Stan the Lithuanian Man

Since I started kiting, I have met a diverse collection of people that I would never have met otherwise.  There's been Surfer Mike, the author of one of my most favorite quotes: "A jump without a board grab is like a burrito without a tortilla, there's nothing holding it together."  Nebraska Bob drove around the the beach at Lake Mac on a sweet tractor.  South Padre Phillip held me between his knees while I tried to get the board on for the first time (embarrassing).  Wilbur took his first lessons from Estonian Surphie, a lady that yelled unintelligible gibberish at him for three days.  St. Lucia Beth, kitesurf instructor and Laser sailor, is possibly the coolest chick on the planet.  And now I have met Stan the Lithuanian Man (I accidentally called him Romanian and was told he would need a big, bushy black beard,  Popeye forearms and randomly say things like "AAAARGGGGH" to be Romanian.  I obviously don't travel enough).  Stan drives a semi and has a 'whooman' in the Chicago area that will hopefully be visiting soon.  He is also a great kiter, and his energy and love for life is infectious.

If the wind is not blowing, just talking to Stan makes your trip to the beach worth your while.  And when the wind is blowing, he is always there to help and lets me know that he'll be keeping an eye on me to make sure I'm safe (Wilbur is always attentive, but boy oh boy is it nice to know someone else has your six as well).

It is always comforting to hear other kiter's war stories about what they went through while learning to kite.  On one of Stan's first days, he lost his board, so his buddy let him borrow his.  Stan wound up losing that one too and found himself in the hole for two boards.  Another great story deals with yet another day in which he lost his board.  Not wanting to have to buy a third board in such a short time, he spent 40 minutes body dragging to get his board back.  That is a long time to be out body dragging and getting frustrated while watching your board serenely travel farther away from you.  Once he got back to shore with board in hand, he was very tired and not thinking correctly.  Stan proceeded to unhook his harness with his kite still attached to it.  Imagine it, he had just got his board back and then quickly jettisoned the rest of his precious cargo and it went flying towards a large bridge.  Stan's errant kite didn't make a great escape that day, some tourists saw what was happening, got in their car and retrieved his kite for him.

I have yet to have a real epic, but I know it is coming in some shape or form.  Every time I go out, I assess the wind and it's direction, the tides and the current, and I make Wilbur go over my options for what to do if I get into to trouble.  But I don't want to get to the point that I am so obsessed about how to avoid trouble that I stop having fun.  Having Stan share his experiences with me and hearing him laugh about it somehow calms my anxiety.  And it's always good to know you have someone looking out for you.

Stan told me that learning to jump was like learning the basic of a dance, like tango.  

Stan retrieving a float board that one of the kids lost.  Aww!

Stan told me he finds it inspirational to see a whooman kiting.    That made me smile.

Stan and Wilbur riding

I'll leave you with one of Stan's jokes:

A pirate walks into a bar.  The bartender hasn't seen him in a long time and asks, "What's with the wooden leg?" The pirate answers, "I got hit by a cannonball and it took my leg clean off."  Then the bartender asks, "What happened to your hand?"  The pirate answered, "It got sliced off in a sword fight, so the doc replaced it with this hook."  The bartender finally asked, "Well, why do you have a patch over your eye?"  The pirate answered, "Well, there were a bunch of birds flying over the ship, and I looked up and one crapped in my eye."  The bartender said, "You can't lose your eye just from a bird crapping in it!"  The pirate answered, "It was my first day with the hook."