INSIDE BREAK- Chapters 1 and 2

Posted on February 21, 2015 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under Erwin Dence illustrations, surf adventures, surf illustrations, surfing San Onofre, surfing Southern California in the 60s

INSIDE BREAK

Love and Wars and Surf and Magic

CHAPTER ONE- Too Many Overlapping Stories

MISSION HILLS, SAN DIEGO

A beeping sound, audible through the radio news, started when the passenger side door opened.

“All good surf trips start in the dark.”

“Yeah, yeah, Dad; so you say. We’re a little late for zero-dark-thirty, though. Sorry.” My daughter, her hair wet, pushed her laptop, a straw bag with clothes spilling out, and a quite worn brown leather purse toward the space between the front seats. It wouldn’t fit.

I turned the key to the right. Beep. Beep. I pulled the key out. The radio and the beeping stopped. I nodded over my shoulder toward the back seat. “Liz, Lizzie, ‘Lizabeth… what are we calling you nowadays?”

“I think, today, only; Elizabeth. Formal. Grownup.” As Elizabeth moved the laptop and bag, I looked over my back seat supplies. Cardboard box, briefcase, camera, white plastic bag, towel. “What did you forget, Papa?” She was already backing out of the passenger door. “Today only; then it’s back to Dad, Daddy, Father, Owl, Alvin, Mr. Hubbard.”

“Sunglasses, watch…they’re at your uncle’s, um, desk, in the foyer; and one more cup of coffee; maybe?”

“Jeez-a-fuckin’-neez, daddy.”

I handed her my mug, the ‘Inside Break Publishing’ and the surfing graphic, cobalt blue on white, almost rubbed off. “Thirty-nine seconds on the microwave.”

She left the door open. When I reinserted the key, the beeping and the radio resumed. “Six-forty-six,” the radio voice said. It was lighter outside here than it would be at home, farther east, farther south. That not-quite-clean pre-dawn San Diego light. I looked at the cell phone on the dashboard, pulled the key out. The beeping stopped.

It was a Wednesday, March 17, 2004; almost exactly a year after the start of the actual war; the actual, as-promised, shock-and-awe war in Iraq started. Again. Bagdad revisited; and this time, it was personal.

Jeez, I’m sorry; couldn’t help but add a little commentary. This is where I’ve chosen to start the story. Stories, too many overlapping stories. Forward and backward. I’ll apologize now, upfront.

I chose this day because it was so… because I think of this day constantly. It was memorable. Yes, it was Saint Patrick’s Day, and it was about a week before my dad’s eightieth birthday; and the day we, we being his extended, very much extended, family, would celebrate that. That would be later.

[OPTIONAL [bracketed] TEXT- the idea for this came from the readings for Catholic mass. If you read more quickly than an official reader, you might as well read these slightly-tangential parts. Or, if you see the brackets, skip on by.]

[My day had started in the dark. I was in the sort of office slash foyer at Jack’s house, lights off, at his computer, checking out the surf reports. Unlike the rules at my house, my brother-in-law keeps his on; just turns off the screen. I wasn’t seeing what I’d hoped for, small enough for a guy who hadn’t surfed in a while; too long a while. It was smaller than that, even; some sort of lull between swells; la nina and el nino; “none to one and glassy,” as I used to say.

“Hey, man;” Jack whispered, slipping up behind me without turning the lights on, setting a cup of coffee, in one of his ‘Presidio Investors’ mugs, next to me. “Too early for me,” he said when I looked at his other hand. “You send the email?”

“Yeah.”

“Well; maybe they’ll figure out you’re not just… completely selling out.”

“Oh, I’m selling out, Jack. Maybe they’ll see I’m, maybe, not desperate…” I had to laugh. Jack smiled. “Not that desperate.”

“Whoever’s desperate loses.” It was his line; and he was only a split second behind me in delivering it. “It’s your…” he paused. “Look; I can do some negotiating… I mean; I do do it for a living. ‘Don’t show them the gun,’ I say…” He wasn’t pausing, he, former college history teacher, was waiting.

I knew the line. Through years of negotiating, success (and failures, and balloon payments and bad investments), success overall, Jack had earned his air of easy sophistication; still, white high-end-resort-robe aside, he was, to someone who knew him since he returned from Vietnam, sort of cheesy at the core. I don’t mean that in a negative way.

“Just show them the bulge.” His line. Cheesy. We both laughed; something short of a giggle; teeth showing; just a temporary lapse in self-consciousness.

Jack’s sister says the Marines hadn’t changed him much, but a tour in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive as a Second Lieutenant had; and I’ve seen him, and others, when some random event or song or shadow causes those black curtain memories to fall. Still, with all his credentials, his polish and sophistication, he’s just cheesy enough to be real.]

Lizzie went to the door of her uncle’s house, didn’t have to knock on the door. An inside light came on. Both of her cousins, then ten and twelve, in mis-matched pajamas, attacked and opened the door. And now one’s out of college, the other…

No, I’m focused. Focusing. Just getting going. And, and I had to call home.

“Hello. Hello? You up? Thought you might be. Hoped.” Pause. “Almost; we’re leaving.” I waved at Didier (family name- his mother’s family) and Holden (allusion/homage- cool name), both racing around their cousin on the front porch; Deeds striking a few surfing poses, Holden copying his older brother, throwing in a TV wrestling pose.

Not dropping the phone, I shot Didier a shaka, returned, Holden a devil sign, ‘hook ‘em horns,’ whatever it is. Holden struck another wrestling pose.

“Yeah, pretty exciting. For me, anyway. No, no eating in the car. No. I know. We’ll probably have to skip checking out O.B. and Sunset Cliffs, head straight for Pacific Beach.”

There was a longer pause. I let Kate go on a bit about her flight and how she’d get to Sea-Tac, and when she’d have to leave, and the security hassle; and how she’d call her brother later, and he could pick her up if I was surfing or still in Oceanside.

“Yeah, Jack always says, already said, getting to the airport is so easy; drop on down.” Big pause. “If I could… just… keep the imprint. Inside Break. Just for new stuff. I mean, some sort of… no, not control… input.” Another pause; with me fully aware we’d had this conversation, we’d made this decision. “No, no; sure; I know it’s all up to…settled, yeah, settled. It’s the great American dream. Sell out… retire…start another…project.” I knew enough to pause. “Yeah; tomorrow. Done.”

Our daughter was getting back into the car. The door to the house closed, the light went out. I handed the phone to Elizabeth. “It’s your mom. She wants to talk to you.”

“Hi, Kate. Mother. Okay; Mom. Morning.” Elizabeth gave me the ‘why’d you give me the phone?’ look. “Dad just did the phone hand-off.” I restarted my sister-in-law’s loaner car; quite a nice Mercedes station wagon, surf racks and a hint of that smoke/sand/mildew beachy smell. Didier was more into surfing than Holden, though both had, by this time, been to surf camp. Surf Camp. Later, Didier was, well, more into surfing, Scripps Pier his spot, mostly. But, right now, he’s…

I waved off the offer of the phone, and, almost to the second turn, slaloming past ever-bigger houses, towards the Presidio, I hooked my seatbelt.

“No, yeah; I wasn’t forgetting, mom; but Jakes is still in LA,” Elizabeth said, into my phone. She looked at me. “Jack in the Box.” I pulled into the open space at the switchback at the park entrance, not really sure which route I would have taken, back when Kate and I lived in Mission Hills, to get to where I was going; through the park or down through Old Town. “They don’t have them in Chicago. And…Daddy…” This was an aside to me. “Mom says you can’t go to El Indio(s) until she gets here. Promise?” I nodded, pulled around and headed back uphill. Jack in the Box

“No, no, Mom; we’re both super excited. Big day. Cowabunga!”

BEN’S HOUSE- A FEW MILES SOUTH OF FALLBROOK, CALIFORNIA

In the grainy pre-dawn light, the chubby kid; I’m going to say ‘husky;’ slid the nine-four stock model Hobie across the lawn, the nose slightly over the iceplant-covered (the old style, dark green spikes) berm, and jumped on.

“Real surfers,” he said, in the general direction of his two (thinner) friends, “real surfers go foot over foot.” It was that radio commentator’s voice any sixteen year old would use to announce his own play in a pickup game of football, the voice he used to describe his skateboarding down the neighbor’s driveway on Debby Street, slaloming toward, but rarely onto, Fallbrook Street. Too steep, too much traffic; his brother had scraped up his chin, arms, and knees in a ‘should-have-rolled’ wipeout still uphill of the Magarian tract because, he was told, still crying, jeans ripped and knees and elbows bloodied, “You have to know how to roll.”

“Mickey Dora threads the Malibu crowd…” He paused, creating his own ‘going wild’ crowd noise. The Mickey Dora stand-in’s right arm moved up, out, down, rhythmically; he slid his back foot forward, rotated slightly to more closely face the imaginary wave. His right hand was hit and moved backward by the imaginary lip.

“He… casually… slides his foot forward… Cheater five!”

The board slid forward on the iceplant and down. He, not-so-casually, and not foot-over-foot, back-pedalled, regained his balance, awkwardly, arms way-extended. He stomped the fin back down; but not until after the board had bumped into Ben’s board, it resting on Sam’s, with a ‘thwack,’ the sound a bit hollower, maybe, than wood on wood, and different than a board hitting, say, a jetty.

“Al-vin!” Ben yelled, he and Sam heading toward him from the front porch where they had been, coolly, watching me behave so non-coolly.

Yeah, it was me. I wanted you to get an image before you found out. Husky, not chubby.

My nickname before the glasses, ‘Alvin’ was always shot at me, by parents, teachers, friends, upper class assholes, with the same voice used in the Chipmunks cartoons.

“Watch it, Kooks! Valley cowboys!” I was above them, grabbing a rail, fighting through a curling section. “Head-dip!”

“Dip shit you mean.” That was Sam.

Ben checked for damage on his newer, but still purchased used, Hansen eight-ten, looked at Sam, who shrugged, then back at me. I looked at Ben, at Sam, at the rail of Ben’s board. I shrugged, since, obviously, a shrug was the proper gesture.

“You’re lucky, Owl,” Ben said. Owl was my post-glasses nickname. I hated it, originally, maybe less than ‘Alvin!’ or Al, as in ‘Sam, Ben, and, oh, yeah; Al.” But, there was, several years after the nickname became widespread, a surfer, who wore glasses, had his photo in “Surfer,” also nicknamed ‘Owl,’ Owl Chapman; so, it became okay, depending on who used it.

[Of course. A girl in class thinking I must be a bit smarter; fine. If she said, “So, you surf?” This was even better. Owl was my surf name. In a time, just past “Gidget,” when ‘Greaser’ meant, as far as I knew, someone who loved and worked on cars, and ‘Ho-dad’ meant poser, and ‘Kook’ meant some phase I thought I’d quickly advanced out of, ‘Surfer’ meant some semi-private club, individuals who… shit, they were like Knights, people who seriously challenged the ocean. Being a surfer meant so much more than the actual act; it was a tribe, and those who were the best at it, these were my first heroes. I wanted to be one of them, one of those surfers; not Sitting Bull but Crazy Horse.]

Sam merely glanced at his board, an even-newer Surfboards Hawaii nine-six with an inordinate numbers of patches and unfixed dings.

[In the back room of the shop (for years now the La Paloma Theater), the owner, John Price, had told us, the board had been used (he didn’t say owned) by an actual member of his surf team, Sidney something, as I don’t quite recall, and was “perfect for Swamis, or…” He looked over Sam and his three overly-impressed buddies. This particular grouping included Billy Butts, way taller than the three of us, who rode (tried to ride) a ten-six board from Orange County his parents had bought new. New. Billy (you know we always called him Butts; Big Billy Butts) had driven us this day, after school. Having him there had the added benefit of, by comparison, allowing me to be a bit cooler. “…Tamarack.”

Tamarack. I had switched from mat to board surfing there, June of 1965, soon joined by Ben, he and I riding to the beach and back in the very back of the surf-decorated (by my sister, including curtains and a ‘Surfer’ magazine ‘Murphy’ decal) 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air family nine passenger station wagon. We had most of a year’s head start before other freshmen at Fallbrook Union High School started surfing. By this time, on our second (still used) boards, we’d moved on to Grandview and Swamis.

Sam bought the board with the dings and patches only after twenty bucks was knocked off, and a bar of ‘special’ wax for each of us was added.

Butts, showing his lack of coolness, pointed to the Oahu-shaped Surfboards Hawaii decals in the front display case as Sam paid. “Those are for our team riders,” Mr. Price pointed out. Showing my own lack of coolness, I sewed a similar shape onto one leg of my trunks. A year or so later, two other members of the group who had tried surfing but, as with many of our contemporaries, didn’t stick with it, showed their lack of coolness and morality by stealing several of these stickers. “What can you do with them?” I asked. “People will know.”]

We all sort of froze as the unmistakable sound of a Volkswagen engine was heard, coming up the steep driveway, the weak headlights dropping down in the heavy morning air, hitting briefly but directly on Ben, holding his board in front of him, Sam, turning his board on edge, and me, stepping, foot-over-foot this time, toward the nose.

“Coop!” I yelled, waving wildly.

“Don’t call him ‘Coop,’ Alvin,” Ben said, throwing his board on the grass and grabbing my extended arm. “Cooper. I had to kiss his, and my sister’s, ass…asses, to get him to take us.”

“Cooper, Benny. Yeah, fine; Cooper.”

It was a Monday, a week before Easter vacation, March of 1967. We had picked this day (my idea, really, fiercely fought for) because, one, it was a week before the waves would be more crowded with surfers who would not wear wetsuits, and merely wouldn’t surf in the colder months, not to mention new surfers and those gremmies whose parents took time off to coincide with holidays, and were thusly available to cart the little a-holes to whatever beach the punks thought the coolest; and, two, because, if it’s a Monday, those real surfers who had surfed on the weekend might be at school, at jobs or, maybe, just temporarily, surfed-out.

[Easter, or before, when the water temperature got back up to 58 degrees, was the official start of ‘wear a wetsuit and look like a pussy’ season. Wetsuits were not really accepted as proper gear until the water dropped to the magic 58 degree mark; usually just before Christmas.]

By Wednesday, that urge to surf would be back.

I had; and this angered (at least irritated) my two friends, actually supplied the school, on Friday, a note to cover my absence. Still, for Sam and Ben, it was so cooler to hitchhike than ride the bus or get a ride from a parent, so much cooler to ditch. Yeah, well… coolness.

[I’d skewer any writer who submitted something with this much exposition, this many tangent lines. He or she would argue that “real life isn’t linear.” I’d agree; then add, “Do readers want real life?” “Shading, setting, background; some reality to make fiction seem… possible.” “Yeah, great; but just a bit simpler.”

Yeah, great, but…coolness; I have to discuss it. Samuel and Benjamin were so cool that, when they did get caught for ditching school, in our senior year; there weren’t enough detention hours left in the session; so, as a penalty, they had to pick up trash on campus during the morning break (called ‘nutrition’) and at lunch. This didn’t lessen, and, perhaps, enhanced their coolness quotient; poking wrappers and papers near cute girls on benches, girls who appreciate a bad boy who’s not that kind of bad, not a ‘hard guy’ thug. I did ditch several times (including this time), always to go surfing. No, there was once to go to these girls’ house in Temecula, this other guy’s (not even a surfer) idea. We sat around and listened to records. Not much fun for all the trouble it got me into (with my Mom, she didn’t rat me out- that time) And there was another time, with Ben and Sam; I just didn’t really enjoy hanging out on base, hoping my dad didn’t drive by. I still haven’t mastered the art of non-surf-related hanging out.]

The 1962 VW bus pulled toward the garage, did three back-forward-back maneuvers, pulled up close to the two surfers on the gravel, each with his board standing beside him.

My board lurched forward, nose into the gravel. I dismounted, clumsily, at speed, tried to regain my balance as I stumbled toward the bus; crashed (soft crash) against it, yelled, “Shotgun!” As I opened the door, I yelled out, a bit too loudly, “Coop!”

CHAPTER TWO

FIFTEENTH STREET, DEL MAR

“You used to be able to park out there,” I said, pointing to an area beyond the fence. “For free. This one time, a couple of days before I was going to represent Fallbrook High in this surfing contest; don’t know how we got to 15^th Street; my parents sat in the car and watched while I surfed. It was evening, glassy, and I was almost the only one out.”

My daughter was on her cell phone, in the car, a wire connecting it to the cigarette lighter, the car running just in case it had to be for the re-charging to work, and I was leaning, camera balanced on the roof, shooting a few (non-digital, still) photos of a pretty crowded lineup on a pretty small day.

I won’t go into how everything around the surfing spots had changed in the twenty-five years since I’d taken that job in Seattle. I did explain this in detail to my daughter as I took the wrong turn onto I-5, missed the turnoff for Ocean Beach, forgot which route I should have taken around Mission Bay, discovered the Jack in the Box is still there in Pacific Beach, though the restaurant at the head of Crystal Pier, which I thought was cool but never went to, was totally gone; probably has been for years.

Describing the old surf shop on the PB side, and how I would skateboard or bike down there to surf, I totally forgot the back alley routes I’d take to get back toward Tourmaline Canyon, her mother’s and my second apartment located up the hill and caddy-cornered from the steep access.

“La Jolla Bella,” I said, pointing as we passed; “I’m sure they’re condos now.”

Elizabeth had been on her cell phone for most of the trip; politely looking at the highlights, nodding and smiling.

We had barely stopped the car at Tourmaline, me glancing past the old surfers clumsily donning wetsuits, a couple of teenagers running from the water to get to school, the waves pretty much closing out in front, a couple of more lined-up ones toward PB Point, maybe a hint of a peak out there.

“The point always looked like it should have waves, it just… in the, um, couple of years your mom and I lived in PB… well, there was the one evening. It was… after work. I just kept moving closer as the waves got bigger. By dark, I was at the point and the surf was well overhead. I’d walked down, and it was too dark to… I climbed the cliff, went through someone’s yard, and…”

My daughter was nodding, politely; but had tears in her eyes, then a smile.

“No, Jakes,” she said; “if you can’t make it. No, no… that’s more important. If Tony says…” She turned to me as I pulled onto the wrong back street, not the one Kate and I would ride our bikes on, in the general direction of Windansea. “Jakes has another radio interview; Orange County.”

Now I nodded, politely, smiled. “Fuckin’ Tony. Promoting.”

“Yeah, Dad’s thrilled. No, more exposure. It’s good.”

We drove on, around soft corners and past plush estates worth unmentionable sums, and did, eventually, find Windansea. I double-parked, reeling off the story of my not being able to catch more than four waves in an hour; me, wave-hog, twenty years old; held back by the pack of locals controlling the single peak. Ah, but, when the surf got big… I described how it was all a takeoff and drop, bottom turn, cutback, kind of bob around while trying to maintain enough speed to make the suddenly-jumping-up inside section.

“I lost my board three times on the inside section in one day. Once, someone kindly stuck it on top of one of those big rocks.”

“He has a driver, Dad; town car; wherever he wants to go.”

“Big budget, Elizabeth. I offered him a rental, but he’d have to… I don’t know, can a person rent a car in LA and drop it off in San Diego? I don’t even know.”

Elizabeth’s cell phone rang again as we coasted down the last big curve towards La Jolla Shores. Jakes was caught in traffic in one of those indistinguishable Orange County cities.

“No, Dad, he can’t see the Matterhorn. He says Tony says…”

“Oh, so Tony’s, like, actually with him.” I leaned toward the phone. “Hey, Jakes.” Elizabeth pointed her phone toward me. “Fuck Tony.” She hadn’t pulled the phone away quickly enough.

“Yeah, he did say, ‘fuck Tony,’ Jakes.” Elizabeth looked toward me, almost laughing, mouthed ‘fuck Tony,’ added, “so, yeah, maybe Tony can… maybe you can give us the number, maybe we can pick it up from here. Another NPR station… I hope.”

After a bit of listening as I found a street I could make a left hand turn onto, Elizabeth said, “Tony says he really, really, genuinely appreciates your going on TV yesterday.”

Without waiting for my response, Elizabeth said, “Fuck Tony.”

I fumbled with the radio. “What’s the…number. Where do I find this station?”

________________________________________________________________________

SOMEWHERE SOUTH OF FALLBROOK

Oh, yeah; I was riding shotgun, but I was shotgun to the non-talking, not-responding-to-my-talking Cooper, and Sam and Ben seemed to be having more fun in the back, not bouncing (too much), but thoroughly checking out the latest “Surfer” magazine, so happily discovered on the homemade bed.

“It’s Billy Hamilton at the Santa Ana rivermouth,” Ben said, describing (reading, actually, Ben didn’t know Billy Hamilton from Billy Butts) the cover I’d had half a second to check out. “Bitchin cutback. Squared-off nose on his board. Yeah!”

Cooper reached under a sweater and towel, properly damp, between us on the bench seat, pulled out an older “Surfer,” kind of shook it towards me. I grabbed it.

“Shit!” Cooper said, glancing in his side mirror. “Waltersheid. Don’t look!”

“Cooper, there’s a Highway Patrolman behind us,” Sam said, peeking through the back window’s curtains.

“I said ‘don’t look,’ cheesedick. Damn.”

“He said ‘don’t look, cheesedick,’ cheesedick,” Benjamin said.

“Shit!” Cooper said again as the bubble light on the patrol car came on.

“Shit!” I said, “Why’d you look, cheesedicks?”

The bus slowed down, pulled off near a wooded area that frequently smelled of road-killed skunk. There was, in fact, one dead in the southbound lane, not all squished, but definitely dead. It had almost made it to the center line. Almost. Several southbound cars avoided the carcass. Cooper rolled the driver’s side window down. We waited.

“Skunk,” I said.

“No shit,” Sam said.

NOTE: Alright, I have to apologize for dropping back on this story a bit. My plan was to keep the storyline from 2004 and this one from 1967 in about the same time, dawn to dusk. There are other storylines coming. Okay, hang on.

BACK AT BEN’S HOUSE, we loaded the boards on the Aloha racks, mine on top of Cooper’s, the other two on the driver’s side, for balance. Anxious about losing my shotgun position, I ran back to the porch to pick up my old Boy Scout backpack, grabbed it, spun back.

“Oh,” she and I both said, mine a moment after hers, probably a bit higher. I was more startled, suddenly so close, face to face.

“Oh,” I said again. Ben’s sister had come to the laundry room door from the actual, but almost never used, front door; the formal entrance.

“Catherine,” I said as her left hand touched my shoulder. Only partially because her eyes seemed to be saying, ‘stop looking into my eyes,’ I looked at her hand.

“Oh. Al-vin,” she said, using that hand to move me aside, her eyes on Cooper, approaching. Yeah, I looked into her eyes again.

I probably shouldn’t mention that sleeping on a sort of Japanese couch thing almost outside her bedroom door had contributed significantly to a rise in my going-surfing-early anxiety level. Closed door, but still, I wasn’t yet sixteen, and she was, I thought, perfect, the perfect surfer’s girlfriend.

While so many of her contemporaries had teased and stiff hairdos, Catherine’s was blond and straight. She was thin and not ashamed of it, and, not trying to get too detailed here, she had that kind of aloof self-assurance that, among silly and worried and unsure high school girls, was just so alluring. She wasn’t mean, exactly, but didn’t seem compelled to be phony-nice; and, if she did feel one was worth speaking to at all; well… she had said, “Oh. Al-vin.” In my immediate memory, the period after ‘oh’ was replaced with a comma.

On the porch, a mere tip of Cooper’s head informed me I wasn’t needed there. I hadn’t had to say, “We’re going surfing; San Onofre;” but, of course, I did, backing away as Catherine took Cooper’s hand, both of them moving into the area away from the porch light.

The light did seem to be reflected in her eyes. Again, I shouldn’t have noticed.

A few moments later, I was back at the bus, holding onto the open passenger door. Sam approached the open side door from the garage, threw his cardboard box of gear onto the bed, then put the “Surfer” magazine on top of his neatly rolled, not folded, towel.

Sam followed my gaze over to the house. They were kissing.

“Friendly,” Sam said. Cooper’s hand moved a bit, inside Catherine’s light robe, around her back. “Very friendly.” Sam looked at me. “Are you holding your breath?”

“No.” Inhale.

Cooper pulled his girlfriend closer. I looked away.

“Whoa,” Sam whispered, grabbing my arm, trying to push me back around.

“Politeness, Sam,” I said, trying to match his whisper.

[It’s the sort of consideration for the possible embarrassment of others that, through the years, has meant I almost saw, or saw too briefly for it to really imprint on my brain, quite a few images. Example: Oceanside Pier, 1964 or so, some woman out in the surf with two Marines almost lost her top going through a wave. I looked away. Polite. The woman and the Marines just laughed.]

“Ben,” Sam said as our friend stepped out the side door. A wicker basket in his hands, he was four steps off the porch when he noticed we weren’t really watching him. Not seeing Cooper with us, he seemed to sense what might be happening, and shook his head. Sam and I would have looked away if Ben’s mother hadn’t suddenly appeared behind him; if Catherine hadn’t suddenly separated from Cooper, casually straightening her robe; if Mrs. Collins hadn’t abruptly looked to her right; if Cooper hadn’t taken the ‘Buy and Save’ bag from her with a smooth, “Mrs. Collins;” if Mrs. Collins hadn’t said, “Riley” as he took it, and then looked, a bit fiercely, toward her daughter, not quite waving at her brother and his surf buddies, the wave held long enough for her man to turn around.

Not that Cooper waved back. I’m sure he smiled.

No, I didn’t look away this time. If I had, I wouldn’t know the look I so wanted to see from my own perfect surfer’s girlfriend, only meant for me. Oh, and I waved, too. I did say I was five months short of sixteen, right?

BACK ON THE ROAD…I fumbled into my backpack as the California Highway Patrolman (they were all over 6’2” in those days) leaned into the driver’s side window.

“Should’a told the kids to not be peeking out the curtains,” Officer Waltersheid, Fallbrook’s main local Highway Patrolman, the one whose name was heard around the campus, including in driver’s education class, said. “You got a license, son?”

Cooper, his license already out, leaned toward me as the officer leaned in to check the two eager faces pushed forward from the back. And mine, leaning almost over Cooper as I pushed a note toward the feared Waltersheid.

“I have a note,” I said.

“Didn’t ask,” he said, glancing at it anyway. “Field trip? Oh. Good; I might’a thought you were all just skipping… truant; going (he did a bit of a shoulder twist) surfing.”

“It covers them, too,” I said, looking for reactions on the faces of my friends. As did Waltersheid. Sam and Ben tried to hide their surprise. No, I hadn’t told them that I’d typed in their names after my mom signed it; reluctantly, with a promise I wasn’t behind on my school work, and a question as to why I’d even need such a note. “Truant Officers,” I’d explained. “Just in case.”

“Just in case then.”

Quickly Samuel and Benjamin were smiling, nice guy smiles.

“Your mom work at Hooley’s?” The patrolman looked from their faces to the paper, back at me, this time for a half second too long.

I looked at him a full second too long, trying to determine if he was about to say something I’d have to hate him for.

“Used to. She got a job on base. Photo lab. She and my dad can ride in…”

“Nice woman. Got that weird religion, though. You?”

Pause, think; “I go; yeah.”

He handed the paper back with a smile. “You driving yet?”

“Couple of times. Just got my learners’… Sam and Ben are…”

“Didn’t ask.”

“I thought you said you have a driver’s license, Mr. Riley F. Cooper.”

Riley F. Cooper just splayed his hand out toward the card on Waltersheid’s clipboard.

“This is ‘bout to expire, son. Eighteen, almost. You better be gettin’ a new one. Oh…” He stepped back toward the highway, made a sweeping motion toward the back of the bus. “You can’t be driving around with the wheelwells all cut up like this. Illegal. Probably. I know you want to be all cool and shit, big tires and such; and I could measure… but…” and now he came closer, smiled at all of us. Each one of us, other than Cooper, returned the expression. Or maybe he did smile, but…a pause is needed here…ironically.

“I can see you’re all anxious to get to your surfing.” Now Waltersheid, having backed away a few steps, adjusting his gunbelt in his own version of wild west lawman, added, “or maybe… it’s too early for even teachers to be going to school. Better head on out.”

He made his right hand into a pistol, two fingers forward, pointed it at each of us younger surfers, individually, shot and recoil, said, “Don’t be driving foolishly, kids. Oh, and… and don’t be peeking out the curtains. Makes you look…” He dramatically pulled his sunglasses out of a top pocket, put them on, and, using an even deeper voice, finally added, “…suspicious.”

[Waltersheid was walking away. Ben and Sam were still leaning toward the front seat, each of us waiting to witness Cooper’s anger, hear his comments. It was taking too long. He seemed too calm.

“Your son’s queer!” Ben said after Waltersheid’s car drove past us. The car almost made a complete u-ey, had to back up a bit before slamming it in reverse, then scratched out, directly and purposefully over the skunk, on toward Bonsall.

A sort of automatic “Ewwww!” came from each of us, Cooper rolling the window up. Quickly.

Ben looked at Sam, beside him, then at me, then Cooper. Cooper didn’t seem to approve of the ‘queer’ comment. “Well, he is.” Ben said.

“For you, maybe;” Sam said, moving back toward the bed, flipping the bird with both hands in the general direction of the long gone patrol car. “Fuck you Waltersheid!”

“Yeah, fuck you, Waltersheid!” I had meant it to sound bold, practiced.

Cooper looked at me, almost smiled. “Fuck him,” Cooper whispered, restarting the bus.

“Yeah,” I said. Everyone looked at me. “Yeah, fuck (more emphasis on the ‘fuck’) you, Waltersheid.”

“You tell him, Owl,” Cooper said, making a point of swerving into the southbound lane and running over the skunk carcass.

“Ow!”

As we approached the first houses of Fallbrook, Sam pulled a package of cigarettes from his rolled towel (Tracytons, I think), and a silver lighter with the Marine Corp logo on it, in color. He handed Ben one, lit his and Ben’s.

At the first hint of smoke, Cooper pulled the bus over, looked in the rear view mirror. “You want to walk?” He looked at me as if wondering why I hadn’t been offered a cigarette. “Real surfers don’t fucking smoke,” he said, cigarettes extinguished, pulling out again.

Probably smiling, looking deep into my “Surfer” magazine, I didn’t even bother to repeat the phrase. Not outloud, anyway. Later, however, when I did smoke cigarettes, I would remember it.]

NOTE: Pretty happy with the last bracketed part, I feel compelled to add that somewhere in here someone mentioned I hadn’t had to provide the note; could’ve said we were going after school. Never mind; I’ll put it in with the section on actually crossing Camp Pendleton and eliminate it here. So, PREVIEW>

________________________________________________________________________

The Keeper- Perspectives on Waves of Consequence by Stephen and Stig

Posted on February 13, 2015 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under Erwin Dence illustrations, northwest surfing, real surfers, surf adventures, surf illustrations, surf photos, surf sessions, surf stories, surfing art, surfing illustrations, surfing in Washington State, surfing novels

I did the line drawing, then added color; wasn’t totally stoked on that, did the color version, then, because it seemed too bright, added lines. Different perspectives.

STEPHEN DAVIS-

“Where the fuck is he?”, I thought, redlining on adrenaline and standing on a footprint free, remote Olympic Peninsula beach.

” Did he FUCKING drown?” Now I was really concerned. I had just navigated my Gordon & Smith, “funboard”/ turned Big wave gun through one of the most historically treacherous coastlines, on one of the biggest surf days of the Winter. Stig and I had been the only ones out, surfing together only fifteen minutes previous.

Now I was alone and he was… I didn’t know.

The waves were larger in the water than they looked from the beach, like always here. It’s odd when first paddling out and realizing the true size of the sets by being caught inside and out of position due to the long interval between sets. That interval is always the signature of a good swell and the reason we’d chosen this day.

Still, It had taken a curtain of water exploding right in front of me for my adrenaline system to bring my body into balance with the situation. Stig, like he always does, had just taken off deep and late on a monster I was trying to avoid and had disappeared.

I kept looking for him to paddle back out but he never did. I was alone. You are always alone here but I needed to know my friend was ok. I had just dropped in on a smaller set wave to come in over the reef and through the lavender, mussel clad rocks and eelgrass that protect the pools and ponds of this pristine tidal ecosystem.

Getting from the surf lineup to the beach has always been one of the most challenging aspects of this surf spot and, it seems like, most big wave spots. On the inside section, the wave hits the reef in a way that makes it hollow and powerful. Usually, I am cold and physically exhausted by the time I’m ready to head in to the beach. This makes trying to catch a massive moving cloud of white foam and then riding blindly into dry reef and protruding rocks a roll of the dice, especially on larger days when there is a lot of moving water. I have lost a camera and water housing here as well as had the reef shove fins through the deck of my favorite big wave board (with appropriate ‘Psycho’ traction pad), after using it sacrificially as body armor (which is why I was now riding the G&S) trying to get in.

On this day my effort paid off, except for being trapped on the Pacific side of two rock/reef clusters that were creating a four foot wide sluice that was unswimable every time a surge was draining from the pool beyond and nearer to the shore. I guess one could call it a “rip,” though not in the traditional sense. This was an ON/OFF-switching gusher of a different intensity, more like a rhythmic rapid or waterfall. I thought about paddling around it, but that would have presented me with the hazard of being slammed into numerous rocks, caves and reef formations, while eelgrass was petting me with the current.

Trying to time my exit move, I was able to clutch a rock with my left hand while holding my board with my right as the surge peak filled the pool. I beat the timing of the drain, like some old nintendo game, only in reality. From there I was able to find a route safely to the deep, barren, grey sand of the beach. It took a while to normalize my breathing.

Now, I was scanning the immense beach looking for signs of human life. There were none.

There was our stuff off in the distance, but no sign of Stig other than the deep divots we left when we arrived at the beach and where we had entered the surf. That’s all. My eyes turned back toward the sea in hopes of glimpsing Stig’s red board, perhaps tombstoning, and, at least, giving me an indication of his location. Still nothing.

“Maybe I could see better with my glasses…”.

I started the walk down the beach to where we had left our stuff, thinking to myself, “Should I try to carry Stig’s body back up the trail to the car or, should I leave him lying on the beach and go for help if I’m unable to resuscitate him?”. It was then that I saw him bobbing on his red board all the way on the other side of the channel, eyeing the massive lefts.

What I realized he had done was paddle over to the channel and beyond, which is the right thing to do, and offers a less terrifying route to the beach at this surf spot. Finally, I relaxed a bit and sank into a deep reverence for the amazing wave Stig had shown me and mentored me at so many years ago…

Stig was the first person to share this reef with me. He has been surfing it longer than anyone I know, and over the years, he has been the most committed to it of all my surfer friends. I’ve grown to appreciate the lessons and challenges this wave has dished out to my ego. It is definitely, without question, Stig’s favorite spot on the Washington coast. I KNOW I can always get him to surf there with me when no one else is down, especially if the conditions look like they are going to come together. By example, he has taught me a reverence and solemnity for this beach that I profoundly appreciate.

Earlier in our session, we were sitting together when a bomb lined up. I laid down and started to paddle towards it, angling for the shoulder from the inside ledgey part I was trying to race under. Once I realized I was ahead of the wall I stroked hard to catch it, only to catch a glimpse of Stig deep and underneath an overhanging, pitching, cartoon-like lip, taking off behind the peak, super committed, trying to backdoor it. This is what I completely expect from him. I pulled back and watched Stig drop into oblivion. It sounds cliche but Stig always does that here, that “don’t know ’till you go” style. I’ve seen it so many times it fucks my mind up. When I get serious and surgical he goes deep and late on BIG waves.

After seeing him charge from the safety of the shoulder I was able to get in position for the one behind it and see my friend paddling back out as I was focused on my take off and the long drop, trying to ignore what was happening behind me for the moment.

As a youth, Stig was fed a ration of North Shore, Oahu’s Sunset Beach. It’s another, even bigger right, with a hollow inside section. Some of the surfers that were inspiring to Stig growing up on Oahu were Duke Kahanamoku, Eddie Aikau, and Ken Bradshaw. In fact, Stig actually met the Duke at the Honolulu Yacht Club as a boy before his passing in 1968. Ken Bradshaw bailed Stig out on a big day at Sunset when he had lost his board and was battling a rip current.

Perhaps these and other events were the seeds of Stig’s hoale humility that he carries with him into the surf. He is very humble, reverent and soft spoken, letting his takeoff position speak for him.

Stig’s father’s paipo surfing molded him as well. Paipo is an extension of body surfing in which a plywood, delta shaped board is used as an aid, the parent of the contemporary boogie board. This may explain Stig’s enthusiasm for surfing warm water spots in a speedo, which is more a bodysurfing thing. One of the only men I’ve seen get away with it is North Shore lifeguard, Mark Cunningham. He is a master body surfer, which is a skill he uses as an accessory to help keep folks safe on the North Shore in heavy, Winter surf. I had the pleasure of a compliment from him down in Mexico on a fast left point wave after making a section backside. Stig says he sometimes enjoys the feel of speedo surfing because of the lack of resistance.

In Justin Hawking’s novel, “The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld”, there is a chapter late in the book about being alone. The morning before our session I read some lines to Stig. Hawkings refers to the Herman Melville novel, “Moby Dick” throughout the book. In the chapter I read to Stig, Hawkings writes of an art show in San Francisco in which an artist cut out the last period of the last sentence of “Moby Dick” and pasted it in the middle of a large, blank white canvas.

So, at the end of that chapter in “Floodgates”, Justin did basically the same thing, a period on a blank page to give the reader that profound effect, the effect of being alone and floating on a coffin in the middle of a vast Ocean…

…Now, contrast that with a solid friend who charges hard and is there for you when the surf gets big and cold and empty. It’s impossible not to have humble gratitude.

STIG WAIDELICH-

Dear Steve,

It’s an interesting experience to read of oneself from the perspective of another. Those details that we tend

to take for granted, the minutia that tend to take precedence over the more grand scheme of our lives itself.

While I was concerned with women at a gas station, and how I had failed to get the best waves for us, you, on the

other hand, were experiencing profound and beautiful moments. No less than life and death itself.

If so much can be received from a sloppy day of stormy conditions, what would have been had, from those glittering waves in the calm that preceded it?

But I remind myself that we were chasing a dream. You and I have always been chasing that dream, and it matters not

how many times we fail or strike out or get skunked. Because the true story is in the perseverance. The true story, YOUR

story, is in the friendship we share, and how it has brought us to this spot over and over again over the years. Absolutely

regardless of the relative success of “scoring it”.

We scored it my friend. Of that I am certain. No footprints. No trace did we leave behind. The point remained undisturbed

for another day. The seagulls and seals had their way, as they have had for aeons before. This is the wave we rode. The eternal wave that carries us through our lives and into our death as it has with all those who came before and all who will follow.

It is no co-incidence that your story and my reply found it’s way into the previous forward email documentary about “Why no

Waves in Titan’s Ocean’s”. What could possibly be the relevance between our session, and the possibility of waves on

a moon of Saturn?

Because both embody a promise of hope.

In 2008 I was studying photographs of Titan from my office in Dolce La Belle. I was blown away by what appeared to be the presence of lines of breaking surf taken from the Huygens probe during it’s two hour decent to the surface. I wrote a song inspired by it. Never mind life on another planet! Here was SURF!! And where there is surf, there is hope.

The video I forwarded to you denies the surf’s existence. And yet, a denial is a form of acknowledgement. To deny something is to recognize it’s possibility. It’s as if to say; “Why ISN’T there surf? -A question just as important.

The search for surf beyond our blue planet has already begun.

And it is colder. It is lonelier. It’s beauty, inconceivable.

And it is waiting to be ridden.

Thank you Steve.

Love,

Stig

Not Talking About a Non-Secret Surf Spot

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under northwest surfing, real surfers, surf adventures, surf photos, surf sessions, surf stories, surfing Swamis, Uncategorized

“You don’t even know,” Stephen said. “You wouldn’t believe how… good… double-overheaddddd…”

The cell phone connection, these being cosmic and pure, only made scratchy and difficult by the devices, modern versions of the tin can and string, wasn’t good*. I was in my work van, cruising south on Surf Route 101. I had made three phone calls to Stephen, left one message, left the other two before I would have had to. “Missed” calls. Steve was, evidently, on a break, just outside of the kitchen at a restaurant at Fort Warden.

I should have pulled over, but it was dark. I just wanted a report. I had heard he and his friend Stig, over in Washington State from the Aloha State, big wave charger, had surfed a legendary spot on the northern coast. **

“Wait,” I said. What?” I asked. “I mean, what did you say?”

“I said you can never go there with me. Look, Erwin; I have to go. My life’s… it was; just take my word for it. I can’t even… Soooo unbelievable.”

“Wait, Steve, Stephen… you mean you surfed there and survived, but… I mean, I’d drown?”

“I just can’t be responsible. I’ll… I’ll send you some photos.”

Okay, it was either a challenge or a statement (I’ll say ‘statement’ rather than ‘put-down’) that I was not up to the task. That may be true. Setting aside my age, I haven’t taken a lot of time to explore the wild coastline, take the logging roads, walk paths along bluffs and cliffs, but I do know there are several (there just have to be) spots where, on some particular swells, under some conditions, waves follow the rugged points, peel into log-jammed beaches.

And, Stephen had sent me some photos from an earlier trip; a shot of a random, unnamed and probably-never-surfed slab, which I posted on this site, and a photo of the spot he and Stig had so recently ridden, taken from a high cliff; spooky, congested inshore on a rocky ledge, and scary-if-enticing lines peeling to a certain closeout section. I didn’t post it, on Stephen’s quite-adamant insistence. He and the surfer with him on that quest, and others they met on site, also declined the opportunity.

Stephen did send photos from this session, when he and Stig got there before the south Devil wind came up, chop blowing into the wash-throughs, the sneaker sets hitting unknown outside reefs. From the beach, from the photos, it looked, to me… possible.

But, you won’t see those photos here.

Oh, the photo above is of somewhere, somewhere else, borrowed from nwframeofmind. *Someone told me the cosmic string theory. I just said, “Uh huh.” **I actually saw super 8 movies of this very spot over thirty years ago. When I said, “It looks like Swamis,” I was booed, corrected, and, most tellingly, not invited to the next private surf movie night.

Probably my second thought on hearing the challenge/realistic assessment from my friend, was that it would make a great short story; old(er) guy takes on surf spot, does or doesn’t get a few great rides, does or doesn’t drown. Really, my biggest fear is getting back up those cliffs after, after what? Meanwhile, Stephen is working on his own surf-centric story that he will, he says, allow me to publish to the pure dark cosmic internet.

If you pull the string really really tight…

Something from Adam ‘Wipeout’ James’ Full Day Olympic Peninsula Sessions

Posted on January 27, 2015 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under northwest surfing, secret surf spots on the Straits of Juan de Fuca, surf adventures, surf sessions, surf stories, surfing in Washington State

I wanted to work on other things last Sunday, but the tides, wind, and the swell size and direction seemed to suggest the waves might be breaking on the Straits of Juan de Fuca. So, waking at 5:30, I was a little reluctant to text Adam, with whom I’d been in some cellular discussion, about hitting it. Not that fond of surfing weekends, it’s not my fault that sometimes that is when the occasional swell decides to show up.

So, we met up, decided, because Adam had no racks on his family/surf mini-van, and therefore couldn’t handle my big ass board, that we would continue on in my pretty-much-thrashed-out former work/surf van, semi-retired with 240,000 plus miles and something with the (automatic) transmission that causes it to (as Adam described it, worrying we wouldn’t make it there, and then, back) ‘act kind of like when you have a fish on the line.’ Yeah, kind of hesitant to charge up hills.

Still, we did make it to a dropping tide and one surfer out, Big Dave, big enough to ride an SUP like a longboard (without the paddle). Dave was a 15 year old gremmie when I, at 20, moved to Pacific Beach, and rescued my board the last time I surfed this spot. Thanks, Dave. By the time I got out, there were four or five surfers in the water, including the always-slightly-more-stoked-than-I-am Adam Wipeout. And that’s not easy for someone over, say, 12.

Once in the water, I commented to Dave, who was so-casually ‘owning’ the waves (Adam’s description), that he was standing up on every wave. Already out over an hour, alone, he said when he got tired he’d do a bit more kneeboarding. After I took off from my knees on my first wave, then, admittedly, shakily, stood up, Dave, paddling out at the time, commented that I “kind of stood up like a crippled-up old man.”

“Yeah. No; hey; let me warm up.” So, I did endeavor to catch more waves from the standing position, did a couple of the ‘fall off the back’ moves, at least one ‘fall forward in a potential face plant’ maneuvers, and decided I’d rather kneeboard or look shaky standing up than miss a good wave.

Somewhere in the session, with the swell dropping and the rights never showing up, I let Adam use my board. He, of course, was stoked. After he caught three inside waves from the standing position, and I was flopping around on his under-waxed 8’6″ Simmons twin fin tribute board, I took my board back.

Though SUPers can rightfully be accused of taking too many set waves, I have decided I also catch a great many inside waves surfers on regular, or even long boards, cannot. And, so many times, I would have been skunked if I didn’t have the board I traded work for as a backup.

So, surfed out, and having given him my opinion that no one under sixty should surf an SUP, I dropped Adam off so he could meet up with his family, go to Hurricane Ridge. The photo is of his son, about to catch air. Or so Adam says. It’s not IN the photo. Adam also seems to say the waves in every surf session he’s involved in, are ‘head high, at least,’ and claimed the waves got bigger once I got out of the water. “Adam, it was, like, 15 minutes, and, really, I didn’t see that many waves ridden, and, besides, really?”

I have been lucky to occasionally get to make the drive with good friends, and to see other surfers I’ve surfed with over the years, or even just met, in the water. Because of this, and the thrill of cranking into a solid wave face, looking down a long line, I remain, perpetually, stoked. In a ‘frothing’ competition, Adam… well, he’s in there.

Real (and annoying OLD GUY) Surfers

Posted on January 16, 2015 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under northwest surfing, real surfers, surf adventures, surf illustrations, surf sessions, surf stories, surfing art, surfing Southern California in the 60s, Uncategorized

I don’t know how the top line got all crooked. I thought I measured it. Well, old guys, don’t even know how to do computer illustrations. Incidentally, I want to make the statement, “I’m here to surf!” I probably can’t copyright it, or trademark it, but it does define my mindset when I hit the water. Always has. Not apologizing.

Still, I never use the ‘old guy’ card to excuse any perceived over-zealousness; just as I never used my youth to excuse my wave-hogging to the limits of my ability and the constraints of ocean and crowd.

And I do have sessions and particular waves that I’ll never forget. Until I’ve forgotten just about everything else. Oh, and there’s no semi-self portrait here. I never surfed Rincon, epic or otherwise; but I did, once, surf small-but-decent Upper Trestles alone. Once. I will have to work on something to do with how surfers tend to think the waves can’t be any good because no one’s out. Or maybe just one guy. I’ll never forget… hey, get your own memories.

“INSIDE BREAK” The Novel- INTRODUCTION

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under surf adventures, surf stories, surfing novels, surfing San Onofre, surfing tales, uncatagorized, writings of Erwin Dence

NOTE: I started realsurfers.net to have some ownership on the two words, real surfers, and to tell the story alluded to in the introduction (below). Maybe I didn’t realize I had so many other stories to tell; maybe I didn’t realize I still have a surfing life. So, I plan on serializing the novel that fictionalizes the real story and wraps other stories around it. It will, unfortunately, be in reverse order, but, after a few chapters, interspersed with other pieces, I’ll consolidate. When it’s all done; I’ll probably change the name to “Real Surfers,” what I always wanted to be. I did a drawing, but I didn’t think it fit the mood, didn’t want to wait until I have the time to do one I actually like, so… here we go… thanks for coming along.

INSIDE BREAK
Love and Wars and Surfing and Some Amount of Magic

INTRODUCTION-
Surfing is part of the soundtrack; whoosh, wait, wait, wait, whoosh. Always has been. Well, maybe not surf itself; but it is the tides and winds, moving in waves, and the waves themselves, maybe even time itself, another wave, spinning ever outward, all providing the heartbeat of the planet. Whoosh…wait…wait…wait…whoosh.

“So, Dad; it has to be fiction?”
“Because… you know our memories are…”
“Corrupted? Flawed? Inaccurate?”
“Hmmm. Ha. Yeah.”
“Maybe your original story could be enough. Jeez; I’ve heard it for years; headed for San Onofre; you and Phillip Harper and Ray Hicks and…”
“Dru; I’ve asked Ray. He doesn’t remember this trip. Others; yes. I think it was always Bill Buel. See? I edited him out; stuck Ray in, because Ray was… because I never liked…I mean, Bill wasn’t my friend; Ray and Phil were.”
“And you were riding with Bucky Davis, your surf hero…”
“For a while. That’s part of it. If I broke down my… shit; it’s really just another surfer coming-of-age story, but, at such an, an almost unique angle. If …and, if I could break down my surf history, to, like, chapters; it’d be illustrated with the times I went surfing with Bucky Davis. Like five or six times over five or six years. Grandview, New Break, Swami’s, the last time… your mother was there… at the beach by the state park… South Carlsbad. and part of this, this bigger story, is how my image of Bucky and…”
“Matured. And there’s the love story; Bucky and Phillip’s sister. Trish.”
“Yeah; and, again, I don’t really know. We never know about other people’s lives… or loves, and I’m such a fucking romantic, I wanted that to…”
“To work out. But that’s all… it’s the hidden story, Dad; the, um, interplay between what you thought, that so many things were magic, magical; and what was real. The, I guess, surface story, is of you guys going from Fallbrook, across Camp… Camp?”
“Camp Pendleton, 1967; the Vietnam War in full swing, and the Marines, really, were all just a couple of years older than Phil and Ray… I’m sticking with Ray, and I; and Bucky was… he was right at draft age. And the war; everyone thought, was going to go on forever.”
“Well, it didn’t. New ones. But, you know, some other stuff happened on that trip.”
“Yeah. Yeah, it did; but, this far removed, this far gone, it seems… stopped by a Highway Patrolman and hassled before we even got to the back gate, running out of gas, pushing the VW up a couple of hills, coasting down, pushing it into the little PX outpost in another tent camp as marines marched by, us all cool surfers and they ready to go to… see? It seems like fiction, even to me; like I’ve seen it before.”
“But you did. And… see, even I know the story. And you did surf at San Onofre.”
“The surfing was almost incidental; I don’t really remember it, specifically. Another session. Just like with Ray, huh?”
“But the story; it ends up at Tamarack. Tamarack, right? After Bucky tore up his Dependent ID card, and couldn’t ever go back on the base; and you’re riding shotgun… for once. Right? And Phillip and… and we’ll say Ray; they’re asleep in the back, and Dylan comes on the radio.
“It was ‘Rainy Day Women #12 and 35.’ Rare on ’67 am radio.”
“Right. And, pretty soon you’re singing along, beating on the dashboard. And pretty soon, maybe because this was the perfect song for the perfect scene; you could see and hear the waves, just about to get glassy…”
“The afternoon glassoff.”
“The soundtrack and the… the soundtrack. And now; I love this part; Bucky, so, to you, ultra cool; Bucky’s beating on the dashboard, also, and you’re both trying to sing along.
‘Everybody must get stoned.’”
“Ev-ry-bo-dy mussssst get stoned!”
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you still see it?”
“Yeah.”
“There is magic in there somewhere.”
“Thanks. But, Dru; you know; now; because I… because real life doesn’t live up, maybe, because I’m going to steal other things I’ve seen, from other people’s lives, move things around; and, and, mostly, maybe, because I haven’t, um, lived up… it’ll be fiction.”
“Dad? Has your life contained enough… magic?”
Woosh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait… woosh.
“Yeah.”

A Slightly LarGER VERsion of the Drawing for ‘Joyce Hoffman’s Bra’

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under surf adventures, surf illustrations, surf sessions, surf stories, surfing art, surfing Southern California in the 60s, surfing tales, uncatagorized

I posted the story before I finished processing the drawing; and then the drawing- I don’t know why- can’t seem to figure this stuff out- came out smaller than I’d like. So, I hit ‘edit.’ Not sure what happened to that version. Anyway, if you’re looking at this, just keep moving down to the next story. And the next, and… Hey, Happy New Year!

December’s Lost Boards- Swami’s ’69, Straits ’14

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under northwest surfing, secret surf spots on the Straits of Juan de Fuca, surf adventures, surf sessions, surf stories, surfing in Washington State, surfing Southern California in the 60s, surfing Swamis, uncatagorized

photo by Steve Kohr, stevekohr.com

12/28/14- FORMERLY SEMI-SECRET SPOT- STRAITS OF JUAN DE FUCA.
It would be half an hour before the winter sun would rise, and even then it would be blocked for hours by the Olympic Mountains, then the nearer tree lines. In fact, at this time of year, on the north shore of the west coast, the sun merely hugs the mountains like an all-day dawn. At 7:30 am, what could be seen was grainy, almost colorless; headlights in the parking area, semi-clear sky, the water was the color of drowning, of death at sea.
And I was in it trying to swim, side-stroke, one hand on my paddle; and I hadn’t even caught a wave yet.
Yeah, it’s over-dramatic; but I was the one caught in it, swimming because I had tried to cut across the usually waveless channel, the deep spot between two reefs; so confident; thinking I could snag an inside left on my way out to a lineup in which the first members of the dawn patrollers were trying to find the perfect place to take off in a crazy sea.
Sure, I’d seen, even in the dim light, the sets breaking on the outlside indicators, the roll-throughs, the waves that closed out the channel and the ones that could provide those storied rides that start on the outside reef and end up past the parking area, past the fence.
“I ended up way past the fence, man.” “Whoa.” Meaningful.
But this is my favorite spot on the Straits of Juan de Fuca; I’ve surfed here (first time, 1979, next time 2005, if this means anything) in every condition, from low tide rights you couldn’t catch with a regular board, fin clicking across rocks; to those just-mentioned left peelers; to bouncy just-after-a-storm surf, waves blown by winds from sideshore squalls, rain or sleet, cold offshores from fresh mountain snow; fun, user-friendly conditions- but I’ve also surfed days with these outside roll-throughs, almost out of control, where the hard part was not panicking, holding my position, waiting for the reef to catch the bottom of the swell, to shape it properly.
Big Dave had been on the wave, dealing with an inside close out, almost directly in front of me; the wave that ripped the leash that, evidently, hadn’t had enough Velcro ‘bite.’ It wasn’t a big pull; my board was just gone.
Oh, I could see it, tantalizingly close, just out of reach; then, another wave, and it popped up again, farther away.
I was only yards from the beach, but I knew the waves wouldn’t help push me to shore. The tide was too high, washing up on the river-rock bank; pushing up and rolling rocks and foam uphill. Then there were clackity-thunk sounds as the energy tumbled back down, crashing into the next surge. I knew there would be no bottom to put my feet on to take a last leap forward.
still, not panicking.

actual shot from ’69

DECEMBER OF 1969- SWAMI’S-
It was the second day of the famous swell. I had survived the first, seriously undergunned with my regular short board (probably around 6’6”) in well-overhead waves with an unusually strong Santa Ana offshore. Yes, I was one of those guys hanging on the shoulder. In my memory bank’s version (probably in a Super 8 format- still), I was out very early and the tide was at that height where there is no inside and outside; merely a long wall that required a crazy-late takeoff, offered a crazy-long barrel past the shoulder-hoppers, and rewarded the best surfers with the best rides Swami’s could possibly offer.
I know I didn’t do a ‘paddle (in) of shame,’ but I couldn’t say I caught anything but a few insiders.
But, on the second day, the waves only a bit smaller, on a different, longer (still round-nosed- hate a pointy nose) board, the weather was stormier, the tide lower, the waves more broken up, and I was attacking the inside lineup, lined up on the palm tree on the cliff, that below the solid line of onlookers at the edge of the parking lot; scratching into waves that ‘went wide’ and peaked on the inside lineup or had closed out on the guy riding from the outside peak.
Still, I was looking for the smaller waves. I caught a few, but it was rough. I did keep getting caught inside, part of the crowd the riders had to navigate. The thrashing-to-riding ratio wasn’t really going my way, and too many waves I wanted went to others. “One more wave” I told myself.
And I caught it. If you know Swami’s, particularly the inside section, you know there’s a drop and a wall, then an area to cut back, cruise back and forth, and then, over the grassy finger slabs inside, often there’s another little section. Maybe I was too far outside. I made the drop and was totally in position for the wall. Too far back.
It wasn’t like the worst wipeout/holddown of my career, another wave at Swamis where I fell from the top (of note: On a turn, not dropping-in), to the trough, had the wind knocked out of me, came up seriously out of breath, sucked in part of twelve inches of foam. This was more a whacking, a full-body punch, the energy as much out as down.
I wasn’t panicking. I was swimming. “Fine,” I thought,” I’m done for the day.”
STRAITS- After a couple of shorepound knockdowns I found footing, slogged up the steep beach, my paddle in my hand; breathing in deeply, coughing out. The water, probably 45 degrees or so at the nearest buoy, is so much colder when you’re between two streams coming off fresh mountain snow; and seems even colder when you’re swimming.
My board was not on shore, however. It had drifted down past the fence and was headed out. I hurried down the beach until I was even with it. In that time it had moved farther out, headed toward the other reef. Tim Nolan, who, for once, I had beaten to the beach, was ready to paddle out. I was too far away to yell at him to help me and a bit too shaken up to swim, my board now a hundred yards out. I threw the paddle up onto the higher beach and thought, “Maybe it’s just not my day.”
FATE AND KARMA- Each of these seems to be about things in life kind of evening-out. My own philosophy is somewhere in there.
Maybe it was because I had thought it amusing when I saw someone in a car with a longboard getting a ticket over by Discovery Bay when I was on my way home from working in Port Townsend that, earlier this very morning, I had gotten a speeding ticket near Port Angeles. Maybe it was fitting that several of the folks in the rigs in the parking area had passed by us (Stephen Davis, Keith Darrock also in my car) in front of the car with the flashing lights, maybe it was only right other surfers should mention it, chuckling as they did.
Maybe there’s some wicked form of Fate/Karma in that, cruising up Surf Route 101, we chanced to be behind someone either sleepy or drunk, weaving across the center line, then across the fog line; and Steve called 911, and we gave them the license number; and I had Steve tell them the car would be behind a white car with several boards on top; and, when the officer returned with our tickets (Keith got one for no seatbelt- also, really my fault), the drunk-or-sleepy guy drove right past.
“I hope he gets home all right,” the State Patrolman said.
That karma’s on him. Maybe. Oh, and maybe it’s this: The last time I was out in similar conditions in the Straits, the first (and only) guy out that morning tried desperately to catch an inside wave, caught the third he tried for, came in, ran up the beach, and, wide-eyed, asked, “Is it always like this?” “It’s never like this.” Another surfer and I, both on longboards, started paddling out, he a bit closer to the reef. A wave closed out immediately in front of us. I turned turtle. When I came up, he had lost his board. I kept paddling.
At least he was close to the reef.

another retro shot; I’d be further to the left.
RESOLUTION-
IN 1969, not finding my board on the rocks or beach, members of collective crowd on the bluff were pointing and yelling, “It’s in the rip!” It was. I looked up, looked out, swam almost to the inside lineup, climbed on my board, caught one more wave. A good one according to my Super 8 file; and went in, did better the next day.
THE OTHER DAY I almost thought I’d lost my board forever, thought I’d be watching Keith and Stephen deal with the Dawn Patrol Syndrome, watching the waves get more and more crowded. But, Big Dave left the lineup, paddled over, grabbed a hold of my board, started paddling it in. Push, paddle, push. When he got close to the inside waves, I swam out. I still had a bit of trouble getting it and me in. When I did, I dragged it (by the leash) up the beach, took a break, reclaimed some (not quite all) of my usual confidence. Four hours after Keith was the first one in the water, the day now sunny, the tide more normal, the waves more in control, way too many people in the water, we all agreed it had been, ON BALANCE, a great session. Each of us had a few good ones, a few ‘past the fence.’
Maybe not for everyone (there were some words exchanged among others, at volume, in the water), but for each of us.
THANKS, Big Dave; I owe you (another) one.

A Christmas Retelling of “Joyce Hoffman’s Bra”

Posted on December 25, 2014 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under surf adventures, surf sessions, surf stories, surfing art, surfing Southern California in the 60s, surfing tales

This piece was originally written in March of 2013. I did reach out to Joyce Hoffman, via her website; but did not receive a response. Okay. It’s fine. It has, however, given me some sense of (maybe) accomplishment, that, if you google “Joyce Hoffman,” somewhere on the first page, is my little story. I have a couple of other ideas for Christmas stories as I sit here on the very morning, thinking about how the present surfers were given yesterday are probably still working today; but I have places to go and… maybe this isn’t atypical: If I hadn’t stayed up so late last night I’d be out right now. Well, I did open my present early… a few long lines… anyway… hope your season has a few that stay open long enough to tuck in or glide through, Oh, the stuff in [brackets] is kind of like the commentary. The stuff in the (these things) was already here.

JOYCE HOFFMAN’S BRA

My boss, Buddy Rollins [real name Lacy, which partially explains why he went to prison in Florida, where he learned sign lettering], of Buddy’s Sign Service, sold Christmas trees for several years at an otherwise empty lot next to Master’s Automotive, right on Oceanside Boulevard (U.S. Highway 101) in Oceanside, California.

Master’s Automotive, or, as we, in my family, referred to it, Mac’s Garage. Mac’s was where my father worked all day on Sundays, and Tuesday and Thursday evenings after his regular job on Camp Pendleton. It’s not like my dad and I hung out during the two seasons I untied bundles of trees, cut a little off the bottom, set them up on wooden supports, sold trees, and tied trees onto cars. We were busy.

I enjoyed the selling of the trees the most. I had received some experience helping out at the lot set up by my Boy Scout Troop (724, Fallbrook, California). At that time, I thought the whole place was like a clean, moveable, and fake almost-Disney Christmas woods, conveniently set up on blacktop. I could easily imagine background music from the March of the Tin Soldiers. I could fully visualize the cute girls who occasionally came in frolicking with me in the big military-issue (originally) tent; the little post-Mouseketeer, pre-Beach Party Annette Funicellos all giggly and…

Hey, I was, like, eleven to, maybe 13. So, not much actual frolicking. Mind frolicking.

But now, on Buddy’s lot, I was eighteen [the first year], then nineteen. I had a girlfriend, Trish, a real surfer girl- blond hair, not afraid of waves, not irritated by the sand as Annette had been rumored to have been.

And, in 1970, my second season on Buddy’s lot, Trish [who had her own job] worked a few shifts with me. That is, she sold lots [lots] of trees, and kept me busy loading and tying-on, while not merely holding several for her customers to decide between. “What do you think?” they’d ask. They’d ask her.

“Um, Erwin; could you load this please?” Sure.

So it was that I didn’t sell but did get to carry a tree to Joyce Hoffman’s VW bus, two surfboards on top. This was JOYCE HOFFMAN, the famous surfer, world champion, everything champion, the first woman to surf [I read this- didn’t see footage] the Banzai Pipeline, the only surfer to be named “Person of the Year” by the Los Angeles Times, the first woman to (later) be be inducted into the Surfer’s Hall of Fame.[‘On her way home from surfing Trestles, Rincon, some other mythological spot, she had stopped in here!’ You should read the previous line like the voice-over from “A Christmas Story”]

Blonde, fit, Joyce Hoffman had competed in a male-dominated sport and conquered. “Hey,” I wanted to say, “I surf. I have a VW bus. I, I surf, too.” I didn’t. I did say something like, “Joyce Hoffman,” to which she responded with something like a polite, casual, “Uh huh.”

It seemed just knowing who she was would have been enough to prove I was a surfer. A real surfer, dammit.

Then she opened the side door. There, on the bed, was a bra. Nothing else. [nothing else I instantly focused on] “Um.” I turned around quickly, politely, adjusting the tree a bit. When I turned back, the bra was gone. Joyce looked only slightly less casual, arms kind of crossed.

taken from Matt Warshaw’s Encyclopedia of Surfing

NEAR MISS. In 1976, living in Encinitas, I was painting most weekends for Two-Coat Charlie Barnett. I had actually gone back to work for the Navy Public Works in San Diego. Charlie wanted me to call in sick a couple of days to help out him and his brother, Olie, on a job in Leucadia, near Moonlight Beach. An added incentive was that the job was for a famous woman surfer, Joyce, and her husband.

I really couldn’t, and I didn’t. It turned out that the job involved bleaching and stripping real wood paneling, and somewhere in the process, Olie, who regularly sprayed lacquer without a respirator, got ill enough to have to be rushed to the hospital, and then stayed there a couple of days. No smoking, either.

Well. Missed opportunities. Had I worked the job at Joyce’s house, I could have said, waiting for the ambulance, probably in an only slightly chemically-altered state, “Hey, I once loaded a Christmas tree in your VW bus, and…” chuckle, chuckle, end of this imagined scenario.

Other than Joyce Hoffman might have said, giving me one more, slightly skeptical check-out, “Uh huh.” If she’d kind of crossed her arms, I’d have known she remembered.

[Merry Whatever-you-celebrate-during-this-season to all the real surfers; to all the former surfers who remember there was, on rare occasions, something magical about surfing; to all the kooks and posers and after-work-and-weekenders; to all the girls who couldn’t just sit on the beach and watch; to all the young frothers, and to all those who merely simmer. If I can’t be surfing, I do feel thankful that I sometimes have a few moments to write about it (Not that I wouldn’t rather be pulling up high and tight on a runner)]

Surfing Cornwall Walls with Nick Evans

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Erwin A. Dence Jr. under surf adventures, surf sessions, surf stories, surfing Cornwall, surfing tales

This is a photo of Nick Evans at some secret spot on the west coast of Cornwall. Well, maybe it’s a secret; but the photo Nick’s cousin, Frances, sent me (at my request, several of them) labeled it as Nick at Hamblyn Bay. Wait; I may have misspelled that name; the photo may have been mislabeled; and, anyway, I don’t live in England, and, even if I did, I’d probably miss these conditions.

Now, if I captioned the photo, it’d have to be “Nick Evans bottom turns into a Cornwall wall.”

Oh, I just checked, while adding the additional photos, and it may actually be Harlyn Bay. Hey, I have a bit of trouble pronouncing old world English. When another surfer from there, a few years ago, whipped out a map after I’d told him I get most of my surf forecasting from Magic Seaweed, which, evidently, comes from somewhere where they actually are in the same time zone as Greenwich (Green’-witch, right? No) Mean Time; I pointed to ‘Bude,’ mentioned occasionally on one of our favorite (favourite maybe, to ya’ll) PBS imports, “Doc Martin;” said, “Yeah, Bude;” and he corrected my mistake of thinking it would possibly be a one syllable word. “It’s pronounced ‘Be-ude.’ ”

Also, I should say the other photos may not be Uncle Nick, but photos taken by him. Just to clarify, though, the surfers do seem to be in position on waves I’d love to share*.

I actually almost met Nick, his obvious coolness revealed by his not donning the hood along with the gloves and booties, when he visited his niece and her husband, Morgan, at their second home high above the bay at Pulali Point in Brinnon, Washington, one of the fingers of the Hood Canal. I was there for a meeting in connection with bleaching and refinishing the place, just for informational purposes. Nick was asleep, resting after a trip up to British Columbia to surf the Canadian (still closer to England than we are) waves at Tofino. I’d pronounce it ‘Tow-Fee-No,’ correct at will.

It may be just too too obvious that I’d be very happy to have a few more eyes on realsurfers.net from the British Isles (is it okay to call them that? It’s not like they all get along). My mother’s family came to America from Wales. My family name, Dence, dates back to middle English, first used on the Northeast side of the island, and evidently means ‘The Dane,’ and, I like to say to pretty much anyone who would still be listening, “And not in a nice way.”

Vikings, just another group wanting to conquer and rule. Or maybe they just wanted to share; as in, cruise around “Doc Martin” territory, share a few waves with Nick and his surf buddies, head down to the local pub, throw back a pint or three. “Throw back,” would that make me sound, you know, local? What if I wore a tweed coat? Forget it, I don’t even fit in here.

Disclaimer: If it suddenly gets crowded with Yanks (Yankers?) at your favourite surf spot, please don’t blame Nick Evans. Blame his Americanized niece, Frances. “Frances?” “Yes, like the country.” “Okay. Frances.”

*share- (Erwin’s definition)- to catch all the waves I can, often calling for the second or third wave in a set so others can get the first ones. As far as sharing a wave- okay if you’re WAY out in front.

Real Surfers

Shoulder-hoppers and name-droppers

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