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Things are heavy out there. The veil is thin and Dia De Los Muertos is upon us. Not to mention the presidential election. (Please vote for Harris and email me if you want to think out loud about it.) So I’m writing a very different newsletter this week, because we are all the products of our formative years, and today I’m thinking about Rob Kurowski. Enjoy. And Go Dodgers.
50 years ago, in the hot, dusty, northwest corner of the San Fernando Valley, in the shadow of Stoney Point (where Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and I both learned to climb, which I’m pretty sure is the only thing we have in common) and the Iverson Movie Ranch (where an estimated 3500 film and television productions were shot), two ex-LAUSD school teachers decided to do something special.
This is not their story.
They deserve a couple paragraphs, though, because they became a big part of my childhood and they set the stage for the legend you are about to read. Mick Horwitz and Howard Wang founded Sierra Canyon Day Camp. After I got booted out of another camp because they didn’t want me to have another asthma attack on their watch, my mom drove me to Sierra Canyon, where Mick got down on one knee so he could recruit me (I was five) at eye level. “David,” he said, “I know you have asthma, and it’s super dusty here, but we can keep your medicine in the office and I think you’re going to have fun.”
Mick was right. For the next ten years I went to Sierra canyon every summer, for as many days as my parents could afford. Later, like your favorite coffee house band that hits it big and starts playing arenas, Sierra Canyon became a creature of its own success. It added buildings and specialized programs, and eventually morphed into an expensive prep school. Today’s alumni include Bronny James and several Kardashians and children of Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger and Jamie Foxx and you get the idea.
But back then, in summers that lie ever fair in my memory, Sierra Canyon was a dusty day camp on a nondescript lot under the 118 freeway in Chatsworth, CA, in the San Fernando Valley about 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
The only structures on the property were a shed, a small office, a swimming pool, an Amphitheatre with plank benches and a shade cloth, and a go-kart track bordered with old tires — next to another shed. One shed was the home of a freezer that contained the afternoon popsicles. Oh, the popsicles, handed out at group tables before the daily closing circle… They never melted. We devoured them before they had the chance. The days were blindingly hot, and I can still taste the cold banana flavor, the root beer…
Mick ruled the early years of closing circle. He had black, curly hair and a thick beard, and his gravelly voice commanded everyone’s attention – and even when he eventually handed the emcee role to Mike Gussin, the ritual was all Mick. The songs (“sing out, Sierra Canyon, where summer camping is fun/ the smiling faces, the warm embraces, reach out to everyone…”). The birthday ding dongs. The “hair sock zoo” chant that was our way to say “thank you” as a tribe.
Mick was the heart, soul, and culture of Sierra Canyon, the organization where I learned that the best games are always bigger than the players. Eventually I became a counselor-in-training. One Monday morning I walked into a tense staff meeting where Mick had just found out that a few staff members had been caught drinking and smoking pot on a weekend overnight event. He looked around the room. I had never seen him so quiet. Sadness seemed so out of character and so out of place at camp. “I want everyone to know that every single one of those employees are all fired,” he said. Then he turned to the director who caught the offenders. “Alright,” he said. “Who are we talking about?”
The staff was a cast of characters. Dave Greenwald had a heart of gold and thick coke bottle glasses that reminded me of Morty from the movie Meatballs. Mike Gussin tied bandanas on his head and played guitar. Brick Zeff quoted poetry by the pool.
But Rob Kurowski was a legend.
I have never met another human being who even remotely resembles Rob. I have not seen Rob since my last day at Sierra Canyon. I don’t if he existed outside that realm. If I hadn’t seen what I had seen with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe Rob ever existed at all.
Rob was a gentle blonde giant with a faint mustache and an outsize physique stuffed into leisure style polo shirts with waistbands, corduroy OP shorts, ankle socks and K-Swiss shoes. None of his clothes looked like they fit. He was always pulling his shirt down and hiking his shorts up. His gut was so big that when he sat back in the counselors’ lounge he could comfortably place a Coke can on it, or just fold his hands together, his arms looking T-Rex short as they extended to meet over his stomach.
None of that mattered to Rob or anyone else. Rob was as cool as the other side of the pillow. Before I read Siddhartha or knew anything about the Buddha, I met the Buddha: it was Rob.
Rob never raised his voice. Once. At a summer camp. Rob was unstoppable on the basketball court. Kids and counselors hanging all over him, Rob would simply back in with a dribble or two and turn for the layup. No one could get near the ball. Those of us who tried just bounced off him. But the thing is, Rob wasn’t that tall. (I don’t know how tall. Or how heavy. It was his presence that was giant.) And he never looked like he tried. How does a guy that big not break a sweat?
Every once in a while, Rob would let you in on a little secret: he noticed you. On the basketball court, Rob would signal this with a subtle gesture. After he blocked one of your shots or made one of his own, he’d raise one of his beefy meatpaw hands toward the side of his head, and in a little, quiet, falsetto voice, he’d say – sing, really – “facial.” That was it.
Sometimes our childhood heroes fall off their pedestals as we age. Not Rob. One night after the counselors played softball, I watched Mitch and Steve Wolfe goad their younger brother Joel into a bet with Rob. Joel was about my age, and we had been campers together before we got jobs with Sierra Canyon. That night, Rob had already crushed a home run far into the Chatsworth Park night, much farther than Joel’s home run – and Joel was already Mr. Baseball at Chatsworth High School (he went on to play for UCLA and the Oakland Athletics, and then became a high-profile agent who negotiates contracts for MLB stars like Giancarlo Stanton). Mitch and Steve were riding Joel hard: “Well at least drink your beer faster than Rob, sweetheart! We’ll buy the pitcher if you win.” They gave everyone else 10-1 odds. We all put money on the table.
Joel never had a chance. We didn’t even see Rob swallow. He just poured the pitcher of beer down his throat. He didn’t say anything. Just put his right meatpaw up near his temple – facial – and scooped up the bills off the table with his left.
One memory stands out. When Sierra Canyon started sports camp, we took day trips to local places like Hansen Dam to canoe, or a roller skating rink (air conditioning!), or Stoney Point. Every trip involved playing a new sport or learning an outdoor skill. The day we went to Stoney Point, we met up with a rock climbing specialist who taught us how to tie figure 8 knots and put each other on belay. I was still a Counselor-in-Training that year, but standing next to Rob I was cool by association. Until I heard him say, “No I’m not going. David will do it.”
Rob had just volunteered me to demonstrate how to rappel off the top of Beethoven’s Wall, a 1000+ foot cliff face. All the campers and the specialist were now staring at me. “On belay,” the specialist said as he clipped the carabiner to my harness. “Ready?”
I had never done it before and I was terrified. But there was no way to back out. Everyone on top of that rock was going to remember that day. So I grabbed the rope and walked backward right out over the edge. And jumped. Rob was no dummy. He made me want to take a leap of faith, and 40 years after the fact I remember the moment like it was this morning. And I’m proud of what I did. All the campers got a dose of courage and followed like veteran climbers.
The last time I saw Rob was on the last day of that summer camp session. I was leaving on a sports camp bus bound for Zuma Beach near Malibu. We were just passing the go-kart track when we heard a roar and saw a cloud of dust on the hillside above the road. It was Rob. Like the A-Team or the Dukes of Hazzard, Rob had a signature vehicle, a bright Orange Chevy conversion van with (rumored, I never saw the inside) shag carpet interior and one tinted bubble window toward the rear. And that van was currently hurtling down the hill toward the three-foot retaining wall next to the sidewalk and the street.
All the kids on the bus realized what was happening and started yelling and pointing. Some were stoked, some were terrified. This was insanity! Was he really going to do it? Would he make the jump? The bus driver, Scott Abriel, who looked like the janitor in Breakfast Club (and whose Dad was the sweetest old guy ever, you’d never know he was a USMC vet who killed dozens of enemy soldiers in World War II) pulled the bus to a squeaky stop so we could all see.
The van got closer and we could see Rob’s face. He was smiling. This was his gift to us on the last day of the summer.
VROOM!!! The van launched off the retaining wall, cleared the sidewalk, slammed onto the asphalt, shimmied, burned rubber, and sped away down Rinaldi Street. I’ll always remember Rob, larger than life, flying through midair in that van. Quiet. Happy. Content. And totally rad.
I’d like to know: Who made a memorable impact on your life? Drop me a line and tell me about it. I’m curious.
Curiosity is worth practicing. That’s how we get better at it. When it’s done particularly well, curiosity can be elevated to an art form. Curiosity makes life worth living. I am literally Curious AF. And now you can be too! Click HERE to unlock your free membership subscription.
Here is a taste of what I’m reading, watching, and thinking about.
I love writing, and even though I’m not a huge fan of AI for creative writing, or of plagiarism websites, or of most online tools – give me a great pen or a keyboard with good action any day – there are two tools I have come to appreciate:
Capitalize My Title. While I know the rules for capitalizing titles, the title is often the last thing I write, which means I’m under deadline, which means I’m in a hurry, which means I trust myself less than usual. So I type the phrase into the box on Capitalize My Title to reassure myself. Check it out!
Word Hippo. I love words, so I can’t help but love this site. You can use it as a thesaurus, Scrabble cheat, or something completely different – let me know what you think!
Every once in a while, I run across Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “On Self-Reliance” – and I always read it, and I am always glad I did. From the National Humanities Center website: “I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instill is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men—that is genius.”
Last week I took my daughter to see Kimberly Akimbo at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles. The play was great, and we enjoyed the music, but that isn’t what I’m listening to a week later. Across from the Pantages is Amoeba Records, and I don’t miss an opportunity to visit. This time I walked out with “Thelonious himself: Solo Piano by Thelonious Monk” and it … is… awesome.
Winning the World Series is really all we play this game for.
– Clayton Kershaw
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David Preston
Educator & Author
Latest book: ACADEMY OF ONE
Header image: Chevy Van photo by NESR via Flickr and Creative Commons
