My daughter, Dru, in Chicago, hepped me, last night, to my friend Adam Wipeout appearing in a national video put out by “Rolling Stone.” Whoa!

I just spent some time this morning checking out the Harley-Davidson-sponsored video, with Clint Carter trying some oysters in Seattle, then motorcycling to the wilds of the Olympic Peninsula to check out where they came from.

Hence, Adam, looking a little more grizzly than the last time I saw him.  There were others in the video, including his sister, Lissa, and… forgot his name, the plant manager; but Adam’s the guy out in the middle of the night on the tide flats. And, yeah; with him complaining about his knees slowing down his surfing lately, I did take not of a sort of painful-looking crouch-down-stand-up on his part.

Anyway, Dru; when I should have been halfway to a job, called. She tried to explain how to put a link to the video on my Facebook page, though I really wanted to put it on realsurfers. Either she ran out of patience or actually didn’t have the time; and I’m actually, as almost always, really supposed to be somewhere else, painting; but the net result is… no, it’s not here.

BUT it is out there.

Maybe you should look up “Rolling Stone,” “Harley Davidson videos,” or hama hama oysters on Facebook, or friend up with Adam James. Pick the right Adam James; there seem to be others. The correct Adam is the one with the big brown Grizzly Adams beard who lives on Surf Route 101.  It’s not like he doesn’t have enough friends, but… he and the whole Hama Hama Oyster Company need to go viral.  Viral-er.

AND, just to explain, the photo  is one Adam sent me of his midnight, low tide expedition to find a fin he’d lost at high tide.

I’d like do (almost said create) drawings that look simple. Simple is hard.

It is odd that I finish two drawings in two days. I thought I should put this one out there before I decide to do more to it. I can’t make it simpler. Please read/check out yesterday’s blog/rant, and thanks, as always, for checking out realsurfers.

…after, and it’s a tradition I’ve managed to keep, working. On this day celebrating, supposedly, labor and laborers, but, really, the end of summer, I was sweating, trying to finish up the painting of trim and cabinets in the last of five quite low-brow, if not low-rent apartments in Bremerton.

Along with the heat (I would have given the apartments a higher rating if there was any sign of air conditioning- one didn’t actually have power- extension cords provided me with a fan, radio, and a light), there was smoke from various fires.

Because I’ve been working in a city, Trish and I have been enjoying the benefits of the variety of fast food restaurants not available on the Olympic Peninsula, at least not in our neighborhood. On this day it was Popeye’s. Trish loves the jambalaya (hmmm- spell checked, I’d have spelled it jUmbalaya).

Wearing my go-to and go-home shirt rather than my sweated-through shirt, I made note, when I called Trish to confirm Popeye’s and I actually got her order right, that the sun, low over our Olympics, was red; and, unlike the recent solar eclipse, one could pretty much look right at it.

Now, whether there are waves on the coast or not, I know there are none on the Strait; but, still, I make note when I pass vehicles with surfboards on top. As the grimy darkness deepened, the three-day weekend crowd headed back to civilization, the increasing brightness seemed, straight on then out the side, flying by, seemed to suggest something on top of every vehicle.

It has been said that angels don’t actually have wings. It’s the glow, the halo effect that makes it seem as if they do.

I don’t know. I know we look for angels.

Here are some images. I’ll put them together later, something more, hopefully, meaningful. Right now I should be headed back to Bremerton, hoping I don’t get hung up by a bridge opening. Today is forecast to be hotter than yesterday. I have to finish up this job. Carpet layers are waiting. Apartments need to be rented.

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On the last segment of my drive, I could see the rising moon, almost full, and equally as red as the sun had been.  I’ll check the buoys one last time before I go, looking for…

…not God God, little g god. I’ve spoken to him before, and really should give some context here. I met Nick several years ago, the day Raja took my loose SUP paddle and stuck it into some pilings as a rarely-breaking spot named Twin Rivers. Nick, when I asked what he, new to the sport, liked about surfing, he said, “When I’m on a wave, I feel like God.”

“Oh.” A few waves later, I asked if he meant he felt like “a god.” “Well,” he said, “that would be give it an entirely different meaning.” “Oh, yeah; guess so.”

Nick loaned/gave me a paddle when, after quite an embarrassing and fruitless attempt to retrieve mine. I’d say I still have it, but, after a couple of weeks, after Stephen climbed on the pilings and retrieved mine, I loaned it to Adam Wipeout. He ran into Nick/god (and it seems, to me, a bit ironic that ‘old Nick’ is a nickname for the Devil, possibly given to him, as the first nickname, by, I don’t know, God) at another spot that almost never breaks, both of them walking back from around a point and against the wind. When Adam mentioned the trees hanging, precariously, on the cliffs above them, and what would happen if they suddenly fell, Nick said, “Well, I’d die a happy man.”

That’s Nick in the middle, no waves in the background

EVIDENTLY Nick had been pretty pleased with the rides that had taken him around the point.

NOW, I have run into Nick on several other occasions when I showed up at a spot that, really, so rarely breaks, and there were some of the other surfers already there, and Nick would say something about how Tim or Big Dave or Tugboat Bill or some other member of the non-club of surfers suggested, since the waves were or were almost rideable, that I might show up, and, maybe, I’d behave.

MAYBE.

EVIDENTLY the word on the beach, partially explaining my inability to follow the new rules of surf etiquette, is that I have POOR IMPULSE CONTROL.  Nick explained what one should do when waiting in a ‘que,’ and there are three surfers closer to the peak, and there’s a three wave set. “Oh, so I’d be first in line for the next set?” “Yes.” “Oh. Yeah; but I completely miss that set?” “Yes. You get it.” “No, guess I don’t.”

“Someone said you lack impulse control.” “You do?” “No, Erwin; you do.” “Oh.” I guess, when I see a set approaching, even though I frequently call out which wave I want, as in “Number three,” and I did not wait at the corner of the pack at the peak until everyone sitting closer had a go at a wave… wait; for all I know, if there are more that three surfers in the lineup, it might not be within the developing rules to call out a wave. It seems reasonable to me; preferable to paddling, yelling “mine, mine.”

YEAH, I might go for number two. Poor impulse control.  I had to text the defining phrase to Keith Darrock because I kept forgetting it. “That sounds about right,” Keith said. “Oh, totally,” Trish said. “What does that EVEN MEAN?” Stephen Davis asked.

I don’t really know, but, since I was the only one out on the day I heard this, it wasn’t really an issue. I waited for number three a couple of times, probably looking over the back to see if there was a number four.

MEANWHILE, I’ll try to get the paddle back from Adam. Don’t really want to owe too many favors to god. Or Nick.