First, I would like to thank Darryl Wood’s daughter, Kaylee, for spreading the word that my site has several posts about the legendary surfer of the Strait and the Pacific Northwest. Darryl was the first surfer I met when I moved up here from San Diego. In order to get to our jobs in Bremerton, Darryl a Union Carpenter and me a Civil Service painter, we were both forced to ride a passenger-only ferry when part of the Hood Canal Floating Bridge broke off and sank, Tuesday, February 13, 1979. The state set up the route across the canal in about a week, I met Darryl on, I estimate, checking with my googled calendar, on Monday, February 19, instantly discovered we both surfed, and on Saturday, February 24, I was bobbing around at a break I still am not supposed to name, California wax on my sister Melissa’s board, the only one I had left, wearing a diving wetsuit, no gloves, no hood; my board popping up and away when I tried to sit on it, and the waves so steep, the drop so quick, the wetsuit so ridiculously ungainly, my body so frozen that, despite being 27 years old and a pretty decent surfer, I was unable to pop up as I dropped in.

Sign of things to come.

I’m pretty sure Kaylee’s checking out my site is somehow connected to her father’s birthday, which is on St. Patrick’s Day or fairly close to it. It’s always a pleasure for me to run into or talk to Darryl. Is he, as Kaylee asked, the quintessential Pacific Northwest badass? Yes. Is he a real surfer? Definitely.

ANYWAY, I’m pushing through on polishing and editing “SWAMIS.” If writers say the story leads them, rather than that they write and somehow control the story, I would have to agree. It seems my novel is getting a bit more romantic (and I kind of squirm just typing that). The relationship between Jody DeFreines and Ginny Cole is, in the constant editing/thinking/writing/rewriting process, getting, slight squirm, fleshed-out.

I was pretty happy with the way a chapter was going, set up, dialogue, action, ending; and I was left with this. Some of the exposition would be helpful later, and I hate, as always, to just toss out… yeah, word retentive. SO, here is an outtake from the third night class Ginny and Jody are in together:

GINNY WOULD, according to the plan, earn her Associates Degree at Palomar in a year and a half, transfer to a four-year university, most probably U.C.S.D., still nearby, in La Jolla (above Black’s beach); and she would become an accountant, like her father; with her own office, like her father.

“And vote Republican, like my father.”  Evidently imitating her father, Ginny said, “If Goldwater’d been elected, Hanoi’d be a big-ass hole.”  In her own voice she added, “Big ass hole,” then looked to see if I thought that was important or interesting or amusing.  I did.

I asked her why she didn’t seem to have to go to her dad’s office, “to get a feel; do some accounting, some math shit.”

She said her father had told her “there’s plenty of time for work, for that boring shit.”

David Cole and Glor were fine with her surfing, she said, even with her hanging out with surfer boys, with her dawn-patrolling with Wally’s crew.  “My dad does Wally’s books,” she said, “everybody’s books, actually, but he says Wally’s smart; smart enough to wholesale all his pots rather than trying to go through flea markets and…  Smart. Besides, he has a son my age and…”

“And?”

“Yeah; and…  And they either figure I’m some sort of lesbian; or they figure I learned something from my older sister.  Caroline’s her name; not that you’ll remember.  She’s what my… our Real Mom calls…”

“Judith. Your real mom, Caroline your sister.”

“Yeah.  Judith says polite society would call her, Caroline, ‘boy crazy.’  Glor has called her ‘a wanton slut.’  Couple of times.  She, Caroline, got PG, preggo, pregnant… senior year.  ‘Got herself knocked up’ as Glor would, and did say.  She, Caroline, wasn’t showing, so she did get to go to the graduation.  San Dieguito, huh?  That shit doesn’t happen in Fallbrook.”

Of course, it did.  “No; boy craziness, wanton sluttiness, and preggo-ness; not allowed.  It’s all in there with the dress code.  No hats, no facial hair or hair over the ears for boys.  For girls it’s, there’s a minimum skirt length on dresses.  They will measure, girls on their knees, pervert teachers with rulers.  Really.  Two inches, I think.  Oh, and it’s dresses only; no jeans, no slacks, no culottes, no pregnancies.”

“Wait, Junior; no culottes?”

“No, Virginia Cole, no culottes.”

“My sister should have gone there, huh?”

“Caroline.”

“Correct.”