things in our lifetime
almost everything has not
been invented yet
Tom Morey has died.
Mr. Morey was 86.
In my collection of Names What You Should Know, Tom Morey is listed under M for Morey and F for fun.
Is his obituary in the Guardian, it says, “The most significant person to get people in the water.“
Tom Morey invented the boogie board.
Tom Morey invented the boogie board back in 1971.
Mr. Morey was a surfer who thought maybe surfing could be brought more into the world of the casual beach goer.
Sol Morey, Tom Morey’s oldest son is quoted as saying, “There’s this dynamic of toughness involved with surfing, but now you had grandads, kids, who could skim it.
They could stand up on it.
It was soft.
When you are able to go into the ocean and come out of it unscathed, unhurt, that really does something to you.
The ocean is something to be feared, but the Boogie Board took some of that fear out.“
I live on the ocean now.
I understand it is something to be respected and feared and I respect and, well, kind of fear the ocean.
I swim so far out that my wife calls me ‘first course’ as the sharks will get me first.
I love the water.
I love to see people in the water.
That some one had to invent the boogie board, I see so many of them on the beach, never occured to me in my brain.
I would have thought that, had I thought that, that they had been invented by a Walmart Marketing team tasked with ‘What can we create that everyone will buy when on vacation with a price coming in around $20.”
To learn that they had been ‘invented’ was kind of cool.
To learn that they had been invented with the goal to get more people in the water and to take some of the fear of the water out of the equation was kind of freaking cool.
I have to look around and look at all sorts of every day things for the beach as well as the home and every day life and think who came up with that?
Then to think ahead.
What is coming next?
Putting Tom Morey into the Google for more information I came across another obit.
Another one I found in the University of Southern California (the west coast USC, the Unbelievable Spoiled Children one) Alumni News, that quoted Mr. Morey as saying, “Almost everything has not been invented yet.“
Almost everything has not been invented yet.
As I seem to read everything I can lay my hands, I say that certain phrases and thoughts and combinations of words catch my eye and stop me for a second on that spot of text.
I have to say that, in my humble opinion, that phrase, almost everything has not been invented yet, is really kind of freaking pretty cool.
And when you add to the mix in your brain, that it was said by a guy who invented something with the purpose of making the ocean MORE fun, I again think, what is coming next.
I can look ahead.
It is not ALL bad.
Not all despair.
Not all covid.
Not all poltics.
There are boogie boards out there in all walks of life that are just waiting to be invented.
Maybe I’ll spray paint it on my wall.
Almost everything has not been invented yet.
I feel that I could be the next great inspirational speaker and deliver lectures at $100 a ticket and just tell the story of Mr. Morey and the boogie board.
I could wear shorts and a Hawaiian shirt and carry a boogie board on stage.
I would say, with dramatic pauses, “Almost everything … has NOT … been invented yet.”
I’d make millions.
Maybe I’ll come up with next boogie board.
Who knows who will?
I do know this.
Next time I am at the beach, I am bringing a couple of flowers or something and I am tossing them into the ocean.
And I am going to say thank you to Tom Morey.
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