Hawaii. No, it’s not the first time one of my t-shirts has hit the 50th state in the Union. Stephen R. Davis rocked (I don’t usually use this expression- fits with Steve) one or two of my designs, and, if I remember correctly, shared one with Cap. Not sure. Anyway, the Erwin Original shirts have been there before Chris Eardley, ripper on the North Shore of the contiguous US, showed up there.

Chris was nice enough to send me a photo. Here’s how the text exchange went:

Chris: “Got my lucky shirt here at Pipe. Got some good waves at Sunset Point this morning before it got huge. The shirt keeps its lucky streak!”

Erwin: “Holy fuck, Chris, you hangin’ wit’ day (sp. I meant ‘da’) boys AND resenting (meant ‘representing’) OWWW! And I don’t use !!!!s without cause. Hopefully the slab work here helped you conquer. I have watched so many north shore videos I feel like I know the crew. Good luck!!!! Yeah, more of those, writer shakas.”

Yes, that is exactly how I wrote it; not that I actually talk like that.

More Erwin: “If you would send shot to __________ (email address, not really secret- we do get lots of unsolicited stuff). I would be proud and stoked to put it on my site. It’s just another north shore.”

Chris (next day): “I just got back, scored some great surf. Lots of positive comments on your shirt and, as usual, it brought good luck. It’s usually my shirt of choice when I hit the Strait because I’m on a streak with it!”

OKAY, so Chris followed local etiquette by not telling me about surfing in Hawaii until it was too late for me to show up. Good.

Erwin (while about to change lanes on freeway en route to job in Gig Harbor: “Great” (third attempt at completing this particular verbal text- no period or explanation point- or … I hate it when it shows up as something like- “. dot dot” or “Great” comma).

Because I wasn’t sure Chris would send the photo to my e-mail address, and because I wanted to share the shot with the few (seriously, few) surfers I have phone numbers for, I sent the photo to Stephen R. Davis with a request to send it back to me. I have a problem transferring photos from my phone to the e-mail. It could, possibly, be remedied if I allowed some sort of hookup that might mean every email would ping on my phone. Steve did send it, but Chris also came through.

Chris (via e-mail, and there may be a slight amount of redundancy, not that it bothers me): “Here’s a shot of me at Pipeline sporting an E. Dence original. I got quite a few compliments on the shirt in Hawaii, stayed up on the (other) north shore and scored some great surf. Did NOT surf pipeline, of course, but as you can see, had a pretty good view from the safety of the deck. Aaron’s coaching at some local slabs paid off as I pulled into some challenging ones elsewhere, though. For my next Erwin shirt, I think I’ll seek a lighter color as black got a little toasty in the Hawaiian sun.”

Chris Eardly is a guy who runs for fun, travels to the East Coast for Hurricane Season, hits the slopes and… yeah, he qualifies as a real surfer (skateboarding and snow stuff are optional, perhaps- but helpful). He is part of the PT Crew if there is such a thing, and, if there is, it would be so loosely connected and… really, how would I know? As far as scoring on the Strait- yeah, I thought that was pretty funny. Chris’s reference to Aaron might be the elusive and well-traveled “Short Board Aaron.” Slabs? It’s a matter of definition and proportion. And location; as in, somewhere else. So much for the disclaimer.

As far as Original Erwin t-shirts- If you have one, hang on to it, don’t spill paint on it. I haven’t made any in several years. I have no stockpile of them. I have done some drawings that could be shirts, I do plan on getting some more printed up, but… right now… collector’s items. Am I trying to hype up the value? Yes.