…oh, yeah; I try to deny it, but that’s where I’m from.

To the tune of, of course, the Beach Boys song about, evidently, going to the southern coast of North Carolina.

NOW, I do not deny that I was born (in a car, during a hurricane) in Surf City, and that my father, in the Marines and stationed at Camp LeJuene, actually owned a house on the beach.  ALL this adds to my credentials (more in my mind than in reality).

BUT, raised in Southern California, I bought into and probably went along with the prevalent (“Surfer” magazine wasn’t really helpful- a few tidbits here and there), if, perhaps, imagined prejudice toward the east coast surf scene.  ADD in the fact that North Carolina is actually in the south and…

…yeah, prejudice.  Sorry.  I’ve changed.

Not so much, perhaps. That’s me on the left of the photo, with my cousins John and Ronald, and my sister, Suellen.  “Same stomach,” Trish said, after finding the photo on Suellen’s Facebook page; add a mustache; it’s you. Yeah, same attitude, too; more hair.

I discussed the East Coast/West Coast thing with hydrosexual (loves all things water/snow connected) and non-kook Stephen Davis, born in Seattle, raised in Colorado (which I always, he says, pronounce with a valley-girl accent).  It seems we know quite a number of transplants from that side of the country.

We didn’t discuss the south-to-north transplants.  Refugees.  Yeah, those folks.  Please, try to keep an open mind.

Y’all.