The diversion of my diatribe against the evil grip of Pinot Noir was a red-wine herring, good sir. My point is that dismissing something as enlivening as surfing, as thrilling and awakening, is specious if you have not actually tasted the magic of being picked up by a large wave and mastered it's unstoppable power.

The reason Rapparree "sees no reason" to surf is because, for all his grand adventures, he is not a young man anymore. His wildest adventures are behind him, and the thrill of adrenalin is a poor copy in memory only. Where once he wrestled the world, now he lumbers along in it, talking of guns.

It pains me to be bearing bad news, but it must be faced squarely. If he had the agility and sense of balance he had when he was 20, and if he lived anywhere near an ocean, he would be out there, wearing funny looking board shorts, in a heartbeat.