THE FAMILY THAT SURFS TOGETHER . . . : The 11 Members of the Paskowitz Family Have Been Carried Through Their Lives on a Wave

A family’s love for the ocean began in 1933 on a small island 10 miles off the coast of Galveston, Tex.

Young Dorian Paskowitz was sick with pneumonia. He also had asthma and was suffering from chills and a high fever. His mother, Rose, was ready to take him to the hospital.

Then something happened that Dorian Paskowitz, now 67, remembers as clearly as if it were yesterday. He was handed a newspaper picture of three surfers riding a California wave. Surfing was his biggest love. Somehow, the picture poured energy into him. He jumped up and said to his mother: “If you take me to California, I’ll get well tomorrow.”

The next day, he got better.

A week later, Dorian, his brother, sister, uncle and mother moved to San Diego. His father, Louis, stayed behind for nearly a year, working to make enough money to recover from the Depression, which had caused him to lose his “Ready to Wear” store and consequently stripped him of financial stability.

The family was poor. But Dorian was never sick again.

Perhaps this is what prompts a man to devote his life to surfing, and to raise a family of nine surfers, educating them himself, teaching the powers, wonders, dangers and therapeutic qualities of the sea.

The 11-member Paskowitz family, most of whom reside in San Clemente, had a reunion this weekend at the Oceanside Longboard Surfing club contest at the Oceanside Pier.

They weren’t hard to spot, with their colorful surfboards scattered all around and their warm, supportive cheers for each other as they took to the surf.

There was Dorian, wearing a hat to protect his sunburned lips, his wife, Juliette, proud mother of nine, and the kids, who aren’t really kids at all anymore. Starting from the top there’s David (30), Jonathan (28), Abraham (27), Israel (26), Moses (24), Adam (23), Salvador (22), Navah (20) and Joshua (14).

Juliette was the only one not entered in this weekend’s tournament; Adam had to leave early because of a business emergency.

They hadn’t been together at the same time in two years, but the beach is such an appropriate place for the Paskowitzes to reunite. Surfing has truly been a guiding light for this family.

Perhaps Moses sums up the outlook best. “I call (surfing) a soul cleanser. It makes you forget all your worries.”

Louis Paskowitz never surfed and only saw Dorian surf once, but somehow he was aware of how important it was to his son. Sometimes on school days, Louis would give Dorian a quarter and say: “Go buy yourself a hamburger and go surfing.”

Dorian surfed through his days at Point Loma High School, his two years at San Diego State and then for a year at University of Hawaii, where he further developed his skills and grew to appreciate the Hawaiian life style. Never before had he seen such hospitality and friendliness. And never had he seen such skillful surfers.

“It’s just like you’d been singing in grammar school,” Dorian says, “and suddenly someone took you to the Metropolitan Opera House.”

After a year in Hawaii, Paskowitz moved back to California and attended medical school for five years at Stanford. Years later, while examining war veterans, Paskowitz was able to tell if they were former surfers by the nobs on their knees and the sand in their ears.

Paskowitz would say to a veteran: “You just been to Hawaii?”

He would say: “Yeah, how did you know?”

One time, though, he asked somebody if he had just been to California and was told, “No, I’m from Hawaii, never been to California.”

But the sand in his ear was unmistakably from California.

“Evidently,” Paskowitz says, “he’d been to a beach where they import some California sand.”

Paskowitz lived for a year and a half in Israel, beginning in 1956. He says he was the first person to bring a surfboard into the country and brought with him the idealistic hope that if he introduced surfing to the Middle East, it might help bring peace.

“At that time, I was very naive,” he said. “I thought if the Arabs surfed together, they could live together.”

It was in Catalina, about a year later, that Dorian met Juliette, an opera singer of Mexican descent who grew up in Long Beach. When he asked her to marry him, he told her his plans didn’t exactly conform with a typical American life style. Dorian wanted to travel and raise a family of children who experienced the world first hand, not from reading notes off a chalkboard.

“All I wanted them to do was surf,” he said. “I knew if they were good surfers, they’d be good human beings.”

Juliette’s reaction?

“All I could see,” she says, “were those blue eyes.”

Just once, Abraham Paskowitz would have liked a pair of clean socks or his own tennis shoes. Just once, he would have liked his own bed.

The Paskowitzes learned to adapt to all kinds of living conditions.

“The one thing you could say about a Paskowitz is they could sleep anywhere,” Moses says.

Abraham, whose wife Ladeshia is expecting a baby in October, will offer his children a more permanent place to sleep. There will always be a home for his family to return to, though he plans to mix in some Paskowitz tradition. Surfing will be taught, and curiosity will be encouraged. Someday he plans to tell his kids: “The world is your playground, but this is your home.”

The Paskowitzes’ home was usually a camper, and each morning the children would wake up not knowing where they were. They learned to make do, Dorian often seeking out spots where doctors were needed. Living quarters were sometimes cramped, but as Moses puts it, you always had a best friend.

Because the children were so close, they were used to being around each other. Dorian once rented a 16-bedroom mansion in Rhode Island, and after each kid had run around and played in every inch of the house, they all returned to one room to sleep.

“We were so used to sleeping together, we didn’t want to be apart,” Abraham said.

And so they traveled and learned. Dorian and Juliette were the teachers; the children went to regular schools on and off, but only David has a high school diploma (although others have earned its equivalent). Creativity was emphasized, and to this day it spills over into each of the Paskowitz’s lives.

The Artists

Salvador and Joshua would wile away hours and hours drawing. Joshua, Salvador admits, has a good deal more raw talent. Joshua already has done logos and designs for surfboards and plans to start doing more pencil art, with an emphasis on surrealistic sketches.

Salvador recently published 25,000 copies of his own comic book, called “Wave Warriors,” and is flying to New Jersey next week to meet with publishers interested in a second issue.

Salvador says he knows six computer languages to boot.

The Musicians

Surfer by day, David becomes Johnny Monster at night. He’s the lead singer of a rock band called Johnny Monster and the Nightmares, which has an “aggressive, powerful guitar-oriented sound.”

David’s music career got its start seven years ago when he jumped the family ship--actually, the Paskowitzes’ 1972 brown two-door Chevy Impala--and began singing with night club bands in New York City. Two years ago, he decided the New York life style was too fast for him and returned to San Clemente and his surfing roots. Now he can do both in an environment in which he is comfortable.

Adam is about to sign a record contract with his band, Mozart. According to David, he writes music for the intelligent man.

“Adam is a real genius,” David says. “He’s a nice guy trapped in a smart Jewish man’s body.”

The Girl

You can guess that this hasn’t been the easiest gig for Navah, who has no sisters and eight brothers. For the longest time, it seemed to her as if she wasn’t much more than her mom’s kitchen helper.

“I was just the most protected person there could be,” she said. “It’s harder for me to find boyfriends because my brothers are really critical.”

Navah said she didn’t really have her own identity until she was 15, when she moved to New York to live with David. She tried to get into design school but was told she needed some formal education. She came back after three years with fluorescent red hair and a leather jacket.

This fall, she plans to do some modeling in Australia. She is currently singing backup in Adam’s band and still hopes to pursue a career in fashion design.

The Black Sheep

If there is a rebel in the family, it is Jonathan. He spent eight years in Israel, which can change a person’s outlook on life.

“I saw the gunfire every night,” he said.

When he returned, he tested the night life. As owner of a night club in Los Gatos, he said he stayed up too late, drank too much and smoked too much.

“I was a bad egg,” he says.

Surfing turned his life around again. He entered a longboarding contest five years ago in Malibu and finished fourth. The feeling he got from being back on the ocean made him feel as if he would never want to return to his former life style. He now works as a public relations agent for a company that manufactures surf products, and he sometimes gets autograph requests from little kids at surf contests.

The Football Player

Moses weighs 295 pounds and said he weighed more than 300 when he played football for University Nevada-Las Vegas and New Mexico.

“I like a little bigger wave,” he says with a smile.

He played two years at each school, starting all four. His inspiration in football came from his Pop Warner days, when his mom told him she’d buy him a chuck steak for every quarterback sack.

Moses would eventually like to oversee the production of a Paskowitz surfing product. He’s teaching surfing in the meantime, telling his students: “If Elvis surfed, I really feel he’d be alive today.”

The Manager

Abraham is the director of the Paskowitz Surfing Summer Camp, which has gained a world-wide reputation.

Just a few days ago, they wrapped up another successful 10-week session in San Clemente, where it has been based for 15 years. It attracted 135 surfers from places such as France, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, Japan and Mexico.

Abraham is a blend of creativity and business. “I create,” he says, “for monetary value.”

The Surfer

After Israel won the longboard world championships in Australia two years ago, he found it easier to cash checks.

“I didn’t need an ID,” he says. “Everybody knew me. I must have signed thousands of autographs.”

It was about then that the prize money and sponsorships started flooding in. Israel isn’t sure he has always spent his money wisely.

“You get a lot of money but you have to budget it,” he said. “I have not inherited that wonderful Jewishness of saving money.”