Hello, hello, everyone. Malcolm Gladwell here. Before you hear this episode, I want to

let you know about another podcast that you might be interested in. This season on

revisionist history, I'm diving into one of the weirdest and most infuriating corners

of American life. Guns. Six episodes that will take you all away from the

Supreme Court to 17th century England, to the wilds of Alabama and to the streets of

the south side of Chicago. It's our biggest series yet and one you won't want to

miss. You can binge-listen to all six episodes early and add free by

subscribing to Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts or by visiting pushkin.fm slash plus.

Or you can listen to the episodes weekly in the revisionist history podcast feed.

Pushkin Not too long ago, I met a surfer named Danny

Oberg. He lives in Santa Barbara now, but he learned to surf in Malibu when the

sport was barely known on the mainland. I still go surfing after about 62 years

of surfing. It's go down to rink on and live close by and I still have the stoke.

Danny told me a story about one of his early surf experiences, a day that made

an indelible impression on him. It was 1959. He was 12. The waves at Malibu were

huge, but he and his friend decided to paddle out anyway. They were cooks. They

didn't know what they were doing. So we were beginners. We're down at

Malibu. It was a big day, but we went out by the pier. When it gets real big,

you have to go way down by the pier to paddle out. And so we jump in the water

with our boards, little skinny 12-year-olds, and turning our little skinny

arms, doing this cook paddle, trying to get on. The big set of waves, the big

waves came like a row of five or six waves out to sea. I never forget the

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