jolt just how much we able bodied people take for granted. Becky and I visited him unannounced at his North Beach house. He asked me if I’d do him a favour. I said yes, so he asked us to come outside with him. There, somewhat to our consternation, he asked me to hose him down with the garden hose. Now, believe it or not, it actually goes against the grain for me to give a bloke in a wheelchair a good blast of cold water but he was insistent that he needed it to cool down on hot days (the inability to control his body temperature was just one of the things that was now beyond his control) and that unannounced visitors had their uses. Fair enough, so I let him have it. He was very grateful.

And the terrible damage (internal as well as external) wrought by that paralysis buggered up his health in a myriad of ways, drastically shortened his life expectancy and eventually killed him. Cold weather really knocked him around, he basically went into hibernation during Christchurch’s winters and he rarely went out at night at any time of the year. A simple cold could rapidly lead to pneumonia or a life threatening infection. In recent years his kidneys had packed up and it was congestion of the lungs that finally finished him off in June 2008 (winter, not coincidentally, and a cold one) aged 55. As far as was possible he controlled his own death, declining medication which would have prolonged his life, and dying peacefully at home with his family and friends. For his funeral he was driven in his bus (which, complete with a roster of friends as drivers, had been his magic carpet to being a part of the community), accompanied by family and friends, to be buried in the plot that he’d bought cheap years ago in Banks Peninsula’s remote and peaceful Pigeon Bay cemetery.

But there was nothing wrong with his brain (his head was one of the few parts of him not injured in the crash) and Morry lived a very full and active life of the mind during those long decades of paralysis. Visiting him was always intellectually stimulating, because he was keen to discuss ideas, theories and information. Which is not to say that he had wished for or initially accepted his situation. When I first visited him after the accident, in Christchurch Hospital, he was flat on his back and very, very angry. He was particularly angry that “I can’t even kill myself, Murray, I’m dependent on other people to do that for me” (as far as I know, none of his family or friends were ever put to that test). But as the years went by – 20 in an institution and the final decade in his own home - he achieved a Zen-like state of calm and even saw advantages in his situation. I was particularly struck by him telling me, in recent years, that he was happy that he no longer had desire (considering how much of our lives is ruled by that elemental emotion, Morry may have had a point).

Political Activist : From PYM To CAFCA

William Maurice Gardner was so much more than a “cripple” and he sure as hell didn’t want to be pitied (this was a man who, in 1997, hosted a grand Lyttelton party to “celebrate” 20 years of quadriplegia). He ironically dubbed himself Chairman Morry (a nod to our old mate, Chairman Mao and to the fact that Morry really was a man in a chair for more than half of his life). Morry had been very much alive before his accident and, as far as his limitations would allow, that continued for the 31 years after it. From 1987-2003 inclusive he was a CAFCA member. His situation meant that he could never attend any of the meetings or activities that we held during those years but he was a keen Watchdog reader and he was also a generous donor, both to CAFCA and to the CAFCA/ABC Organiser Account which provides my income. From 1992-2001 he donated a grand total of $2,735 to the latter (in amounts ranging from $250-$500 at a time), which is staggering generosity from a quadriplegic whose only income was a benefit. He resigned from CAFCA and stopped the donations because of the need to prioritise his mortgage. But he remained a keen CAFCA supporter in the final five years of his life.

CAFCA membership is not something that Morry took up as a hobby after his accident. It was a logical progression from his life as a political activist before his accident. Morry and I go back together to the “good old days” of the Christchurch Progressive Youth Movement (PYM) of the late 1960s and early 70s. He was a couple of years younger than me which means that when I was starting out in PYM as a brash 18 year old, he was still at high school. In the course of researching this obituary, I contacted his 92 year old father Jim Gardner (a well known historian and one of my History lecturers at the University of Canterbury in the 70s. He retired in 1977, the same year as Morry’s accident).

Jim wrote a short eulogy of his son especially for Watchdog : “Though a gentle child, he was a free spirit and no conformer. He was sent to Christ’s College, but he was soon at odds with the school’s rules. He ended up as representative of the progressive Youth Movement. When told to cut his overlength hair, Morry expelled himself to Papanui High School. His College mates told him he was a fool to jeopardise his studies. But he upstaged them by getting an A grade at Papanui”. Morry hated Christ’s, the snobbiest private boy’s school in Christchurch, so much so that he told me that he went back some years after he’d left and firebombed the sports equipment shed (mind you, that might have been an apocryphal story).

As a schoolboy Morry was swept up in the ferment of the youth revolution which swept the world in the 1960s and into the 70s. He was active in the splendidly acronymed CUSS (Christchurch Union of Secondary Students). In those days secondary schoolkids had their own very lively groups which were an integral part of the wider protest movement against the big issues of the days, such as the Vietnam War and NZ’s sporting links with apartheid South Africa. A fellow CUSSer (and PYMer) e-mailed me : “… at its peak (CUSS) had at a representative member (or more than one) from 17 of the 21 high schools in Christchurch in that period”.

Morry was a PYM member although not one of the inner core who came to meetings (too boring for him, I imagine). He came to all the demos, of which there were plenty – they were held weekly for a period. And it’s important to remember that involvement in the counter-culture (doesn’t that historic term sound quaint now?) was a whole lifestyle, not simply one of political involvement. Morry was an enthusiastic participant of that lifestyle, he jumped in, boots and all, to a world of big communal flats, and the much ballyhooed but very real world of sex and drugs and rock and roll (no, it wasn’t invented by the scriptwriters of “Absolutely Fabulous”). It was a great, chaotic, time to be young.

A Lifelong Lifestyle

Now I don’t know about the sex but Morry was definitely a fan of the drugs and rock and roll, quite often in combination. After his death a mutual friend (and fellow PYMer and CAFCA founder) e-mailed me : “…We pieced together memories ... the time we had all gone to the most amazing concert in our memories - Santana, with some of Morry's hash cookies. That was one of his specialties. We had seats overlooking the stage, and had Carlos Santana just a few feet below us...” (I was also one of those who attended one of Santana’s two back to back concerts in one night in the Christchurch Town Hall in the early 70s and it remains the best concert I’ve ever been to. And, no, my appreciation of it wasn’t enhanced by hash cookies or anything else. I was a prude when it came to drugs of any kind). Morry remained a dope smoker for the rest of his life, he found it therapeutic. Hilariously, the reason he got expelled from his institutional home of 20 years was because the staff discovered his dope stash hidden in the frame of his wheelchair (he’d had previous warnings about having dope on the premises, so this was the parting of the ways and he went out to the big wide world of house ownership, where he could do what he liked in the privacy of his own home and be left in peace). And sometimes Morry quite literally combined the drugs with the politics. This is not an apocryphal story : he and another person set out to inject the home delivered milk bottles of Christchurch’s then Police commander with acid (LSD), presumably to “turn him on” (more wonderfully quaint language). I can’t remember if they succeeded or not with the injecting but if so it didn’t make any difference to that particular cop, now long dead. He was a nutter before and he remained a nutter afterwards.

Morry was a hands on activist. Paintups in those pre-spray can days were done with a good old paintbrush and tin. He was greatly taken by a story that I told him of a taxidriver who’d declared (to me) his opposition to the proposed 1973 Springbok tour of NZ solely based on the mass surrender to the Germans by South African soldiers in the World War 2 battle of Tobruk (now Tubruq, in Libya). Morry proceeded to do a paintup on a prominent central city fence proclaiming the mystifying message “No Tour. Remember Tobruk”. Unfortunately, it became even more mystifying because he was disturbed in the act and ran away, leaving the final slogan as “Remember To”, with a line of paint trailing away down the fence. It was there for years (and, yes, the Labour government stopped that tour).

Morry remained proud of his years as a PYM member and made a great effort to attend the 1989 20 th anniversary reunion dinner which I organised in a central city upstairs restaurant, with no lift. This involved him in the terrifying process of being carried up those stairs, chair and all, and even more terrifying, back down them again by people who’d had a few drinks in the interim. That PYM reunion became the setting for Russell Campbell’s documentary “Rebels In Retrospect” and, for me, the most poignant footage in it is a fleeting appearance of an able bodied Morry in a home movie that Russell incorporated into his film. Morry valued the old days and only a few years ago, earlier this decade, organised a reunion for a central city house where he (and umpteen others) had lived in the early 70s, a famous party house complete with its own resident disco ball. The house is long gone and is now a private car park, so that’s where the reunion was held – in the empty car park on a weekend afternoon (before we all retired to a nearby club for the night). This is only the second time that I’ve had to write the obituary of a PYM comrade (the other one being for Murray Shaw in Watchdog 56, June 1987 – he was killed, aged 35, in a railway shunting yard accident) and it simultaneously saddens me greatly and also reawakens a whole lot of scarcely believable memories. By coincidence the photo of Morry which accompanies this was taken at Murray’s 1987 funeral.

Morry was a child of his times. He was a university dropout (as was I, albeit a graduate one). “At university, Morry was turned off by the monotony of lectures and exams, and opted out of the ‘gravy train’. He needed to find a place where he could live the life he wanted. Morry went ‘over the hill’ and became a Coaster” (Jim Gardner). Like countless others who saw the movie “Easy Rider”, he got a chopper motorbike. He was one of those who moved to the West Coast (I was going to say one of those hippies who moved to the Coast but Morry was never a hippie and would not appreciate being posthumously labelled as one). He worked in a forestry gang on the Coast and this is the only job that anyone could tell me that he ever had. The early 70s were days of full employment (and by that I really do mean full employment, not “an acceptable level of unemployment” as we have today), living was cheap and the lifestyle that our crowd lived meant that you could survive on the smell of an oily rag. Particularly on the Coast – the Blackball house that Morry and countless others lived in (or used as a crashpad – more 70s language) cost $300 to buy! Plus Morry inherited money from a relative which meant that he’d didn’t need to worry about working. He was in a relationship for several years, and they lived in various parts of the Coast, finishing up in the high altitude Buller coalmining ghost town of Denniston. The relationship finished decades ago but they remained very close friends right up until Morry’s death – indeed, beyond it, because he made her the executor and beneficiary of his estate.

Love Of Flying Machines

He pursued his love of flying machines, which dated back to his childhood days as a champion model aeroplane builder and flyer. He set out to build a microlight powered by a chainsaw motor. A mutual friend e-mailed me after Morry’s death : “I lived in Blackball for a couple of years in the mid to late 70's and remember Morry calling in unexpectedly to stash a chainsaw that he'd snatched from a Greymouth hardware store while the assistant was out the back. He had temporarily hidden it outside of town and gone back only to be picked up by the cops and questioned. No evidence, no charges, so they had to let him go. He hid it at my place for a few weeks because he was sure his local cop would pay him a visit. He said he needed it for his flying machine”. The 1977 hang gliding accident and resultant quadriplegia meant that he never got to fly his homemade plane. But that didn’t stop his interest in flying machines. The same friend continued in that e-mail : “In the early 80's (the late Murray Shaw) and I would visit him when he was living at St John of God Hospital. We would be the bodies that could climb fences and retrieve the powered model aeroplanes that he and (another paraplegic resident and friend) designed, built, flew and crash-landed. As they got better at powered takeoffs and landings our legs became redundant…”.

Morry lived for 20 years in that strangely Gothic Catholic institution on the outskirts of Christchurch (the hospital has since closed, to make way for a housing subdivision, so Morry would have to have moved out anyway). It always felt rather creepy to visit him there and now I know why, with the media full of the historic child sex abuse trials of former teaching brothers based there. He was much better off (except financially) living in his own home for the final decade of his life. And as I’ve already said, during his three decades as a quadriplegic, Morry lived a full life of the mind. The university dropout returned to serious study and picked up a couple of degrees (he developed a strong interest in criminology and psychology).

“It (quadriplegia) was a brutal test for him, but in a remarkable transformation he turned restricted existence into overflowing life. Am amazing feat was his graduation (MSc with Hons) in 1992. He retained and gained a wide group of friends who looked to him as their guru. His cheerful sharing of his wide knowledge and interests became a delightful experience for his visitors. Morry kept up his connection with CAFCA and other good causes. He was a key witness in a compensation case” (Jim Gardner).

He enjoyed as active a social life as possible. In the days when there were regular parties at our place (particularly the legendary Chairman Mao’s Birthday Parties, held on Boxing Day – which was the Chairman’s birthday) Morry would turn up, driven by a mate in his one man party bus, equipped with customised ramps to enable his wheelchair to get into and out of unmodified houses, with his very long hair plaited down his back in a ponytail (he cut it in his final years). He was a fixture at social events at our place and those of friends.

He enjoyed life and we enjoyed him. He didn’t want pity and he certainly didn’t want to be seen as some sort of a “role model”. He was as tough as nails and as far as possible, he lived life on his terms. He just got on with it and set about overcoming adversity. He always told us that he couldn’t expect to live a long life but that he had come to terms with that. Morry, old mate, old comrade, if there is a “somewhere else”, then I hope you’re running free in it. Even better, if it comes complete with wings, enjoy the flying.

Bodysurf, handboards et autres glisses alternatives

A French blog I just found devoted to bodysurfing, handboards and paipo. Quite a number of beautiful handboards and paipo created from recycled wood. Check it out here.

Christmas Day waves

Approx 1.5 metre with occassional bigger waves.

Lady Slide

...because I like girls!

Excerpt from Sprout by Thomas Campbell
'On the Low' sung by Hope Sandoval

The Twisty Twinz

North Wai residents Nele and Jola - The Twisty Twinz - filmed on the beach at Marahau by AJ Hickling ("DiWata").

Recent DVD Acquisitions

Several months ago I bought the "Life Like Liquid" DVD and highly recommend it. I've also recently purchased "The Alaia Story" and "Believe" DVDs - both excellent.

LIFE LIKE LIQUID



BELIEVE

New Pine Hand Board

I built this hand planing board this week from a spare THULE display shelf we had at our shop. I discovered several of these shelves just gathering dust in our storage shed and immediately thought "hmmmmm..." I'll be making a few more in different shapes.

New Sunburst Paipo

Looking Down the Barrel

First of a planned series of wave paintings on shaped fibre-board panels.

"Looking Down the Barrel"
Acrylic on MDF
1180mm x 380mm x 12mm

Full Circle on The Surfer's Path

There's a new article by Tom Pohaku Stone on the Surfer's Path site called Full Circle about the return to wooden boards

Read it here.

Vintage Bellyboards

Here are two vintage bellyboards from the 1940s or 50s that are part of the collection of vintage surfboards at Exit Surf Products here in Christchurch. I forgot to measure them but they are approx 120cm long.

Two Alaia Vids

Chad Marshall riding and talking about his alaia






Jacob Stuth riding an alaia at Noosa Heads

My Home Beach

You'd almost think it was summer! Huh! A small swell day and the water is icy.



View Larger Map

Bellyboarding Cornwall - Early 60's

Celine Chat - travelling surfer and painter

I was happy to find this website of Celine Chat, a really cool French woman, who has spent the last 12 years travelling the world painting and surfing

New Paipo

I've been shaping and painting a new paipo over the past couple of weeks. Recycled plywood (on the right in photo except its now a bright colour scheme)
Length: 89cm
Width: 42cm
Thickness: 1cm

Also I've re-shaped my paulownia paipo - more taper to the underside of the nose and rounded the rails a lot.
Length: 98cm
Width: 42cm tapering to 38cm @ tail.
Thickness: 18mm
Surfed really well before but haven't used it since re-shaping the rails. Feels really nice in the hands though.




There's been some really good surf lately but very icy water. This has been the coldest winter for many years with snow at the beach here 3 times this winter and snow down to sea-level forecast again for this weekend - most winters we usually only get snow here once, if that! There's lots of snow on the mountains so its going to be a late snow melt which will mean cold surfing into the summer. All the snow melt enters the ocean about 15km north of here and has a big effect on the temperature of the water at the local beaches. Brrrrrr!

Alibi/Lullaby

Alibi Lullaby, a commentary on the Bush years, written by Patty Carpenter and Verandah Porche and performed by the Dysfunctional Family Jazz Band. Moving images.

Tray Surfing Video

Its almost a month since I've added anything here so I'lll start off with this cool vid of tray surfing.

In the past three weeks I've flown up to Auckland for a concert by the Anoushka Shankar Project (stunning!) and to spend a few days in the big city. The day after I returned home my next door neighbour, fellow hippie/surfer and really good friend Morrie died. That was a blow i wasn't expecting.
I'll write a bit more about both soon.

UPDATE Saturday 12th July: I'm working on 3 wordy posts but struggling for enough spare time. One is a personal review of the Anoushka Shankar concert; one about the life & death of my friend Morrie; and a post about surfing & art and my thoughts and plans of where I'm going with both.

Peace in the Water

Peace in the Water

World Unified Prayer JUNE 20, 2008

PLEASE JOIN US ON JUNE 20, 2008, AS MILLIONS OF PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD COME TOGETHER TO BRING PEACE IN THE WATER.

For 33 days between May 30 – July 2, 2008, people of all walks of life, from all around the planet are taking time each day to visualize, meditate, sing and pray a new global vision for clean, clear, peaceful waters with whales, dolphins and all vital marine life swimming free.

We invite you to join us on this global adventure in consciousness - in whatever way you feel inspired - as we discover once again how incredibly powerful we are when we come together, in peace, for the greater good of all.

FEEL IT – Do something each day that brings you into a state of good feeling connection with the element of water and with the energy of Cetaceans. Anything - from surfing, to singing, to sitting meditation.
SEE IT – In this state of connectedness, focus your attention on an image of pure vibrancy in our oceans. See whales and dolphins swimming free in clean, safe water. Visualize our planet’s waterways filled with light and pure vitality.
LIVE IT – Ask yourself how best you can bring this vision of Peace into your day, your life, your creative work in the world... Then simply do it!

We know that it only takes a fraction of 1% of a population to create a tangible shift in consciousness of an entire area... so let us take this moment to collectively choose a world of peace… NOW.





'Ocean's Gem' by Peta Dowle

'Beautiful Day' Surf Movie Poster

This is a poster of the surf movie Beautiful Day from the early 70's. Filmed in New Zealand by Andy McAlpine who also made the classic Children of the Sun. I only saw this movie once when it was first released - back when surf movies were a real event and every surfer in town went. I've had the poster since then. Children of the Sun has been available on DVD for a few years and selling well so I'm hoping Beautiful Day will some day be available on DVD. I'd love to watch it again.



Children of the Sun was filmed in '65 and '66 and features some awesome footage of George Greenough surfing in Queensland. I saw it in '69 or '70 when I was still a schoolboy and it was watching George in this movie that made me give up stand-up surfing and begin kneeboarding.

Winter Waves

Its been really beautiful at the beach every morning this week - no wind. The photos are from Tuesday and Wednesday mornings when the swell was big - the waves are bigger than they look! Today (Friday) the swell has dropped off and the waves are tiny. Very hard frost Thursday and Friday morning but its warmer in the sun at the beach than at home. I love my early morning walks along the beach before work. Every morning this week I pass a young Chinese woman - this week is the first time I've seen her so maybe she's just arrived here to study at the language school but she is quite amusing to see as she marches backwards along the beach. She's just obviously so,so happy being by the ocean and she's friendly, giving me a wave and smile every morning.



Winter Waves @ North Wai

Paintings From My Collection

Here's a couple of my favourite paintings that i got from Nelson artist Lindsay Kopura in 2007








"Elemental Queen"

60cm x 60cm
oil on polysilk










"Nile Source Princess"

60cm x 60cm
oil on calico

The Amazing True Odyssey of the Paskowitz Family

Back in the 70's i had a subscription to Surfer magazine back when it was a great mag - i always enjoyed reading Dr Paskowitz's column each issue.

Beautiful Paulownia Paipo

I just found this listed on Ebay for sale.The Buy Now price was $295 Australian. Looks a beauty! Check out that roll on the underside. This is the description that was listed:

Length=3'2".
Width=14 1/4".
Thickness 3/4".
Nose = 11".
Tail = 12"
A beautiful REPLICA of an early 1900's Hawaiian/Waikiki style Bellyboard/Paipo. Absolutely beautiful grain. Hand Crafted Solid Paulownia Wood. Sealed in Linseed Oil Only. Ride the Ocean in the style of the Ancients. The original waveriding craft. A true one off Collectable.

My Kneeboards from the 70's

Here are my two favourite kneeboards from the 1970s. One is a Quane I bought new from Surf Dive 'n' Ski surf shop (long gone!) in March 1974. The other is built by Keith Paull and I bought it second-hand from Harmony Designs surf shop in Kirra in March 1975.

I still ride both boards - the Quane board the most because its well suited to the local waves.

R.I.P. Dr. Albert Hofman

Dr. Albert Hofmann is dead. He died of a heart attack yesterday morning, April 28th, at around 9 am in his home in Burg, Switzerland. Dr Hofman reached the age of 102 years in good health.

Albert Hofmann was born in Baden, Switzerland in 1906. He graduated from the University of Zürich with a degree in chemistry in 1929 and went to work for Sandoz Pharmaceutical in Basel, Switzerland. With the laboratory goal of working towards isolation of the active principles of known medicinal plants, Hofmann worked with Mediterranean squill (Scilla maritima) for several years, before moving on to the study of Claviceps purpurea (ergot) and ergot alkaloids.

Over the next few years, he worked his way through the lysergic acid derivatives, eventually synthesizing LSD-25 for the first time in 1938. After minimal testing, LSD-25 was set aside as he continued with other derivatives. Four years later, on April 16, 1943, he re-synthesized LSD-25 because he felt he might have missed something the first time around. That day, he became the first human to experience the effects of LSD after accidentally ingesting a minute amount. Three days later, on April 19, 1943, he decided to verify his results by intentionally ingesting 250 ug of LSD. This day has become known as "Bicycle Day" as Hofmann experienced an incredible bicycle ride on his way home from the lab.

In addition to his discovery of LSD, he was also the first to synthesize psilocybin (the active constituent of 'magic mushrooms') in 1958. Albert Hofmann, known as the 'father of LSD', continued to work at Sandoz until 1971 when he retired as Director of Research for the Department of Natural Products. He continued to write, lecture, and play a leading role as an elder in the psychedelic community until his quick and relatively painless death from a heart attack at the age of 102.

Police Gazette 1888

The National Police Gazette of Saturday August 18, 1888 featured this illustration of a woman (a daring Sandwich Island girl!) surfing Asbury Park, New Jersey, USA on a wooden board. This is before Duke Kahanamoku was even born. The nose of her board is well buried so I think she's headed for a fall as she dances away to the music of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band who were playing to an enthusiastic audience on the beach.

Who needs a board?

Belinda Baggs stylin' it without a board

A New Paipo for Winter

Just given another new paulownia paipo it's second coating of linseed oil. A few more oilings and she'll be good to rip. Beautiful grain and light golden honey colour.
Length = 98cm
Width = 42cm
Thickness = 18mm

SMILE!!!!

photo courtesy of Pacific Long Boarder magazine

British Bellyboarding

http://www.bellyboarding.co.uk/

It's my intention to enter in the 2009 World Bellyboard Championships in Cornwall