Tag Archives: God

realsurfers magazine- Sunday, August 10

Posted on by under Erwin Dence illustrations, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, northwest surfing, old surfers, real surfers, surf adventures, surf contests, surf culture, surf fiction, surf novels, surf trips, surfing, surfing art, surfing blogs, surfing novels, writings of Erwin Dence

Chris Eardley and Keith Darrock (and Rico and Cougar Keith) hit the Westend, searching for new waves to conquer. If they didn’t find gold. Not that I was seriously invited, but I was told the wooden path does not go all the way to the beach PLUS four days food and a big ass board. Plus… a few more minuses. What they caught and where? Stories vary.

To complete the story of the church steeple painting, I convinced Reggie Smart to finish the middle of the side of the church I couldn’t reach with the 65 foot boom. This required putting a ladder on the roof, attaching a ledger partway up to secure another ladder. You can see the setup in the lower photo. This little peak would have required some psycho setting up from the roof. It took fifteen minutes of positioning of the manlift and most of the boom to get to the spot, fifteen minutes to put a coat on the surfaces.

It was not required that we paint the cross on the top of the steeple, though the congregation clearly wanted it to happen. The difference between going above the steeple’s roof and painting below it is about twelve feet up into the wild blue yonder. I thought having Reggie with me in the basket might boost my confidence. It did not. “I’m going to throw up,” I said. “Yeah, well,” Reggie said, suggesting he might just soil himself (note my resistance at using the actual quote). Still; I do feel some shame around ‘hairing-out.’ Almost a week out, less shame. I did get the window on the fun car, damaged when I backed into the manlift turret, replaced, and I did repair the damage caused when I hit a spot on the steeple… twice. If I had the feeling, in the lift, that I’d used up my chances on this project; well, I will have to live with that.

This is a display, evidently, at the Jefferson County Fair, taken by Librarian Keith (a proposed nickname, “STACKS,” as in library shelving, has never caught on). MEANWHILE, Adam Wipeout, prominently featured, was doing double duty; attending a wedding of one or two co-workers, somewhere, and participating in the WARM CURRENTS activities at La Push. Here’s the story:

The takeway, first: Most often we listen to our own advice. SO, Adam called me this morning at 7:06. He was on his way BACK to LaPush and wondered if I wanted to catch a ride. He was probably ten minutes down Surf Route 101 and I had just gotten up. “What? No.” I asked him what he had done with his scheduling conflict from Saturday. “Dude, I did both. Didn’t you see the photo from La Push?” “The one with a one foot wave ten feet off the beach?” “No, no; it was crazy. La Push has this sandbar, and on a rising tide…” “Yeah, yeah; I’m working today so, maybe, if a swell shows up…” NOTE: the …s probably mean info I shouldn’t put out.

Two drawings I started while waiting for the Volvo’s back window to be replaced.

WSL STUFF- I did, of course, watch a lot of the surfing contest from Tahiti. More like the morning stuff, with scary scary waves the first day. I watched most of the heats on Friday, and, bucking a popular trend, didn’t really have issues with the judging. It does become obvious that the difference between winning and not is often whether a competitor’s drive overcomes his or her fear. Though there are a lot of heats to get through on the men’s side, the finalists on the women’s side, Caitlin Simmers and Molly Picklum fit that description. One thing that might improve (might) is having a non-final final with two or four of the non-finalists. I would choose Erin Brooks and Vahine Fierro. Your choice? Up to you. We’ll see.

NOT that I’m in any way political:

COMPLICITOUS

We lack empathy because we’ve never experienced real horror, We lack sympathy because we refuse to believe the horror to be as bad as we know it to be, We lack compassion because we don’t want that real horror to find us.

We look away, Complicit.

If you pass a starving child and do nothing to help, you should feel the shame, If you purposefully starve a child, Bomb a child, Snipe a child, You are the horror.

We look away, Complicit.

FROM the Old Testament, Volume II, Third Book of Netanyahu; Chapter Two, Verse three: “We basically could have eliminated the entire population of Gaza.”

Whatever God is or isn’t, God set the rules, the boundaries, the limits, God plays the long game.

We haven’t the time, We posture and push and out position, Swagger and strut past the meek and indecisive, We invest in our desires, gamble on our instincts, Hard focused on our dreams, Fame and glory and wealth and power, Power on power and power for power, Hate for hate.

God plays the long game.

Success begets success, Power attracts power.

Buffed and polished, chrome and gold and mirrors, Our lust, once everything, Breaks, Our overstuffed pockets spill out, Deeds and bonds and diamonds, Our treasures are stashed offshore, vaults, buried Pirate chests, Molding, oxidized, crumpled and corrupted, Not to be touched.

God plays the long game.

Our heavens, our yachts and cars and mansions and land, List and leak and sink, Monuments to what others will never have, Museums dedicated to someone we never will be, And never were.

God plays the long game.

Our souls, we believe, Might be retrieved, Whole. Pure. Redeemed. This is not true. We know this is not true.

We cannot love ourselves, And others will not Truly Love us.

We are unworthy of real love, Slanderers and abusers and deniers, Cheats and frauds and Liars, Painted, plastic coated, polished, And yet, Senses dulled, synapses crackling, our minds questioning Every decision, Aware we are rotting, shrinking, slowing, failing, skin sliding on the bone, Unable to recognize ourselves in smoke clouded mirrors or gold framed portraits. We fear all others.

We have to, They want what we have.

Whatever God is or God isn’t, we are not gods.

We cannot play the long game.

We haven’t the time.

AS ALWAYS, thanks for checking out realsurfers.net

WHY DON’T YOU WRITE ME? erwin@realsurfers.net

Here’s what I’m claiming rights to today: The illustrations and the poems. Copyright 2025. All rights reserved by Erwin A. Dence, Jr.

MEANWHILE, I have some surf plans. I’m thinking, maybe, if… Maybe I’ll see you out and around or driving past me. Good luck!

Who Told You I Was Naked?

Posted on by under Uncategorized

                        Who Told You I Was Naked?

 “And God said, “Who told you that you were naked?’” Genesis, Chapter 3, verse 11

 We’re all pretty sure God’s voice sounds like, and this is a little dependent on our age relative to Creation, John Huston (“Adam, where are you?”- acting as if he didn’t know), or James Earl Jones (“Luke, I am your fa-thuh.”), or maybe like an amplified voice of a deep-voiced policeman.

 I kind of believe God’s voice, this being pre-English, and, really, pre-language, probably sounded more like the language of dolphins, or whales. It’s not like I’ve heard God, but I have heard the recorded voices of John Huston, James Earl Jones, and an amplified deep-voiced policeman or two. “Do not get out of the vehicle.”

 That is not really relevant to this story. Really.

 And so it was, on a sunny-but-cold day, in an otherwise deserted parking area many yards from where I had been surfing, I was sort of half-leaning on the driver’s side of my mini-van, the vehicle pulled forward and tight against the shrubbery-covered rise.

 I was at that most vulnerable part of the wetsuit-stripping process, getting the legs over and off the feet, the rest of the suit inside-out on the pavement. Because I was alone I was not wrapped in the iffy-at-best towel. It has been my experience that towels, held by body pressure against a fragile tuck, are prone to falling, fully, to the ground, at pretty much this exact moment, and, because underwear is (are?) just one more thing to try to get dry in the northwest cold/damp, I was naked.

 Spiritually, technically, legally; my condition of undress was the very definition of ‘naked’ at the exact moment that the yellow school bus appeared. It had taken the two mile trip from the main road, obviously on a mission, had come down the last hill, and was just rounding the last curve onto the entrance/exit end of the flat, barely-wider-than-one-lane-dead-end-road/parking area.

 I did say I was on the farther side of the van, right? Still, I was scrambling- pull, step, pull, my clothes on the driver’s seat. By this time the bus, still 75 yards away, was parking, parallel to the bank, and was unloading. “Towel, towel, where’s my towel?”

 Now, I do believe I had a wool cap on.

 What to do? Do I jump inside, most of my black non-superhero surf suit caught in the door, pulling my clothes over me, wait until the group passes?

 No, in desperation I moved faster; bent down, yanked the now-knotted legs, one at a time, off. Now, it would be amusing if, at that moment, someone walking several dogs appeared from the beach side. Nope, not this time. Pullllll, pull, kick, get those now-bunched, now-clinging undies onnnnn!

 Yeah, I was fine as the group approached; shirtless, maybe; embarrassing enough; rude, but not, technically, illegal. Did I mention I had a cap on? And, thankfully, the school bus had been filled with adults.

 “Surfing, huh?” “Uh huh.” “You must wear a wetsuit.”  I pointed to the dirtied, black pile. No more than one passing adult appeared shocked. Maybe two. The others, well, they were going on a field trip to observe beach wildlife.

 An improvement in wetsuit removal I just learned, and not a second too soon, involves pulling the bottom of the legs tight, then slightly over the heels. The step-pull-step-pull method becomes so much easier, even with the tucked towel barely holding.

 I did once have a terry cloth robe I could wear during beachside/roadside wetsuit removal. But, hanging it in a dampish garage to dry, it, instead, got sort of mildew-y. Besides, it kind of made me look like a pervert.

 Thanks for reading.