THREE SURFIN’ SAFARI SUMMERS: In the summer of 2019, three years after my wife Anna Huling-Siciliano was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, it became clear that I was losing her. Time was precious, health precarious, money short, and I decided to mine the riches of Southern California and launch a defiant series of regional Surfin’ Safaris as health-driven, couple-shared adventures out of the mausoleum our home had become. As a family we’d always been beachgoers and it seemed a safe bet for my wife who was slowly losing her mind. She could sit on a blanket - as she always had - while I surfed. Things didn't work out to be so neat and clean, but that's the story. Reporting being of a second nature to me, I concocted Facebook posts after each outing through which I intended to keep friends and family apprised of Anna’s condition, and to put them at ease about her quality of life (ie; how I was treating her). Of course, others could read the posts, which were grouped under the ti
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SURFIN' SAFARI SUMMER ONE - DAY ELEVEN - July 27, 2019
Anna Suffocating on the hard facts of my life, done with work for the week, I grabbed the co-pilot and lit out for Topanga State Beach at 5 p.m. Safari Summer has taught me that certain surf trips are not as hair-raising and impossible as I’d assumed. It took less than an hour and decompression kicked-in with the first whiff of salty air drifting up Sunset Boulevard. Topanga Beach lies at the mouth of Topanga Creek, where it empties after a journey through the natural jewel known as… Topanga Canyon. Back when there was plenty of California to go around, it was colonized by hippies. In the ‘80s, some developers decided to turn Topanga into gold. The hippies, by then, were prosperous merchants with a residual talent for political organization that knocked the developers clear back to downtown Los Angeles (never to return). An alternative culture took root between the shady canyon’s walls. There is a new-age, witchy-woman-in-seven-veils feel to that insulated little world. For me, the
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