I've been in combat and my life could have been ended in a messy and abrupt manner. I've jumped out of a perfectly good airplane 500 or so feet above the Kansas earth and landed safely, drifting earthward under a parachute. I've rappelled down a 150 foot cliff using clothesline and no harness. I've explored caves where outside of the feeble light of a carbide lamp or a flashlight was stifling darkness. I've swam in the Mississippi River on many occasions and did not dissolve. I have used C-3, C-4, dynamite, TNT, black powder, ammonium nitrate "cratering charges", and other explosives and remained in one piece. I have ridden out thunder and lightning storms on rivers and lakes in open boats and canoes, pointing the bow into to waves and riding them either to shore or until the storm blew out. I have worked in sandblasting, where the force of the air-driven carborundum could sever a finger or hand or arm. I have slept "rough" in rain, mud, snow, hail, and every possible combination of them and once rode a bicycle through a tornado-driven storm. I have been water skiing and snow skiing. I've ridden on fast snow machines and motorcycles. In brief, I think I've looked Death in face on many occasions and spit in his eye.

I see no reason to try surfing.