The Outcome: Seeking a Meaningful Life

By Rony Stanko

This is a first-person story of discovery. It's full of world travel, wilderness adventures, good and bad luck, love and loss, humor and beauty, truly dangerous situations, plus some ordinary things like school, work, and family.

Within the above, I share my real story: What did I do when things didn't work out? How did I discover better ways to attain happiness? What did I find that made life more meaningful?  How did I come to terms with all  the outcomes of my life, and resolve regrets?

And bigger, more global questions come to mind for anyone who looks back upon a long and eventful life, such as: "Did I get what I wanted from this life?" or, "Did I make a difference?" Please read my story, and judge for yourself.—Rony Stanko

• Language: English
• Publisher: RONZ Publishing
• Release date: Jun 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781732667402

Book preview

Prologue

Some time ago, I found my dog-eared folder of famous quotes, filled to overflowing through the years. Quotes soon covered my desk as I sat absorbed in re-reading my favorites. An idea came to mind: Why not create a collection of quotes about the common problems that all of us will someday face? Surely, all could profit from wise advice.

This thought, of course, had been dealt with before through exhaustive collections of quotes by Bartlett’s, Reader’s Digest and others, but none more to the point than in a little-known book by Michel de Montaigne, entitled How to Live. This daring title precedes twenty chapters of observations and thoughts from sixteenth-century France, which was a horrific time of religious civil war. Montaigne dissects the events of that era into colorful incidents with good and bad outcomes, along with his analysis, but only five words of advice: Reflect on everything; regret nothing, he said.

Four centuries later, the beloved French icon Edith Piaf sang a song called Non, Je ne regrette rien. Much like Montaigne, she sang of no regrets, although her life was sometimes distasteful. I found this French bravado about having no regrets to be intriguing, and wanted some for myself. To feel this way about your life, I reasoned, could be a proud achievement, or at least a worthy goal.

In the meantime, my belief in the value of quotations had faltered. They seemed to ring true only in hindsight, and with advice that was hardly useful. The retrospective insight of a quotation can be dark comedy for those who’ve already suffered through its issues. This is because human problems can be incredibly complex. Take dilemmas, for example, where all your choices are unsatisfactory, and may even spawn problems of their own. On the other hand, any word of warning in a quote probably wouldn’t be long remembered by those who’ve never experienced the predicament.

These insights about quotes left me with an appreciation as to why they’ve been relegated to the humorous and anecdotal. Yet, I remained captivated by Montaigne’s counsel of Reflect on everything, and the idea that I could, indeed, regret nothing.

But without a thorough review of my seventy-plus years, I cannot in good faith claim fellowship with the likes of Montaigne and Piaf. I also would welcome another chance to remedy the regrets I might find.

To these ends, this is my memoir. A few episodes are my true short stories, others were evoked by diaries. Everything else was more recently recalled. l did this truthfully, but changed people’s names for the sake of their privacy.

I hope this book also answers our questions. Mine is, Did I get what I wanted from this life? Yours may be, Is the meaningful life a quest worth the price? Meanwhile, I promise you some surprises in the chapters ahead.

Chapter I

My Journey Begins

1951- 1965

In the summer of 1951, it took a week for us to drive from Indianapolis to California. As a five-year-old sitting with his older brother in the backseat of a ‘48 Buick, this was forever. The highways were incomplete and under construction. Dirt and gravel alternated with new, smooth, jet-black lanes of asphalt with brilliant white dashes down the middle. An intermittent sign of our new Interstate Highway System, asphalt was a wonderfully quiet ride between the old, cracked and uneven roads of concrete from the 1930s. Occasionally, the old road was just wooden railroad ties, buried to dirt level and laid side by side for 50 yards or more.

We towed a wooden trailer built by my dad, who had become a doctor since he was the only son of a farmer turned carpenter turned dentist. Its unusual design had two hinges that attached to the rear bumper of our Buick, with a single, pivoting tire holding up the rear. It held all we owned for our new life in California. Fifty years later, my dad told me that this included $25,000 in cash. It was hidden in a secret compartment that he had nailed shut.

All this made 60mph a rarity as we traveled westward in the desert heat on Route 66. We had a bullet-shaped air-conditioner mounted at the top of the front passenger window and powered by a wire from the cigarette lighter. We used it only in the afternoon, when the heat made us sweaty and desperate for relief. With the windows shut, we could still smell the asphalt as we motored by workers putting down the road. The heat radiated right through the floorboards of the car. Mile after mile, we were not miserable nor comfortable, but like royalty compared to the men working outside with the asphalt and hot tar, in the sun and desert heat, dirty and wet with sweat.

The Hollywood Riviera, summer of ‘52

In less than a year, Dad realized that Santa Barbara was not going to work out. We loaded up the trailer again, and moved down to the South Bay, thirty some miles southwest of Los Angeles. In a town called Redondo Beach, we bought a small, two-bedroom track home in the Hollywood Riviera. So named after WWII, the developer had hoped to entice movie stars and film executives by also building the Riviera Club upon a bluff at the beach. It had a view of the Palos Verdes coast reminiscent of the French Riviera. The three-story Spanish fort-style, 15-room hotel was surrounded by palm trees and flowering cactus, with an elegant entry on the arc of its drive. Its restaurant, bar, and meeting rooms all had views of the bay. There was a huge rectangular pool inside its walls. I took swimming lessons there, two summers in a row.

Mom let me go to the beach alone after that. It was less than a mile from the house, and as I walked along jeep trails through the dunes, I usually heard the surf long before I saw it. It was music to my ears. In that summer of my seventh year, I often left home for the beach right after breakfast, and returned hungry by early afternoon. I entered through the side kitchen door that was always unlocked, except when we went on vacation. By the next summer, I’d learned that most sunbathers that ate at the snack bar were glad to be rid of their empty glass Coke bottles, if nicely asked. These I returned for a two-cent deposit. By afternoon, I often had enough money for a hot dog and a Coke, which extended my beach day by several hours.

As I got older, things like Cub Scouts, Little League and a paper route cut down my time at the beach, until the surfing craze lured me back in 1960. Two years before, the Riviera Club burnt down. The site remained a ruin for years and was called burnout beach by those of us who surfed it. I recall a peaceful summer morning there in 1961: I sat straddling my surfboard about 100 yards offshore, watching for the next set of waves. I had just looked out to sea, then up and down the beach. I was bored and sort of in a daze. But then a movement at the very edge of my vision put a fearful dread in my mind. Looking down, I caught a glimpse of a dark form almost as big as my board. It glided by right to left, just a few feet below my dangling feet, and disappeared. Thinking SHARK! I reacted impulsively and sprung up on my knees, as far from the water as possible. My mind raced. A worried, What was that? trembled out of my mouth. I looked below all around, then on the surface near and far, hoping to see a surfacing porpoise or seal. But there was nothing, and I was alone—or was I? More anxious than curious, I paddled in to shore and safety. I was fifteen, and didn’t go surfing much after that.

By then, roads and tract homes had covered the dunes. There were parking lots, concrete ramps, and wooden lifeguard stands all along the shore. In the meantime, we’d moved away. First, we had a view home in Rolling Hills. I attended 8th grade at Dapplegrey Elementary, mostly with snobby, rich kids. Then, everyone on the Palos Verdes peninsula was bused down the hill to the only school that had room, and attended 9th grade at Alexander Fleming Junior High in Lomita. Here, in the Fall of 1959, we were integrated into a student body equal parts black, brown, and white. I took a liking to a girl in art class named Mary, who was bused in from Palos Verdes, on the other side of the peninsula. On our last day of school, she gave me her address and a kiss on the cheek, then ran off to catch her bus home.

That summer, we moved back to the Hollywood Riviera, and into an apartment not far from our first home. I attended South High School in Torrance, reuniting with lots of friends. My brother went off to Stanford as I began my sophomore year, and we settled into a house on that hillside in Palos Verdes that looked like the French Riviera . It was far beyond busing range to South High, and Mom soon grew tired of driving me back and forth. This turned out to be a good thing. Dad bought me a used VW, and the freedom that entails, when I was not quite 16. I drove to school and back every day, among other places.

I was driving home from a friend’s house soon thereafter, thinking about who I could take for a ride in my car. That Mary who kissed me came to mind; the one who lived in Palos Verdes. Back home after dinner, I found her note with phone number and address. Fantasizing about restarting our relationship, now more than a year later, I decided to casually drive by her home that Saturday morning just to say Hi, and show off my car.

I approached her house, imagining she’d be happy to see me. She only lived a few miles away, but that was much too far for a guy without a car. Surely she’d understand why I hadn’t come sooner. I was wildly excited by the time I found her house, so I drove by, turned around, and parked a few car-lengths up the hill and across the street. As I calmed down, I noticed a red Porsche convertible parked mid-drive, and at the pathway to the front door.

Just as I was about to get out of my VW, Mary came out the front door with some guy a bit taller than her. They were laughing and smiling and heading for the Porsche. Maybe her brother, I hoped, as I slid down in my seat to avoid detection. But he opened the car door for her, which was not a big-brotherly thing to do. After closing her door, the guy walked around to the driver’s side, jumped over his unopened door and slid into the driver’s seat, like he invented the move.

Engaged in conversation, he and Mary were all smiles as they turned away from me at the street and zoomed off. At least, I thought, I didn’t have to duck. But that was my only consolation. I was crushed, embarrassed and mad at myself for being such a fool. I calmed down and let them get far away before driving home in my used VW. By the time I got there, I’d decided to never be such a love-struck puppy again.

Three months later, I was in love again, but much less invested. Linda was a cute little blonde sophomore I met in the middle of my junior year. She was exciting, funny and liked having a good time. She gave me a real kiss on our first date, so we went to the prom together, and were going steady shortly thereafter.

Meanwhile, I found a driver’s license in a parking lot at the beach. It had a picture of a 22-year old guy who looked a lot like me. New possibilities dawned on me. Friends had told me of a liquor store in San Pedro that sold beer to them. I drove over there to try my new ID, and it worked! From then on, Linda and I were at the drive-in movies most Saturday nights. In the backseat of my VW, our stocking feet on the front seatbacks, we made out and shared a six-pack of Coors beer. Wow, life was such fun! I thought.

But predictably, my grades slipped below expectations, especially since my brother was an A student, even at Stanford. My academic performance was unacceptable. That my high school classes were boring was beside the point. My father gave me an ultimatum: If I wanted to continue my lifestyle, my grades had to be good enough to get into college. If not, I’d have to find a job after high school. Now THAT was really unacceptable! I told myself.

A year later, I was out of the doghouse, and considering colleges. With a GPA of 3.3, I had choices to make. Before which college, I had to decide on a major. Based on my enjoyment of a chemistry set given to me as a kid, and getting an A in high school chemistry, I decided to become a chemist. The nearest colleges with good chemistry programs were UC Berkeley and San Diego State. I was accepted at both, but wanted nothing to do with the student protests suddenly erupting at Cal. San Diego State was cheaper, which would score points with my dad. It also was far enough from home to assure my autonomy, yet close enough in case I had problems. SDS was also in sunny Southern California, with a climate and beach-town culture much like home.

Nevertheless, my dad declared that my first semester would be in the dormitory and without a car. Mom drove me down to SDS with all my stuff in the Fall of 1963. After settling into my room at the dorm, I returned to her at the car to thank her and say goodbye. She lingered after our hug, took a deep breath, then said, Dad and I decided to wait until you went away to college. Forcing a nervous smile, she added, to tell you we’re getting a divorce.

I returned home at the end of my first semester to an uneasy truce over the holidays. With an unremarkable GPA of 2.3, I was thoroughly intimidated by the upcoming math classes of the chemistry curriculum. After just barely earning a C in advanced algebra and trigonometry, the upcoming two years of calculus seemed like sure death. I told a high school friend about my qualms, and he asked me, Why don’t you become a pharmacist? I had no idea what that was. So, we went to a Thrifty Drug, and I talked to one. It seemed to me that drugs were just applied chemistry. It sounded like fun, and wearing a white coat was cool, too.

I changed my major to pre-pharmacy, and the calculus requirement went away! As my classes became more interesting, I became a better student. Enjoying college for the first time, I made the Dean’s list for the next three semesters, even though I got an F in archery, for not showing up. Physical education was required at state schools, and the rebel in me made me do it. I also enjoyed my college life, such as Aztec football games and drinking beer at Tijuana’s Long Bar. This left me no time for my relationship with Linda, but she’d met somebody new anyway.

In the summer of 1965, I was interviewed at the School of Pharmacy at USC by a dapper and rotund old guy who wore pince-nez eyeglasses. Everybody called him Smitty, and he was our first instructor in our first class on our first day as freshmen in the Class of ‘69.

Chapter II

Sea Hunt

My first summer job following high school was in the snack bar at Marineland of the Pacific. I made malts all day and it bored me to death. A sole benefit, besides the $1.12 an hour, was that it really motivated me to attend college. The next summer, I worked on a janitorial crew cleaning offices for slightly better pay, but the same misery. Overjoyed to return to San Diego State, I vowed no more to boring jobs. When the summer of ‘65 arrived, I found work that promised me some real adventure.

I became the deckhand on the Cazadora, a 54-foot cabin cruiser, which was owned by Higgins Brick Yard. Higgins was a Rotary Club buddy of my dad who loved deep-sea fishing. The boat was docked at King Harbor marina. It felt strange to drive inland, and to a brick yard, to interview for a job on a boat.

But there were pictures of the Cazadora throughout his office, and Higgins told me that he used the boat seasonally to entertain client engineers and architects on overnight fishing trips. Huntress was the translation of its Spanish name, painted with a flourish on its lacquered wooden stern. It was named this because lots of hunting goes on in deep-sea fishing, which usually required a departure the evening before. In the early summer, we left just before dawn instead, settling for easy game like halibut and grouper around the Channel Islands.

That summer, the Cazadora had a full-time captain named Gil. He was a vintage seaman. I thought of him that way because he reminded me of those wood-carved souvenirs found at most harbors or seaside resorts; a standing man in a yellow slicker, hat and overalls, with a pipe and full beard of white hair. Gil’s wife was equally iconic. In pea coat and scarf, she was a slender, motionless statuette that was always watching when Gil went to sea.

I had a beer with Gil once, on a warm afternoon around the 4th of July. We were onboard refurbishing the rods and reels for the next trip. By this time I’d lived down my first day at sea, when I threw up on the forecastle deck trying to bring in the anchor on a sea of five-foot swells. I’d asked him a question and he’d abruptly stopped testing the drag on a reel. He tilted his captain’s hat back on his head and chuckled to himself, then squinted at me, in scorn. A wisp of smoke trailed from the crumpled Pall Mall in one corner of his mouth as he spoke out of the other.

Fishin? Where we goin’ fishin’, you say? the Captain growled. He looked away, and chuckled again. Hell boy, he quipped without looking back, we ain’t been fishin’ all summer! Gil shook his head as he snuffed out his cigarette. He then took a swig of beer and looked back at me with weary eyes. Fishing is albacore, boy... he said, and all our little local trips have just been for waitin’.

But it was on those little trips that Gil taught me what I needed to know. In his all work and no play way, Gil soon had me doing everything but captain’s duties. I took my job seriously and thought of myself as the first mate of a two-man crew. And soon, we waited no more. In mid-August, Higgins decided to dock the Cazadora further south, nearer the warmer waters and the albacore that had fishermen bragging on their CB radios about fifty pounders near reef 222. Gil docked the boat in San Pedro, then at Oceanside, but our midnight departures and long cruise from there netted us only small fish and dissatisfaction. Ultimately, we docked to depart from Point Loma, San Diego, in our final attempt at those big albacore that had remained in Mexican waters.

I drove down to San Diego the day before and bunked on the boat. Guests began to arrive at the boat a little after dark and they went through a series of introductions as Gil started the engines and I casted off. One guy handed out cigars and a noisy game of poker began in the cabin below as they all ate and drank.

The Cazadora motored slowly through the marina towards the bait barge. A small weather-beaten wooden shack on a platform floating low in the water, it was cast with reflections from a single overhead bulb. Seemingly deserted, the barge was like a candle in the black darkness of a cave.

Ah-hoy there, barked out Gil from the bridge. Two boys and a man scrambled out of the shack while I waited with the bow line. The boys secured our boat, and the man switched on the floodlights. Curtains of fish net sprang into view, surrounding a large swirl of anchovies beneath the platform. It was circling slowly in a tall, wavy tube. Gil cut the engines, lit up a cigarette, and settled into his seat. This meant that the rest of the work was up to me. The quiet brought forth a curious few of the guests below, who peered around from the stern to see what was happening.

Hallo Admiral, croaked the bait man, where ye be headed?

Eight hours out, replied Gil dryly, eyeing the bait and ignoring the man’s fanfare. We hear of fifty pounders at 222, he added, exhaling smoke.

So you need’em big and fresh, concluded the bait man out loud.

Gil nodded, so the boys and I began a relay of a dozen nets of thrashing sardines, which I divided between our fore and aft bait tanks. Broadcast by all the commotion and a breeze, bait scales took flight with each pass and I got the brunt of it. Yuck I said under my breath, disgusted by the alien, cellophane-like feel and salty taste of scales on my lips. Both my hands were busy and in rubber gloves, so all I could do was force air through pursed lips, trying to dislodge them. Very few blew away, so I’d have to peel the rest from my lips and face one by one, when I got a chance. I tried to divert my displeasure by thinking about pharmacy school that began in just a week.

Moments later, Gil opened the throttles. The Cazadora roared by the breakwater and into the darkness of the open sea. The sea was glassy smooth and deserted that night, with a gentle southern swell. I went below as we left the twinkling coastline behind, used the head and peeled some scales from my lips in the mirror. I then grabbed my knit cap and gloves, poured myself a big cup of coffee in the galley, and headed back to the bridge. Much to my surprise, and without a word, Gil pointed out the speed and compass heading to me. Scanning the horizon, he said, "You