So, this is a photo, borrowed from the Port Townsend Leader (thanks), of Arrow Lumber’s main guy in our area, Cadian. Maybe I read or heard his last name once, but…(okay, research; it’s Hendricks).
What’s pertinent is that, every time I’ve gone in there, if he’s around the counter, there’s surf talk. And I’ve been going there, first for pellets for my stove, then, when that went into broke-mode, for building supplies.
I should mention that Arrow Lumber has the lead on the coolness meter for such places, totally thrashing The Depot, largely because the people working there (and originally there was only Cadian, PT local) seem to give a shit.
And they give back, evidenced by the photo.
Not that the company’s generosity is really pertinent. What is is that Cadian has surfed the legendary and mysterious surf spot, Green Point… and I haven’t.
But I will.
So, on my most recent trip, I’m bent on purchasing some 2 by 4s so I can get a roof on the greenhouse/studio I’m building before the rains return. And they will. I’m taking advantage of having a bunch of windows I got from a job where they replaced all of them because two had lost their seal. But, mid-decision on my part on the number of boards needed, Cadian and this other guy (okay- same research lumber yard trip- it’s Jerrod) started telling me I should be surfing on such a fine hot day.
“But there’s no surf,” I said, “even on the coast.”
“There’s surf in Maui,” this other guy, Jerrod, always up on the latest blue collar gossip, said, “and Kauai. Last time I was there…”
“And on the north shore,” Cadian added. “I’ve been there, and the waves are sooo…”
Then, possibly because I mentioned the US Open was completed the day before in ankle snappers at Huntington Pier, we had to discuss wave size. I held my hand even with my chin. “Four foot, Californian.” (that would really be, like, five feet- I’ve measured)
“I saw these waves at Sunset Beach,” Cadian continued, “and I said, ‘got to be eight feet.’ This Hawaiian guy said, ‘No, Bra, four feet… Hawaiian.’ So… um, Erwin, what did you want again?”
“Eight 2 by 4s, 12.”
After another customer approached the counter, Cadian added that maybe I wanted nine, and I had to say, “No, eight twelve footers. (pause) That’s eight foot Hawaiian.”

 UPDATE- August 24- It’s Cadian Hendricks. The other guy is named Jerrod. The guy I got on the phone when I posted the piece, who said he’d pass on the information, kind of like free advertising for Arrow Lumber, never did; and I called him out on it yesterday, in to buy some plywood. “We don’t have time for surfing the internet,” the guy whose name I didn’t catch, though he’s been friendly and helpful in the past, said, “but I do remember you called.” So, I left a note, another employee put it on the bosses’ (Cadian’s) desk, and, well, I guess everything’s fine. We’ll see. Meanwhile, as always, looking for a swell, scheming, dreaming of side-slipping through a few green ones.

The Contrast, Yin and Yang, Karma, and Lost Keys
“Maybe that was easier for you.” This was the comment, just sort of hanging in the air, from Carol Toyne, the retired art teacher living next to the Port Townsend house I was painting. She had a smirky/almost-condescending/quite-satisfied expression when she realized, both of us now smiling and nodding, that she had said something (else) that I had taken as clever and wise.
And I had.
Her assessment was one of many responses during a rambling conversation, as I, for forty bucks, cash (using her paint), brushed-out the siding on the purple-ish wall that formed one side of my client’s yard, though not the puke green eves. Carol, who is about my age (her daughter and my older son attended pre-pre-school together) was cleaning her VW camper van, getting ready for a week long retreat in the woods, an event that would, no doubt, include drum circles and sophisticated conversations… well, it was interesting she wasn’t taking her Prius.
“I took art,” I had said, in between telling of my latest surf trip and how I’d ripped, shredded, wailed, or, backing off a bit to not seem to be bragging quite so obviously, how I had been quite pleased with my surfing, the near-euphoria then tempered (not quite ruined) by Archie feeling sick (no doubt connected to his business trip to L.A. with side/surf sessions at Malaga Point and Malibu, AND some surfing the evening before)   and sitting out the last hour of the session, sleeping in his newly-customized surf rig; and further tempered when, back at Archie’s house, I realized I’d lost my own car key back at the left and right-breaking (we’d sampled both as the tide changed) spot out on the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Yeah, the rights were working, fast and tubing, when we got there at 7am.
The key, and the surfboard-shaped combination key ring/bottle cap remover that Trish bought for me when she went to Kauai, probably fell from my pants as I got dressed just beyond the fence that marks the end of the parking area. Yes, it’s the fence that, reaching it on a left or a right, while surfing, marks a particularly long ride; as in, “I made it past the fence!”
“Oh,” a surfer might say, knowingly.
“Oh,” Carol had said, then explaining, in art terms, yin and yang, an expression I’d tried to use, then admitted I didn’t really understand it.
“Something about balance,” I had said.
“Well,” she said, in sort of the same way French people respond when you attempt any word in their language. She then made circles with the fingers and thumbs of both her hands. “You have a black dot and a white dot. You can’t see one without the other.”
“Oh, so it’s, maybe,  more about, um, contrast?” “Sure.”
“It’s all a bit abstract to me,” I then said, returning to my story of how I took all the art classes I could at Palomar Junior (I always add the ‘junior’) College back in 1969, and, when we were tasked to draw a still life, one of the students, rather than try to enhance his skills at rendering, did some sort of abstraction, and, when I asked him why, he said, “because it’s easier.”
“Uh huh,” Carol said, carefully arranging a couple of Native American-inspired blankets.
“Yeah, and when I ran into him, later, at the beach (Stone Steps, for those keeping score), I found out he- he wasn’t that good (as in I was notably better) but he made it to class, like, every day- and, anyway, while I got a ‘C,’ he got a ‘B.’ I was so busy, working, surfing; I had a girlfriend and…”
“Well,” she said, adding a slight pause, “maybe that was easier for you.”
Fill in the longer pause here. Her money in my wallet, I went back to finish my real job.
But, thanks, Carol; now I’m rethinking my entire life in terms of when I’ve chosen paths, jobs, relationships, whatever, because that route is easier. None of it’s been easy, really.  And I’m thinking of Karma. And I’m thinking of Love, and Philosophy (Surf Route 101), and Art, and what we deserve, or don’t, and now I’m thinking about… contrast; how we see what we see. Meanwhile, I have to go to work; another job, another story. Most of the job talk will be about the mundane, paint color and rain, and, every once in a while, I might contemplate the big old abstract picture of Life, how we’re dropping and rising, slipping and turning and, maybe, once in a while, sliding a hand across the image to see what’s real.
Oh, and if we write our own lives through our choices, as Carol had suggested, and if our wishes and dreams and our will can, in any way, influence anything in the Universe, the next time I’m up at my favorite spot, when the swell direction and size, and the tide and the wind all align, maybe the stars (not too hip on influence from the stars) perhaps I’ll find a Toyota key on a surfboard key ring hanging on the fence that marks a really long ride.  “Oh,” I’ll, no doubt, say.

This is the black and white drawing for the story on waves not taken. I’m not sure how I got it to this point- almost posted, hopefully; all very technical; and now I’m thinking about other drawings, like this one, only with some (not too much) color added. If I get it figured out, well; I’m thinking WordPress will do something new to confuse me.

 If we’re talking about waves not taken, I should mention that I don’t have to be on location for my next project until one pm, and, if I’d gotten up earlier, checked the buoys, seen there was a possibility for something at my favorite Straits spot… well, I’d be there now.  I have to apologize for not having the realsurfer spirit. Oh, but I do. Gotta go.