Left to right: Randy Bennett, George South, Abner Agee, Kent Sunday (aka Cheetah), a Tom LeCompte (RIP). Photo courtesy of Abner Agee by way of Tom Burns.

TEXT from TOM: “Back in ’74 when I came up here. I discovered Westport, my locale ever since. Back then, this was the crew. All these guys had tales to tell of the old Grenville days. TODAY only Cheetah still surfs and now lives in Sequim. He spent 30 years in the Coast Guard as a rescue swimmer. The last ten years at Cape Disappointment where he flung himself out of helos on the Columbia River bar to rescue and recover victims. The stories he had!” Has, not to correct Mr. Burns.

Readers of “Surfer’s Journal” are aware that a portion of each issue is devoted to old stories from back in some simpler time; less crowded, for sure; the remembrances, possibly, sanitized, negative aspects edited out, joyful moments, again, possibly, enhanced.

In my advanced age, I’m as guilty of this as anyone. I’m a couple of weeks older than Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll, and really close in age to TOM BURNS. So, yeah, old-ish.

NOW Tom has stories, only some of which overlap with mine. AND YES, he has a story about running into Pete Carroll on a dawn patrol, in some not-distant past, in the parking lot at Westport. “Wait, Tom, Pete surfs?” “Sure. He asked me how the surf was. I said, ‘Well, Pete…'” “Okay. Makes sense.”

What is different about Mr. Burn is that he remembers names, even names of surfers he has met on the Strait. “That guy, ‘Dumptruck Dave…'” “Big Dave.” “What about ‘Tugboat Bill’ and ‘Concrete Pete?'” Yeah, those guys. Haven’t seen either in a while. We’ll run into each other again.” “Sure. Say ‘Hi’ from me. And, hey, what about old…”

Here’s more texting from this week, Tom doing some of his yearly hanging out and surfing down in Southern California, hitting San O and Doheny on 0dark-thirty strike missions: Ya know, Erwin, in my surfing Westport for close to 40 years, the place I held pretty close to my heart died in 1991 when beach erosion took out the bathhouse, the fog horn, and broke through the jetty at the corner, destroying one of the best waves on the coast. After beach nutritionment the break became like today, inconsistent and, like today, as more folks venture into my old locale, I find it hard to find any solace in the place or even the wave that used to exist there. But back in the days, there was no other place I loved to surf more. April ł987, a great day at the jetty. I was riding a 6’9″ Barnfield and bagging rides like this all day on a great swell. Jim Wallace took this pic of me on that day.

When I texted back that I was sitting in a lot overlooking a cove where I first saw waves in Washington State, 1978, and it was almost, almost rideable, Tom texted back that, even in California, “No waves for me today. No swell and a funky wind. It’s San’O tomorrow!” The next day, I drove farther, got skunked. I didn’t bother to tell Tom about it.

POSSIBLY related side story- I had a dream in which, possibly, I was imagining, or changing a scene from my manuscript for “Swamis.” A surfer comes up to some locals, all of them in their mid-teens, in the parking lot, tries to join in, says he just moved into Encinitas. The locals shine him on, quite rudely. When he persists, Duncan or Rincon Ronny, himself a transplant, says something to the effect of: “It takes more than just being local to be a local,” to which the non-accepted surfer says, “Surfing is just like high school… only worse.” Not a scene that’ll make it into some final draft, but the narrator, Joey, whispers if he doesn’t say it out loud, “More like Junior High.” THEN Joey also avoids the newcomer.

I will be posting the last Chapter 12 subchapter on Wednesday. Chapter 13 is way shorter.

MEANWHILE, remember what you can about your surf adventures, maybe the names of some of the folks you run into (not, hopefully,, literally), on the beach or in the water. Then, later… stories.