Stay positive even in the face of death.
Work with nature and you’ll find peace.
Find an unconditional friend; you don’t need many of them.
Powerful lessons took center stage at the second installment of “Bonac Beyond the Bell,” a speaker series hosted by the East Hampton Parent Teacher Student Association. The guests last Thursday were John Aldridge and Anthony Sosinski, lifelong friends and commercial fishermen who wrote the book “A Speck in the Sea,” about Mr. Aldridge’s survival after falling off their boat, the Anna Mary, in Montauk back in 2013.
“It’s nice to talk to the kids. They’re bright-eyed and can’t believe the story,” Mr. Aldridge said. “They get a better feel for where their fish comes from and what it takes. Every piece of seafood that’s brought to land, somebody risked their life for it, whether it’s a clam or a shrimp. It’s a highly dangerous job, but we feed the world.”
The speaker series was brought to life this spring after suggestions from both students and the P.T.S.A.
John Dunchick, the president, conducts the interviews and hopes the talks help students think more tangibly about their future. “Living where we live, we have access to people who do everything and have all sorts of careers. One of the thoughts was just to take advantage of that and bring people of various career paths here and try to get them more connected to the high school and do events like this to inspire the students and give them an opportunity to meet people in these career fields where they can start to build relationships.”
The first two guest speakers have been wildly different. “We try to vary them,” explained Sarah Smith, the high school principal. “So our first was John Foley, the founder and C.E.O. of Peloton. That was obviously someone in a completely different industry, but had similar themes and threads of resilience and grit and hard work. And so we thought a different take on resilience and survival would be John Aldridge.”
And what a survival story he has. On July 24, 2013, in the middle of the night, Mr. Aldridge was moving coolers on the deck of the boat, while Mr. Sosinski was asleep below. The handle of one of the coolers snapped off and Aldridge went flying into the water, watching the Anna Mary on autopilot drift farther and farther away. He stayed alive for hours, clinging to his boots as a flotation device, while Sosinski pieced together clues to help the Coast Guard narrow down where Aldridge might be located.
“I had no hope of surviving and the power of positive thinking made me overcome that,” Mr. Aldridge said. “No matter how bad your situation is in life, if you can turn that around into a positive, in any sense, it will totally empower you to move in the right direction. I would say, stay positive at any cost.”
That advice resonated with the group of students in attendance at the high school library, especially those who spend time on the water.
“It was inspiring ‘cause I work on a fishing boat in Montauk so I thought it was interesting,” said Timmy Mullen, a ninth grader. “You’ve got to keep a positive mind-set thinking about staying alive. I heard about it on the fishing boat, but in more depth it was cool to listen to it.”
This was the last “Bonac Beyond the Bell” for this school year. The P.T.S.A. plans to resume the talks next fall.