Slightly crooked scan of possible new ORIGINAL ERWIN longsleeve t-shirts. AND I do still have some of my more recent designs with some hoodies. If I get up to Port Angeles, I will add to whatever shirts are remaining at NXNW SURF SHOP. I will update this with the latest sub-chapter of my novel, “SWAMIS” on Wednesday.
JOEL CARBON, Port Townsend surfer, originally from Long Island, sent some shots he took on a recent trip; ROCKAWAY BEACH, evidently, one of the only surf spots in New York, or, at least, the best known. Joel is representing the Olympic Peninsula by wearing a hoody from the HAMA HAMA OYSTER COMPANY.
Worldwide local from Hama Hama, ADAM ‘WIPEOUT’ JAMES sent a few photos from Wyoming. Adam and his family seem to go to their to play cowboy and, evidently, hunt.
I know Montana is the Big Sky state, but Wyoming, with its unofficial state motto being “Equal Rights,” might just believe they deserve a bit of that. This is actually the hunting party headed back to the ranch, but you have to like the look. A little spooky.
SPEAKING OF SPOOKY, I was trying to find my way back to SURF ROUTE 101 from a job in Sequim when I came upon this yard display. WHOA! Not sure what I was looking at, I had to do a u-turn, and then another. I stopped across the street and took a photo, a little concerned that if I stayed too long in my decorated Volvo, it might not be appreciated. SNAP. Shift. Go!
I DO TRY and fail to convince people (well, potential clients, anyway) that I am not political, but, really, is this pro or anti-Trump?
I AM WORKING OUT a concept for an ideal for an essay (chuckling here because of Citizen Trump’s plans for everything other than revenge) on time and dreams and whatever else comes to mind when I actually write the piece.
Here are a couple of the pieces: Wanting to get up early to give me more of a chance to hit some waves, I went to bed early. I woke up at 11:11, time confirmed by the projected light on the bedroom ceiling.. Then I woke up at 1:11, then 4:44. Thankful that the geniuses who created time and divided it into smaller segments, all so we can increase our anxiety just a bit more. Tick, tick, tick; I’m just grateful there no 6:66.
NOW, THE HORSE- I had a dream where I was actually surfing rather than searching for waves that go away when I get closer. I rode a wave, evidently at a beach break, though there was some reference to Windansea earlier, as in me saying to someone who wasn’t in the dream frame, “That’s Windansea over there. Not really breaking. If you look over there (farther away than it is in real life) that’s Big Rock.” ANYWAY, I get something like a GoPro view of a frothy wave, pull out into more froth, look outside to see a broken wave headed toward me. I push through that one, with another bearing down on me. SUDDENLY a white horse comes up beside me out of the foam. “Oh, a sea horse,” I say, possibly out loud. I didn’t check the time on the ceiling.TICK, TICK, TICK. I woke up at 5:25. Thinking I might get another few minutes of sleep, I got out of bed at 5:55.
It is now 8:19 Pacific Standard Time, confirmed by some sort of satellite, though probably not the one that controls the weather and targets trailer parks.
Gotta go! Daylight to burn and hay to make (metaphorically) while the sun shines. When the rain comes and the swells rotate in… that’ll be another story. Hit some waves, share some waves, be nice in the water, and, um, you know, have a good TIME.
…and “Real, Real-er, Real-ist,” and “Realistically, Really?”
It’s something about how (I am coming to believe) every surfer seems to believe he or she (to save time I’m going to say ‘you’) has an approach to our shared sport/lifestyle/addiction that is true and valid; enough so that the other kooks and posers and influencers and disciples of this or that offshoot of the one true surfer’s life are… well, they’re mostly in the way, decadently preening and cavorting and, basically, despoiling the waves and the beach and the purity of purpose, with its co-existing morals and list of sins… those folks are in your way.
WAIT, that sounds like some excerpt from a MANIFESTO written by some madman in some cabin in some woods. YEAH, well, maybe, but I’m still working on how to refine it. SO, ask yourself if it applies to you and your realistic place in an increasingly crowded lineup. Maybe not.
I HAVE DECIDED to go back to posting excerpts from “SWAMIS” (not a manifesto) on Wednesdays, mostly because of time restraints. MAYBE just this week. I woke up in the middle of the night and watched too much of the WSL contest, enough to see SALLY FITZGIBBONS win, cementing her place back on next year’s big show. I was rooting for the veteran (not too surprisingly), and have long wondered why contest commentators never seem to mention that, coming close to number one in the WSL, she is, like (like as in I don’t have time to fact check) the four time champion of the INTERNATIONAL SURF LEAGUE (ISL). Perhaps it is because the WSL is the one true contest heaven.
TRISHA’S BROTHER’S SON, DYLAN, our nephew, and his wife just moved into a house in ENCINITAS. It seems he was surprised to discover that his aunt and I once owned a house in the same neighborhood. THE DISAPPOINTMENT, for surfer Dylan, as it was for me, was that our houses, purchased decades apart for should-be shockingly different amounts of money, is EAST OF I-5, well east of SURF ROUTE 101. And, looking at an aerial view that went along with the Zillow report, with 29 photos (Dylan gave me his new address so I can send him one of my new ORIGINAL ERWIN longsleeve t-shirts), I was even more disappointed to see so many houses, so little open land.
“It’s EASTINITAS,” I Texted, “AND there’s probably a surfer in one out of four of those houses.”
IN KEEPING with my habit of overdoing, I did a couple of sketches to go with my noticing how all these kids and their grownup cronies are riding electric bikes like they’re motorcycles… because, yes, they are.
Got to go- places to be, already late to start a promised and put-off painting project. DAMN, being a “Whore for the money,” an accusation from my friend, Keith, I can’t deny, though, technically, it makes me a prostitute, does cut into my ‘me time.’ That is, what could be time to search for and ride… waves.
I DO HOPE DYLAN and, okay, you, real surfer that you are, get some really life-affirming rides. OH, and don’t steal my drawings. I probably will keep going on the first sketch. WEDNESDAY, “SWAMIS.”
IT’S FINALS DAY at the WESTPORT LONGBOARD CLASSIC and realsurfers has a correspondent embedded in the event. Longtime explorer on the coast and the Strait, TOM BURNS, is a *judge, and has agreed to send a few photos and some commentary my way.
PHOTOS- Logo; O’Dark Thirty a Westport; Photo from the ‘memorial wall’ of TOM LE COMPE (RIP), one the ‘harbor boys,’ and one of the first to surf the jetty in the sixties, and Tom Burns; a shot of ‘The Corner” early this morning; Someone Tom didn’t give me a name for; and BARRY ESTES (RIP) with Tom from a RICKY YOUNG contest back in the late 1980s and 90s.
I competed in several of those contests, pushed to do so by my friend from my shipyard days, RAPHAEL REDA. I didn’t meet Tom there. I met him on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Tom, a month or so older than me, was years ahead of me in knowledge of where and when to find waves, but still has a fairly high ratio on the skunk-to-score chart. Tom is, among surfers I know, the preeminent name dropper, with a long history, great memory, and a willingness to talk story. We quickly discovered we have some friends in common, Drew Kampion and Pathfinder Darrell Wood to name drop two, AND Tom was perfectly willing to adopt some of the colorful folks I’ve run into: Tugboat Bill, Big Dave, Concrete Pete, folks without nicknames.
*I helped out at the precursor to the Longboard Classic, the CLEANWATER CLASSIC, a couple of years. Not surfing, I was volunteering and sort of representing SURFRIDER. Not satisfied to stand on the beach with a flag, I pushed my way into being a spotter for the judges, Tom being one of them. I refused to leave. Partially because I do bring the fun, and I do watch a lot of WSL contests on the computer, Tom convinced the head judge to allow me to be a judge the next year. I brought the fun. Too much fun for the head judge. I got in trouble for not matching the other judges’ assessment of rides. “6.5? No, I gave it a 4.6. I mean… really? 6.5?” I wasn’t asked back. Tom wasn’t either. Somehow I was his fault.
EVIDENTLY TOM has served his time in judge purgatory.
OF COURSE, being as tribal as anyone, I’m rooting for surfers from the Olympic Peninsula. We’ll see.
I am up to Chapter 9 on the re-re-re-reedit and tightening of “SWAMIS.” Remember, this material is copyright protected, all rights reserved. Thanks for honoring this, and thanks for reading.
CHAPTER FIVE- THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1969
Our house in the hills between Fallbrook and Bonsall was a split level, stucco house, aluminum sash windows, composite roof. Someone else had started building from some plans purchased from a catalog. My parents could save money, they were told, by finishing the lower level and the garage. They could replace the plywood shed at the edge of a corral with a small barn that would provide room for a horse, a side area for hay and tack. New fencing. More trees. A garden. A covered patio off the kitchen, or, perhaps, a bay window.
My father promised the patio, and then the bay window. He was working on it, but he was working. Working. There was, outside the sliding door, a concrete slab, with paving stones leading around the corner and down to the driveway. The two-story portion of the house featured a plate glass window, four foot high and eight feet wide, in total, with crank out, aluminum sash windows on either side. This window offered a view to the west, over scrubby trees and deep arroyos, of the hills, some rounded, others more jagged, with ancient boulders visible on all of them. Mission Avenue was hidden below and between. Mission, the road that linked Fallbrook with Bonsall, Vista, Oceanside, everywhere west, everywhere worth going to.
Looking out this window, I felt almost level with those hills. Morning light, descending, brought out the details of the ribs and rocks. Afternoon shadows crept from it until the hills once again became a blank shape. There were waves of hills in irregular lines between my hills and the unseen ocean. I had spent time looking away from my studies, imagining the hills in timelapse, the sun setting at one place in winter, another in summer, lines off clouds held back at the ridgeline, breaking over the top; torn, scattering. I had imagined the block as transparent, the ocean visible, late afternoon sunlight reflected off the water and into the empty skies.
…
The light outside was still neutral when I moved to the dinette table in the kitchen, a bowl of oatmeal, a tab of butter on top of it, in front of me. There was a glass pitcher of milk between my setting and the other two. There were four lunch sacks on the counter. Two were a light blue, one was a shade more orange than pink, the fourth was the standard lunch sack brown. My mother, already dressed and ready for work, took a carton of Lucky Strikes from a cupboard and put a pack into the brown lunch sack.
She looked out the window over the sink. She sniffled.
My father, in one of his everyday detective suits; coat unbuttoned, tie untied; leaned over from the head of the table. “Go get it, Jody.” The ‘now’ part of the command was unspoken. His voice was calm. Almost always. I didn’t move. I didn’t look up from my oatmeal. “Stanford, Jody; you didn’t think they’d send a copy to the school?”
My father’s questions demanded an answer or a response.
I stood up, lifting my chair up high enough that its metal legs, with plastic shoes at the bottom, wouldn’t scrape the oak flooring. I looked at my father. He was looking at my mother. She sniffled several times but didn’t turn around.
My bedroom was at the end of the hallway, past my parent’s and my father’s den on the right, the guest bathroom, Freddy’s room, then mine on the left. There were pictures taken from surfing magazines on several walls, a cluttered desk between the closet and a bunk bed, the bottom bunk converted into a space for books and toys and cardboard boxes taped and marked, stuff from our previous house.
Though we had been at the ranchette for more than four years, because the garage had never become water and weather tight, most of the boxes in my room remained stacked and taped and marked. Grease pencil. Yellow, mostly. Some black. I opened an untaped box marked “Cowboy stuff” and took out the legal sized envelope.
As I walked up the hallway, I heard my father ask, “Is this who we are now, Ruth?”
“Not we, Joe. Me. You… didn’t want to be…”
“Involved? No!” I heard a thump, hand to a solid surface. Less than a slam. “Fool that I am, I am… and have been involved this whole time.”
My parents almost never raised their voices. My father didn’t have to, my mother just… wouldn’t. I’ve been asked about my parent’s relationship many times. Japanese war bride, ex-Marine. My answer will always be, “They had a certain dynamic.” The answer could as easily be, “It wasn’t what you might think.” Whatever they thought.
My parents were standing at the counter to the right of the double sink. I placed the envelope on the tablecloth, next to my father’s plate. Sausage and eggs. Uneaten. Cup of coffee. Half full. I sat down. I looked over. My father signed at the bottom of two pages. My mother refolded them into thirds and put them into an envelope. She set the envelope on the left side of the sink, on top of several other loose papers. Legal size. Eight and a half by fourteen inches.
“I’ll fix it, Joe. Today.”
My father grunted, stepped around my mother. He was looking at the pages, shaking his head. He looked toward his wife. Her back was to the sink, both hands behind her on the edge of the counter. She looked at my father’s hands as he folded those papers in half. He took in a breath, turned toward her, let out the breath slowly. He handed her the papers with his right hand. She took them with her left hand, handed him the brown lunch sack with her right.
“Ruth. You could… This could give you… freedom. Ikura desuka?”
My mother only rarely spoke Japanese, my father almost never. My mother froze. “Freedom, Joe?” My father’s expression was one of instant regret.
I replayed the words. “E’-kew-rah des-kah.” Again. “E’-kew-rah des-kah.” There was something in the flow, the rhythm of my mother’s native language I had given up trying to capture. “E’-kew-rah des-kah?”
…
My mother and the envelope and the papers were gone. My father set the brown lunch sack onto the counter, took two more packs from the carton of Lucky Strikes from the cupboard, unfolded the two folds on the lunch sack, put them in, refolded the sack. Not as neatly. He took two steps toward the sliding glass door, looked at his feet. “Socks,” he said. “Jody, you won’t be surfing… or working at Mrs. Tony’s; none of that shit.” He looked at the envelope on the dinette table. “Stanford.” He threw his left hand out and down, ends of his fingers touching the Stanford logo. “You… you earned this, Jody. You’re going.”
“Going.”
My father looked toward the hallway, looked at me. “It’ll be… she’ll be fine. I have to…”
“Go. Yes.”
Freddy came into the kitchen. “Daddy?” Our father responded with a weak sideways nod. Freddy followed him through the living room, into the foyer, out onto the front porch. The front door slammed.
When Freddy returned, our mother was back in the kitchen. My brother, not even trying not to cry, looked at her, and then me, as if whatever was happening was our fault.
“Freedom,” I whispered, my left hand, in a fist, over my mouth. “Ikara desuka.”
The house phone was on a table just outside the formal dining room. Our mother picked up the receiver and dialed a number on the phone’s base. “No, I am well,” she said. “Annual leave. ‘Use it or lose it.’ I have accumulated…” She chuckled. Fake. “No. They’re both fine. I will be in tomorrow.” She looked at me. “Thank you.” She put the phone back on the base. “Joey, I will need the station wagon. You and Freddy… Better hurry; you will have to take the bus.”
Freddy asked, “What about taking your car, Mommy?” Our mother looked at me and shook her head. I shook mine. Freddy looked at me. “What did you do this time, Jody?”
…
Gary and Roger were my closest surf friends. Roger started board surfing the summer I did, 1965. Gary started the next summer. By the time we were seniors, many others had tried surfing. Most didn’t stick with it for long. Though Roger lived closer to me, Gary offered to give me a ride home.
I was riding shotgun. Gary’s sister, squeezed tightly against the backseat passenger door of their mom’s Corvair, said, in an unnecessarily whiny voice, “Glad it’s all cool with you, Gary.”
“It is, yeah; it’s cool with me.” Gary glanced over at me. “The Princess has a license, but our mom won’t let her drive without… supervision.”
“Well, thanks again for the ride, Gary; and for going by Potter for… Freddy. Oh, and thank you…”
“Princess,” Gary said.
The Princess blew air out of the side of her mouth. I looked around and over the seat. The Princess shook the wrist of her left hand and gave me a look I took as suggesting the raspberry was meant for her brother rather than me. Freddy was not quite as tight against the door on the driver’s side. Neither tried to talk to, or even look at the other.
“So, Joey,” Gary asked, “what do you think of Roger’s latest girlfriend?”
“She’s a sophomore, you know,” the Princess said, looking at me. “Sophomore.” I gave her the expression she was looking for. The relationship was wrong. And creepy.
“Roger’s business, Princess. Now, Joey, maybe, after school… days are getting longer. We could do Oceanside pier. Tamarack, if I drive.”
“Four gallons of gas, two quarts of oil; that sound about right, Gary?”
“Or Joey; we could go in Roger’s stepdad’s Mustang.”
The Princess mumbled a quiet, “Fuck you, Gary,” as her brother downshifted, unnecessarily, at the first of several uphill curves. Freddy’s laugh and repetition of the words were louder and clearer.
“Or Princess and some of her friends… Juniors… no sophomores, could go with us,” Gary offered. The Princess let out a high-pitched, “Ha!” and a low-pitched sort of extended grunt sound. Freddy giggled. “Or, if we can’t go surfing after school, maybe me and you and Roger could ditch and go all day.”
Gary looked at me and winked. I shook my head, but I did smile. “Or maybe next week… or so, if we have all our stuff ready, boards loaded, we could make it to Grandview. Swamis. Somewhere… good.”
“Possible. Timewise.”
“Cool.”
The princess’s head suddenly appeared between Gary and me. “Most of you Fallbrook surfers aren’t even partway cool,” she said. “And besides, my friends won’t even cruise town in this crappy car; and besides that, it would be creepy.” The Princess looked at me and seemed to realize her face and mine were way too close. Still, she didn’t move away.
“Creepy,” I said.
“And they might find out Gary’s surfing just isn’t all that… cool,” the Princess said, almost smiling before she fell back into the seat and against the door.
We arrived at our driveway. The Falcon station wagon was still there, my nine-six pintail on the rack. The Falcon was backed up to the curved gravel pathway that went up the slight grade to the front door. Bender board and stakes had been installed for a while, ready for concrete.
“Board on the roof. Obvious Hodad move, Joey.”
I looked up at Gary’s Hansen surfboard hanging over the hood of the Corvair. “Obvious.”
Gary used the area between the unfinished garage and the temporary shed at the corner of the corral to turn around. The Corvair had barely stopped when Freddy jumped out and ran for the house. The Princess jumped out and ran around to the front passenger door. I took a few seconds to get my books and folders out of the seat. She leaned on the open door and checked out the ranchette. Disapprovingly.
Gary popped the clutch on the Corvair halfway down the driveway. There was a second cloud of black smoke as Gary, unnecessarily double-clutched, attempting, unsuccessfully, to get scratch in second gear. There were a few drops of oil soaking into and staining the insufficient gravel on the decomposed granite driveway.
My mom was standing at the front driver’s side door of the Falcon, Freddy pressed against her and between her and the seat. She was looking at me. “You know I’ll be back,” she said, for both Freddy and me. She looked over at the old horse casually eating grain on the near side of what she called a paddock. “I can’t trust you boys to properly take care of Tallulah.”
A bell on the two-story part of the house rang. “Telephone,” Freddy said, dropping books as he ran. I set my school stuff on the grass and walked to the front of the Falcon.
“There’s some money… on the counter. Take the Volvo. Later. Six-thirty or so. You and Freddy can go to that Smorgasbord place he likes. Or Sambo’s.”
“Sambo’s… closed, Mom.”
“Oh. Yes. You know how to find the Rollins Place; right?” I nodded. “No eating in the Volvo. Right?” I shook my head.
“Mom,” Freddy yelled, “It’s Daddy.”
“Tell Freddy your father knows where to find me.” Our mother got into the Falcon. She chuckled. “Stick shift. Hope I haven’t forgotten how.”
“Daddy! He wants to talk with mom. He wants her to wait… for him. Jody!”
“Waiting,” our mother said, shaking her head. “Not waiting.”
“Three on the tree, Mom.” I closed the door for her. “You’ll be fine.”
“Fine.” My mom smiled, turned away, started the Falcon. “I called the station. Your father was out. I talked to Larry.”
“Larry? Oh. Sure. What did you tell… Wendall?”
“Nothing. I just… no, nothing. I told him to tell your father… I was going to… straighten everything out, that it would be… fine. I will.”
“If it’s about… college… I will, of course, go.”
“Of course. It isn’t… I have to go.”
My mother had her determined look on her face; determined to be strong, to not cry; even if the strength wouldn’t last, even if the tears would flow as soon as she went down the driveway. She popped the clutch. Accidentally. The back tires threw some gravel and the Falcon stalled. She hit the steering wheel, restarted the engine, eased the clutch out, moved the car over to the fence for the corral, reaching her left hand out, calling for her horse.
“Tallulah.” The horse turned around for a moment.
I looked toward the west. There would have been enough time for a few waves between school and dark if I had gone to the pier. I wasn’t crying. Freddy, clearly, was.
“Jody. He wants to talk to you. Jody!”
The doors to the Volvo were locked. Of course. I ran up the path to the porch. Freddy was just inside the door. The phone’s base was on the floor, three feet from the table. The cord to the receiver was stretched to its maximum length. Freddy tried to press the phone to my chest as I tried to pass him. The keys to the Volvo were hanging, along with other rings of keys and a rabbit’s foot, on a crudely shaped horse’s head Freddy had made at summer camp.
I grabbed the keys. Freddy pushed me. I pushed him down and took the phone from him. “Freddy, stop the blubbering. Dad?” I wasn’t really listening. I tried to direct Freddy toward the kitchen, rubbing my fingers together in the gesture for ‘money.’ I leaned down toward my brother. “Yes, Dad; still here.” Pause. “I am sorry about whatever Betty Boop and Wendall, and everyone at the station… thinks.” Pause. “Insolent? No.” Pause. “I don’t know. Freddy and I are going to…” Pause. “David Cole?” Pause. “Too late. Hello.” Dial tone. “Too late.”
I looped the long cord as I headed toward the kitchen, put the receiver onto the base, the base back on the table. Freddy stayed on the floor, his back against the frame of the opening between the foyer and the living room. “Stop her, Jody.” I didn’t respond. Freddy screamed, “Everyone’s right; you’re a god-damned retard. Retard!”
“Let’s go then, Freddy; you fucking baby.” My voice was as even as I could manage. I grabbed the cash from the dinette, walked back, stood over him. “Come on.”
Freddy laid out flat. He shook his head. “I’ll wait for Daddy. Dad.”
“He’s not… Freddy, there’s pizza in the refrigerator. You can heat it up in the oven, or, I don’t know, God-damned retard like me, you can… goddamn eat it cold.”
The phone rang. Freddy rolled to his stomach, jumped up, and got to the phone on the second ring. “Daddy?” Pause. “Uncle Larry.” Pause. “No, I don’t know where. Jody?” I shook my head. “Joey!” Out the door and down the path, all I heard was, “Retard.”
I’M NOT POLITICAL, BUT… I couldn’t help but notice, this week, with citizen don refusing to acknowledge that he got trashed and thrashed in the debate, that he also went back to his greatest wiffs and denied the sexual assault issue he also, very expensively, lost, saying the woman he assaulted was not his type, not ‘the chosen one.’ ALSO, this week, asked if he had any apologies to make about, like, anything, the elderly douche said he had nothing to apologize for.
Speaking of which, I couldn’t help but wonder if JESUS ever apologized for telling the truth. “Oh,” you say, “but Jesus paid a terrible price.” So, who pays the price for someone who only tells lies?
FIRST- THANKS. I like to tell people, when I am begging them to let me use something they said or wrote on my SITE (personal preference over ‘blog’), that realsurfers.net has an audience of tens of people from all around the world. For this I am grateful. If I can get through to one lone surfer in China, pining to know there are never any waves on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, great.
I DID SURF, and there is, as always, a story; joining constantly frothed out KEITH DARROCK, on his ongoing mini-slab tour, at a super-sketchy spot with his pre-attempt warning, “You are going to get SO WORKED.” And I did. Leash ripped off by rogue wave, Hobie on a rock, fin at an angle way off perpendicular to the deck, me swimming, then having to get back up the cliff. So, worked… BUT I did get some great on-the-shoulder angles of some of Keith’s barrels, and I got some shoulder takeoff rides. And I survived. NO PHOTOS, but REGGIE SMART did witness the spectacle through binoculars. “Either Erwin has a really long leash or he lost his board.” NO, he evidently didn’t witness any of my successful rides. THE HOBIE WILL LIVE ON! Maybe.
ADAM ‘WIPEOUT’ JAMES heading out. Photo (used with permission) by ERIN KATE MURPHY. Erin and her husband, SEAN, and their son (sorry I forgot his name) all surf. More like rip. OH, I did have to promise never to take off in front of her AND to let her have any wave I may have wanted. Worth it.
BIOLUMINESCENCE and NORTHERN LIGHTS, or some other PHENOMENON. Photo by Adam James.
OFTEN, sitting in a parking lot somewhere, waiting for some tide shift or some hoped-for swell to show up, other surf seekers show up. RAJA, who achieved local fame years ago by sticking my lost paddle in an offshore dolphin, the remnant of an old boat tie-uo, is sporting an ORIGINAL ERWIN t shirt. Raja has been involved in several of my stories over the years, including when I burned DANE PERLEE and his friend. INCIDENTALLY, the paddle was rescued and removed by my friend, STEPHEN R. DAVIS. So, SURF FRIENDS, bonded by some, some, something.
I didn’t ask CLINT THOMPSON, bi-coastal surfer and super craftsman on wooden boats, if I could use his photo. Hopefully he’s okay with it. I should say tri-coastal, since Clint goes between Port Townsend and his family home somewhere in Florida, where, he says, he’s halfway between the Gulf of Mexico and the coast. Clint, when we first met, was highly critical of my wave-hogging, no etiquette way of surfing. Perhaps because I’m older and slower, or maybe because crowded conditions often have a number of kooks (no, I don’t want to say that), or perhaps because I do try not to burn people i know (and I know a lot of surfers), Clint did say, a year or so back, “I want to see you dominate.” Well, other than surfing radical conditions with rabid rippers (knowing my place in that lineup), I always try.
Me on a peak. When I called TRISH from the LOWER ELWHA gas station to tell her about how her man nearly drowned, she said, “Well, you wanted to go.” When she told me I need to get this painting project finished, I sent her this photo (by Steve Davis). She texted back, You’re giving me a heart attack! OMG!!”
I am reading a memoir by legendary boat designer and surfer, TIM NOLAN, shown surfing his home break, Abalone Cove in Palos Verdes, way back, and at a Surf Culture Event in Port Townsend a couple of years ago. It’s incredibly hard to have people read one’s stuff AND give feedback. Mine, so far, is that TIM has great stories BECAUSE he’s done some extraordinary things… and continues doing things. His most recent words of wisdom related to surfing, particularly for older surfers (he is older than me), is “You’ve got to want it.” The stories are there, AND his watercolors and photos illustrating the stories are great. As with any and all writing, it comes down to focusing and editing.
After several people have been unable to get through the earlier versions of my novel. “Swamis,” I did get some encouraging feedback from one of my longterm clients, SANDRA STEELE, a woman who reads detective/mystery books voraciously, and, in fact, gave me a box full of them. I read all of one, parts of several others. She said, “I didn’t throw it at the fireplace,” adding, “It seemed… hopeful.” “Is that good? It’s kind of turning into more of a… love story than…” “Yeah, I see a lot of Trish in there.” “Well, yeah.”
IF YOU DON’T READ ANY FARTHER, “Swamis” and other original material is protected by copyright; all rights reserved by the author/artist/photographer. Please respect this. And thanks,
CHAPTER FOUR- WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1968
Christmas vacation. I had surfed, but I wanted a few more rides. Or many more. I had the time, and I had the second-best parking spot of the full lot at Swamis- front row, two cars off center. It was cool but sunny. I was dead center on the Falcon, leaning over the hood. I checked the diving watch on my wrist. It was fogged up. I shook my wrist, removed the watch, set it on the part of the Falcon’s hood my spread-out beach towel didn’t cover; directly over the radiator, the face of the watch facing the ocean and the sun.
Spread about on the towel was a quart of chocolate milk in a waxed cardboard container, the spout open; a lunch sack, light blue, open; an apple; a partial pack of Marlboros, hard pack, open, a book of paper matches inside; and three Pee-Chee folders. One of the folders was open. A red notebook, writing on both sides of most pages, was open, five or six pages from the back.
A car stopped immediately behind the Falcon. Three doors slammed. Three teenagers, a year or so younger than me, ran down the left side of my car and to the bluff. Jumping and gesturing, each shouted assessments of the conditions. “Epic!” and “So… bitchin’!”
They looked at each other. They looked over me at their car, idling in the lane. They looked at me. The tallest of the three, with a bad complexion, his hair parted in the middle, shirtless, with three strands of love beads around his neck, took a step toward me. “Hey, man.” He lifted two of the strands. “Going out or been out?”
“Both. Man.”
“Both?” Love Beads guy moved closer, patting the beads. “Both. Uh huh.”
“Good spot,” the driver, with bottle bleached hair, a striped Beach Boys shirt, and khaki pants, said. I nodded. Politely. I smiled, politely, and looked back and down at my notebooks. He asked, “You a local?”
I shifted the notebooks, took out the one on the bottom, light blue, opened it, turned, and looked out at the lineup, half-sitting on the Falcon, hoping my non-answer was enough for the obvious non-locals.
A car honked behind us. Love Beads raised his voice enough to say, “At least go get the boards, Shorty.” The Driver ran toward his car. As Shorty reluctantly walked away from the bluff, Love Beads gave him a shove, pushing him into me. A possibly accidental nudge.
Shorty threw both hands out to signal it wasn’t his fault. Behind him, Love Beads Guy said, “You fuckers down here are fuckin’ greedy.”
“Fuck you, Brian,” Shorty said before running out and into the lane.
Love Beads Guy, Brian, moved directly in front of me. He puffed out his chest a bit. He looked a bit fierce. Or he attempted to. “You sure you’re not leaving?”
I twisted my left arm behind my back and set the notebook down and picked up my diving watch. When I brought my arm back around, very quickly, Brian twitched. I smiled. I held my watch by the band, close to its face. I shook it. Hard. Three quick strokes, then tapped it, three times, with the pointer finger of my right hand. “The joke, you see, Brian, is that, once it gets filled up with water, no more can get in. Hence, Waterproof.” I put the watch on. “Nope, don’t have to leave yet… Brian.”
Brian was glowering, tensed-up. “Brian,” Shorty said as he carried two boards over to the bluff and set them down, “You could, you know, help.”
Brian raised his right hand, threw it out to his left and swung it back. I took the gesture to mean ‘shut up and keep walking.’ I chuckled. Brian moved his right hand closer to my face, pointer finger up.
I moved my face closer to his hand, then leaned back, feigning an inability to focus. “Brian,” I said, “I have a history…” Brian smirked. “I used to… strike out, and quite violently… when I felt threatened.” I blinked. “Brian.”
Brian looked around as if Shorty, packing the third board past us, might back him up. “Quite violently?”
“Used to… Brian. Suddenly and… violently.” I nodded and rolled my eyes. I moved closer to his face. “But now… My father taught me there are times to react and times to… take a moment, assess the situation, but… watch, and be ready. It’s like… gunfights, in the movies. If someone… is ready to… strike, I strike first. I mean, I can. Because… I’m ready.” I moved my face back from Brian’s and smiled. “Everyone… people are hoping the surfing is… helping. I am not… sure. I’m on… probation, currently; I get to go to La Jolla every Monday, talk to a… shrink. Court ordered. So…” I took a deep breath, gave Brian a peace sign.
“Brian,” Beach Boy, at the driver’s door of his parent’s car said, “we’ll get a spot.”
“Wind’s coming up, Brian,” I said, pointing to the boards. “Better get on it.”
“Oh, I have your permission. No! Fuck you, Jap!” Brian moved back and into some version of a fighting stance as he said it.
“Brian. I’m, uh, assessing.” I folded my hands across my chest.
Brian may have said more. He moved even closer, his mouth moving, his face out of focus; background, overlapped by, superimposed with, a succession of bullies with faces too close to mine; kids from school, third grade to high school. I couldn’t hear them, either. Taunts. I knew the words: “Retard!” “Idiot!” “What’s wrong with you?”
My father’s voice cut through the others. “They don’t know you, Jody. It’s all a joke. Laugh.” In this vision, or spell, or episode, each of my alleged tormentors, all of them boys, fell away. Each face was bracketed by and punctuated with a blink of a red light. Every three seconds. Approximately.
One face belonged to a nine-year-old boy, a look of shock that would become pain on his face. He was falling back and down, blood coming out of his mouth. Red light. I looked at the school drinking fountain. A bit of blood. Red light. I saw more faces. The red lights became weaker, and with them, the images.
The lighting changed. More silver than blue. Cold light. I saw my father’s face, and mine, in the bathroom mirror. Faces; his short, almost blond hair, almost curly, eyes impossibly blue; my hair straight and black, my eyes almost black. “Jody, just… smile.” I did. Big smile. “No, son; not that smile.”
I smiled. That smile.
Brian’s face came back into focus. I looked past him, out to the kelp beds and beyond them “Wind’s picking up.” I paused. “Wait, I already said that. Did I, Brian?”
I turned toward the Falcon, closed the blue notebook, set it on one side of the open Pee-Chee, picked up the red notebook from the other side. There were crude sketches of dark waves and cartoonish surfers on the cover. I opened it and started writing.
“Wind is picking up.” I may have spun around a bit quickly, hands in a pre-fight position. It was Rincon Ronny in a shortjohn wetsuit, a board under his arm. Ronny nodded toward the stairs. “Fun guys.” He leaned away and laughed. I relaxed my hands and my stance. “The one dude, the… shitless guy…”
“Brian. Shirtless.”
“Yeah. That dude. You may have… Fuck, man; he was scared shitless.”
“It’ll wear off.” I held the notebook up, showed Ronny the page with ‘Brian and friends’ written in larger-than-necessary block letters, and closed the notebook. “By the time they get back to wherever they’re from, Brian would’ve kicked my ass.” I looked around to see if any of Ronny’s friends were with him. “I was… really… polite, Rincon Ronny.”
“Polite. Yeah. From what I saw. And it’s just… Ronny. Now.”
I had to think about what Ronny might have seen, how long I was in whatever state I was in. Out. I started gathering my belongings, pulling up the edges of my towel. “I just didn’t want to give my spot to… fuckers. Where are you… parked?”
“I… walked.”
I had to smile and nod. “You… walked.”
Ronny nodded and looked at my shortjohn wetsuit, laid out over my board. “Custom. Impressive.” I nodded and smiled. “One thing, Junior; those… fuckers, they won’t fuck with you in the water.”
“Joey,” I said. “Someone will.”
Ronny mouthed, “Joey,” and did a combination blink/nod. “Yeah. It’s… Swamis. Joey.”
Ronny looked at the waves, back at me. A gust of west wind blew the cover of my green notebook open. “Julie” was written in almost unreadably psychedelic letters across pages eight and nine. “Julie.” Hopefully unreadable.
I repeated Ronny’s words mentally, careful not to mouth them. “From what I saw.” And “Joey.”
FINALLY, I do have a limited number of Original Erwin t shirts at TAIT TRAUTMAN’S NORTH BY NORTHWEST SURF COMPANY (NXNW). Stop by if you’re cruising through Port Angeles on the way to or from your next surf adventure. And GOOD LUCK!
FIRST LIE: “I just want to get in the water,” or any variation on this (purposefully not talking about the folks cruising SURF ROUTE 101 and, I guess, everywhere, with Walmart plastic kayaks, canoes, wavestorms) by someone who actually surfs. Okay, shouldn’t have excluded Wavestormer Troopers, BUT…
…here’s the (a) story: So, three sessions ago, fighting a radically outgoing tide and small, choppy waves, I had one of those go-outs in which I, objectively, SUCKED. Two sessions ago, on a borrowed SUP, same spot, even smaller waves, I, subjectively, did OKAY. Or, at least, better… BUT, tasked with packing a board heavier than my Hobie on a long trek back, and unable to just drag someone else’s board across the soft sand and the scrub, I allowed, for the first time in my career, someone else to pack my board part way. It was his board. I was… grateful.
So, next session I packed in my MANTA board. I had finally coated over the paint with resin, and figured, if the waves were the usual, minimal, I could, at least, jump into a few. The waves lived up to my expectations; minimal. AND, NO, even if I said I just wanted to get in the water, which I didn’t, I would be lying. I wanted o RIP. I always want to rip. I didn’t. I let frothed-out ripper KEITH ride the board. He did rip. I watched. I caught ONE WAVE, belly ride, totally tubed, with enough juice to propel me down the line and into the gravel shelf. YAY!
MANTA and slightly lost Hobbit.
OH, and Keith put a ding in the Manta. That’s one of the costs in surfing. Occasionally getting h orumbled is another. STILL, next time I get wet…
SECOND LIE: “I’m not political.” Add to this, “I am willing to talk.” That part is true. I am working on a project proposal for a guy who is running for the state senate as a republican. So, in discussing the job, politics did come up. I said that, probably, 70 percent of people agree on 75% of things, that where the radical 30%, 15 in each direction, left and right, come together is distrust of the government. The potential client agreed. THEN, because he is also part of the nebulous percentage of people who consider themselves religious (there is a scale on this), I added that we are all raised with certain morals, and, if we go against these, we, in our own minds, sin. So, because we want to consider ourselves ‘good people,’ we try to live up to our own sense of morality.
HE AGREED. What I actually (or also) meant, or meant to imply was, that if a person is raised by a parent who used every device and trick to fuck over people in order to enrich himself, that person’s moral backstop, compass, guidebook, whatever, is… different.
BECAUSE I couldn’t help myself, and, actually, I MIGHT DO MORE, I drew a couple of, possibly, kind of political illustrations. I found out a few things: A LOT of women do not want to see even a negative image of Fred Trump’s son, a NASTY piece of work. I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong: there might be, like, 15% who think… SHIT, I can’t imagine why they’d have anything other than disgust, AND, if they defend him on some false and thin pretense, I might believe they have an incredibly strong resistance to the gag reflex, and/or are lying.
Again, I am willing to talk.
“SWAMIS.” Since I am serializing the novel, I should recap: 1. Joey is at the court-appointed psychologist’s office; the conversation coming around to whether he has moved from being bullied to being a bully. 2. Joey’s first meeting with Julie at Pipes.
CHAPTER THREE- SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1968
My nine-six Surfboards Hawaii pintail was on the Falcon’s rust and chrome factory racks. I was headed along Neptune, from Grandview to Moonlight Beach. The bluff side of Neptune was either garage or gate and fence, or hedge, tight to the road. There were few views of the water. I was, no doubt, smiling, remembering something from that morning’s session.
There had been six surfers at the outside lineup, the preferred takeoff spot. They all knew each other. If one of them hadn’t known about me, the asshole detective’s son, others had clued him in. There was no way the local crew and acceptable friends would allow me to catch a set wave. No; maybe a wave all of them missed or none of them wanted. Or one would act as if he was going to take off any wave I wanted, just to keep me off it.
As the first one in the water, I had surfed the peak, had selected the wave I thought might be the best of a set. Three other surfers came out. Okay. Three more surfers came out. Sid was one of them. I knew who Sid was. By reputation. A set wave came in. I had been waiting. I was in position. It was my wave. I took off. Sid took off in front of me, ten yards over. I said something like, “Hey!”
Rather than speed down the line or pull out, Sid stalled. It was either hit him or bail. I bailed. Sid said, “Hey!” Louder. He looked at me, cranked a turn at the last moment. He made the wave. I swam.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, back at the lineup. The four other surfers there were laughing with Sid.
“Wrong, Junior; you broke the locals rule.” Sid pointed to the lefts, the waves perceived as not being as good, on the other side of a real or imagined channel. “Local’s rule. Get it?” Trying to ignore the taunts of the others, I caught an insider and moved over.
After three lefts, surfed, I believed, with a certain urgency and a definite aggression, I prone-paddled back to the rights, tacking back and forth. A wave was approaching, a decently sized set wave. I wanted it.
“Outside!” I yelled, loud enough that four surfers, including Sid, started paddling for the horizon. I paddled at an angle, lined up the wave at the peak. Though the takeoff was late, I made the drop, rode the wave into the closeout section, pulling off the highest roller coaster I had ever even attempted.
There had been no outside set. I kept my back turned to the water as I exited, not daring to look up at the surfers on the bluff, hooting and pointing. I did look up for a moment as I grabbed my towel, my keys and wallet and cigarettes rolled up in it, tromped up the washout to Neptune Avenue, trying not to smile.
Driving, almost to Moonlight Beach, a late fifties model Volkswagen bus, two-tone, white over gray, was blocking the southbound lane. Smoke was coming out of the open engine compartment. Black smoke. Three teenagers were standing behind the bus: Two young men, Duncan Burgess and Rincon Ronny, on the right side, one young woman, Monica, on the left.
There was more room on the northbound side. I pulled over, squeezed out between the door and someone’s bougainvillea hedge, and walked into the middle of the street, fifteen feet behind the van. “Can I help?”
Duncan, Ronny, and Monica were dressed as if they had surfed but were going to check somewhere else: Nylon windbreakers, towels around their waists. Duncan’s and Monica’s jackets were different, but both were red with white, horizontal stripes that differed in number and thickness. Ronny was wearing a dark blue windbreaker with a white, vertical strip, a “Yater” patch sewn on. Each of the three looked at me, and looked back at each other, then at the smoking engine. The movement of their heads said, “No.”
Someone stepped out of an opening in the hedge on the bluff side of the road, pretty much even with me. I was startled. I took three sideways steps before I regained my balance.
Julia Cole. Perfectly balanced. She was wearing an oversized V-neck sweater that almost covered boys’ nylon trunks. Her legs were bare, tan, her feet undersized for the huarache sandals she was wearing. She looked upset, but more angry than sad. But then… she almost laughed. I managed a smile.
“It’s you,” she said. It was. Me. “Are you a mechanic?” I shook my head, took another step toward the middle of the road, away from her. “An Angel?” Another head shake, another step. She took two more steps toward me. We were close. She seemed to be studying me, moving her head and eyes as if she might learn more from an only slightly different angle.
I couldn’t continue to study Julia Cole. I looked past her. Her friends looked at her, then looked at each other, then looked, again, at the subsiding smoke and the growing pool of oil on the pavement. “We saw what you did,” she said. I turned toward her. “From the bluff.” Her voice was a whisper when she added, “Outside,” the fingers of her right hand out, but twisting, pulling into her palm, little finger first, as her hand itself twisted. “Outside,” she said again, slightly louder.
“Oh,” I said. “It… worked.”
“Once. Maybe Sid… appreciated it.” She shook her head. “No.”
I shook my head. “Once.” I couldn’t help focusing on Julia Cole’s eyes. “I had to do it.”
“Of course.” By the time I shifted my focus from Julia Cole’s face to her right hand, it had become a fist, soft rather than tight. “Challenge the… hierarchy.”
I had no response. Julia Cole moved her arm slowly across her body, stopping for a moment just under the parts of her sweater dampened by her bathing suit top. Breasts. I looked back into her eyes for the next moment. Green. Translucent. She moved her right hand, just away from her body, up. She cupped her chin, thumb on one cheek, fingers lifting, pointer finger first, drumming, pinkie finger first. Three times. She pulled her hand away from her face, reaching toward me. Her hand stopped. She was about to say something.
“Julie!” It was Duncan. Julie, Julia Cole didn’t look around. She lowered her hand and took another step closer to me. In a ridiculous overreaction, I jerked away from her.
“I was going to say, Junior…” Julia was smiling. I may have grinned. Another uncontrolled reaction. “I could… probably… if you were an… attorney.”
“I’m not… Not… yet.”
Julia Cole loosened the tie holding her hair. Sun-bleached at the ends, dirty blonde at the roots. She used the fingers of both hands to straighten it.
“I can… give you a ride… Julia… Cole.”
“Look, Fallbrook…” It was Duncan. Again. He walked toward us, Julia Cole and me. “We’re fine.” He extended a hand toward Julia. She did a half-turn, sidestep. Fluid. Duncan kept looking at me. Not in a friendly way. He put his right hand on Julia Cole’s left shoulder.
Julia Cole allowed it. She was still smiling, still studying me when I asked, “Phone booth? There’s one at… I’m heading for Swamis.”
A car come up behind me. I wasn’t aware. Rincon Ronny and Monica watched it. Duncan backed toward the shoulder. Julia and I looked at each other for another moment. “You really should get out of the street… Junior.”
“Joey,” I said. “Joey.”
She could have said, “Julie.” Or “Julia.” She said neither. She could have said, “Joey.”
No one got a ride. I checked out Beacons and Stone Steps and Swamis. I didn’t surf. The VW bus was gone when I drove back by. Dirt from under someone’s hedge was scattered over the oil, some of it seeping through.
OBLIGATORY COPYRIGHT STUFF: I reserve the rights to any and all of my original works. Please respect this. Erwin A. Dence, Jr. Thanks.
HAPPY LABOR DAY! I do hope you’re getting WET and BARRELED! The next time (and any time) I get in the water, remember, “I’M HERE TO SURF.”
I’VE DECIDED to concentrate on a once-a-week posting, allowing more to report. So, Magazine. I’VE ALSO DECIDED to call myself a designer. Yes, I’m still a house painter (contractor), but desinger sounds even better than artist. Maybe it does. Adding ‘successful’ to any title would be better than ‘struggling,’ that better than ‘starving,’ which no one has ever accused me of being.
AS PROMISED, here’s my first psychedelic, full color, ORIGINAL ERWIN t shirt, modeled here by ripper and supermodel Stephen R. Davis. It’s my shirt, XXL, and it’s a test run. DWAYNE at D&L LOGO in Port Townsend did some computer stuff to the illustration, I got eight copies in the new age version of iron-on, and had them transferred on to (blue) t shirts they had on hand. They are mostly in sizes medium, large, and extra large. The first 8 images were slightly smaller. I’m ordering twenty more slightly larger than this one. I will have to confer with Trish on color as she, particularly, is not fond of the color above. “No, Trish, it’s not shit brindle brown; it’s… sunny creamy yellow/gold.” “Sure.”
SELLING STUFF is not my long suit. Far from it. STILL, I will let you know when some shirts are available. OR, if you send a text to what started out as my surf-centric stealth phone, 360-302-6146. We’ll figure something out. There are still some of my most recent shirts available. ALL other Original Erwin limited editions are GONE. If you have one… hold on to it.
CHIMACUM TIMACUM NEWS- I got a text and photo from CHIMACUM TIM. “The future is now! No more getting skunked on waves in the Straits with an e-Foil Drive assist.” I wrote back, “It makes me wanna jump on my e-bike.” If I had an e-bike. I kind of half expect to see Tim following a Washington State Ferry on his lunch break, weaving and swooping. But, hey, I do insist on having a paddle and a big-ass board, so, no judgment. Some judgment, probably. Imagine riding an electric board at a wave park. So real. Surreal.
OLD SURFER NEWS- Not fishing for congratulations, but I just had a birthday. 37 for those with dyslexia, and anxious for my next adventure in real waves.
REAL WAVES UPDATE- Still flat, forecast for flat on the STRAIT. Time to get some stuff done that won’t get done when the waves show up. If you’re on the coast, coast into a few.
“SWAMIS,” continued. I am, yes, working on completing the manuscript., trying to make the earlier chapters go along with the ending that space and sanity have forced to be way earlier in the full story than I had planned. SO:
CHAPTER TWO- SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 1965
My mother took my younger brother, Freddy, and me to the beach at what was to be the San Elijo campground. Almost or just opened, it runs along the bluff from Pipes to Cardiff Reef. We were at the third stairway from the north end. I was attempting to surf; Freddy was playing in the sand. My mother was collecting driftwood for a fire. The waves were small. Pushing my way out, walking, jumping over the lines, I was turning and throwing my board into the soup, standing up, awkwardly, and riding straight in; butt out, hands out, stupidest grin on my face. “Surfin’!”
A girl, about my age, was riding waves. Not awkwardly. Smoothly. Not straight, but across. She wouldn’t have wiped out on the third ride I witnessed if I hadn’t been in the way, almost frozen, surprised by a wave face so thin and clean I still swear I could see through it.
I let my board go, upside down, broach to the waves, and chased down hers. When I pushed it back toward her, she said, “It’s you.”
“Me?” I had to look at her and reimagine the moments immediately before she spoke. She was wading toward me. She pushed the hair away from both sides of her face. She looked toward the beach. She looked back. Her eyes were green and seemed, somehow, as transparent as I had imagined the waves to be. “It’s you.”
“No. No, I’m… not… Who are you?”
“Someone who stays away from cops… And their kids.” She wasn’t going to thank me for grabbing her board. “Surfing isn’t easy, you know. All the real surfer guys are assholes.” She turned, threw herself onto her board, and started paddling. “I’d give it up If I were you.”
“Assholes,” I said as I retrieved my board. “I’m a well-known asshole.” I walked and pushed and paddled and made my way out to where the girl was sitting. She looked out to sea. She looked toward the shore. It was a lull, too long for her not to turn toward me as I attempted to knee paddle.
“We can’t be friends, Junior,” she said.
“No? What about when I… get to the point where I surf way better than you? Still, no?”
The girl turned away again. Not at long this time. “You coming back tomorrow?”
“No. Sunday. Church. My mom… We… Church.”
“Church,” she said. “My mom and I… Well, me; I… surf.”
The girl paddled over and pushed me off my board. The first wave of a set took it in. She turned and caught the next wave. I watched her from behind it. Graceful. “Julia Cole,” I said, loud enough for her to hear. “Your friends call you Julie.” I said that to myself.
CHAPTER THREE- SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1968
My nine-six Surfboards Hawaii pintail was on the Falcon’s rust and chrome factory racks. I was headed along Neptune, from Grandview to Moonlight Beach. The bluff side of Neptune was either garage or gate and fence, or hedge, tight to the road. There were few views of the water. I was, no doubt, smiling, remembering something from that morning’s session.
There had been six surfers at the outside lineup, the preferred takeoff spot. They all knew each other. If one of them hadn’t known about me, the asshole detective’s son, others had clued him in. There was no way the local crew and acceptable friends would allow me to catch a set wave. No; maybe a wave all of them missed or none of them wanted. Or one would act as if he was going to take off any wave I wanted, just to keep me off it.
As the first one in the water, I had surfed the peak, had selected the wave I thought might be the best of a set. Three other surfers came out. Okay. Three more surfers came out. Sid was one of them. I knew who Sid was. By reputation. A set wave came in. I had been waiting. I was in position. It was my wave. I took off. Sid took off in front of me, ten yards over. I said something like, “Hey!”
Rather than speed down the line or pull out, Sid stalled. It was either hit him or bail. I bailed. Sid said, “Hey!” Louder. He looked at me, cranked a turn at the last moment. He made the wave. I swam.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, back at the lineup. The four other surfers there were laughing with Sid.
“Wrong, Junior; you broke the locals rule.” Sid pointed to the lefts, the waves perceived as not being as good, on the other side of a real or imagined channel. “Local’s rule. Get it?” Trying to ignore the taunts of the others, I caught an insider and moved over.
After three lefts, surfed, I believed, with a certain urgency and a definite aggression, I prone-paddled back to the rights, tacking back and forth. A wave was approaching, a decently sized set wave. I wanted it.
“Outside!” I yelled, loud enough that four surfers, including Sid, started paddling for the horizon. I paddled at an angle, lined up the wave at the peak. Though the takeoff was late, I made the drop, rode the wave into the closeout section, pulling off the highest roller coaster I had ever even attempted.
There had been no outside set. I kept my back turned to the water as I exited, not daring to look up at the surfers on the bluff, hooting and pointing. I did look up for a moment as I grabbed my towel, my keys and wallet and cigarettes rolled up in it, tromped up the washout to Neptune Avenue, trying not to smile.
Driving, almost to Moonlight Beach, a late fifties model Volkswagen bus, two-tone, white over gray, was blocking the southbound lane. Smoke was coming out of the open engine compartment. Black smoke. Three teenagers were standing behind the bus: Two young men, Duncan Burgess and Rincon Ronny, on the right side, one young woman, Monica, on the left.
There was more room on the northbound side. I pulled over, squeezed out between the door and someone’s bougainvillea hedge, and walked into the middle of the street, fifteen feet behind the van. “Can I help?”
Duncan, Ronny, and Monica were dressed as if they had surfed but were going to check somewhere else: Nylon windbreakers, towels around their waists. Duncan’s and Monica’s jackets were different, but both were red with white, horizontal stripes that differed in number and thickness. Ronny was wearing a dark blue windbreaker with a white, vertical strip, a “Yater” patch sewn on. Each of the three looked at me, and looked back at each other, then at the smoking engine. The movement of their heads said, “No.”
Someone stepped out of an opening in the hedge on the bluff side of the road, pretty much even with me. I was startled. I took three sideways steps before I regained my balance.
Julia Cole. Perfectly balanced. She was wearing an oversized V-neck sweater that almost covered boys’ nylon trunks. Her legs were bare, tan, her feet undersized for the huarache sandals she was wearing. She looked upset, but more angry than sad. But then… she almost laughed. I managed a smile.
“It’s you,” she said. It was. Me. “Are you a mechanic?” I shook my head, took another step toward the middle of the road, away from her. “An Angel?” Another head shake, another step. She took two more steps toward me. We were close. She seemed to be studying me, moving her head and eyes as if she might learn more from an only slightly different angle.
I couldn’t continue to study Julia Cole. I looked past her. Her friends looked at her, then looked at each other, then looked, again, at the subsiding smoke and the growing pool of oil on the pavement. “We saw what you did,” she said. I turned toward her. “From the bluff.” Her voice was a whisper when she added, “Outside,” the fingers of her right hand out, but twisting, pulling into her palm, little finger first, as her hand itself twisted. “Outside,” she said again, slightly louder.
“Oh,” I said. “It… worked.”
“Once. Maybe Sid… appreciated it.” She shook her head. “No.”
I shook my head. “Once.” I couldn’t help focusing on Julia Cole’s eyes. “I had to do it.”
“Of course.” By the time I shifted my focus from Julia Cole’s face to her right hand, it had become a fist, soft rather than tight. “Challenge the… hierarchy.”
I had no response. Julia Cole moved her arm slowly across her body, stopping for a moment just under the parts of her sweater dampened by her bathing suit top. Breasts. I looked back into her eyes for the next moment. Green. Translucent. She moved her right hand, just away from her body, up. She cupped her chin, thumb on one cheek, fingers lifting, pointer finger first, drumming, pinkie finger first. Three times. She pulled her hand away from her face, reaching toward me. Her hand stopped. She was about to say something.
“Julie!” It was Duncan. Julie, Julia Cole didn’t look around. She lowered her hand and took another step closer to me. In a ridiculous overreaction, I jerked away from her.
“I was going to say, Junior…” Julia was smiling. I may have grinned. Another uncontrolled reaction. “I could… probably… if you were an… attorney.”
“I’m not… Not… yet.”
Julia Cole loosened the tie holding her hair. Sun-bleached at the ends, dirty blonde at the roots. She used the fingers of both hands to straighten it.
“I can… give you a ride… Julia… Cole.”
“Look, Fallbrook…” It was Duncan. Again. He walked toward us, Julia Cole and me. “We’re fine.” He extended a hand toward Julia. She did a half-turn, sidestep. Fluid. Duncan kept looking at me. Not in a friendly way. He put his right hand on Julia Cole’s left shoulder.
Julia Cole allowed it. She was still smiling, still studying me when I asked, “Phone booth? There’s one at… I’m heading for Swamis.”
A car come up behind me. I wasn’t aware. Rincon Ronny and Monica watched it. Duncan backed toward the shoulder. Julia and I looked at each other for another moment. “You really should get out of the street… Junior.”
“Joey,” I said. “Joey.”
She could have said, “Julie.” Or “Julia.” She said neither. She could have said, “Joey.”
No one got a ride. I checked out Beacons and Stone Steps and Swamis. I didn’t surf. The VW bus was gone when I drove back by. Dirt from under someone’s hedge was scattered over the oil, some of it seeping through.
ANNIE FERGERSON ‘ERWIN’ documentary news- There have been problems with getting access to the little film featuring some old coot on the Strait. HERE is the link, though I don’t know exactly how to make it an actual link: https:/vimeo.com/nicranium/review/982855582/42dd5c63de TRIED IT. IT WORKED.
Thanks for reading. AND, uh, not that I’m political, but I have done a couple of kind of political drawings recently. I forgot to transfer these from my phone before I got going. I MIGHT stick them out into the cosmos later in the week. Otherwise, next Sunday…
OBLIGATORY INFO- All original work, writing and art, are copyright protected. All rights reserved by Erwin A. Dence, Jr Thanks for respecting this; get some waves… or, get an e-foil.
It’s a sort of positive for me that the summer drought on the Strait of Juan de Fuca coincides with painting season. More like consolation, with even driving to the coast not a guarantee of finding waves. Busy now, it gets crazier in September when people start panicking about getting their castle dolled-up before the rains start getting more consistent. Finding time to devote to my other passions, including drawing and writing, becomes more challenging.
BUT I do have time while scraping and painting and second-coating to think, THINKING, IMAGINING being the most crucial component in each of these activities. Imagine what the drawing COULD look like, imagine WHAT I want to convey.
IT’S A PROCESS. Not dissimilar to house painting, actually. To use the project I am currently working on as an examlple, the homeowner has a vision of what she wants her Victorian home to look like; I have my own ideas. A few color changes later, we do it her way,. with eventual agreement that it works AND it’s what the person paying me wants.
SO… I prep and paint, and it’s never one coat of any color. I paint, and then TIGHTEN UP the paint, picking up missed spots (‘holidays’ in the vernacular), making sure the transitions are crisp and clean, the result being a job I can be proud of and the client will both pay me for and recommend me to others because I did it (right).
BRIEF SURFING INTERJECTION- Having missed one opportunity summer surf, and being pissed because I could have gone and didn’t, I did get a few waves recently. Just enough, with passing fancy rigs with boards on them on a daily basis along SURF ROUTE 101, to cause me to want more. MORE.
TIGHTENING. I am going to a memorial later today for a person I have been bumping into for years on the PORT TOWNSEND. I have a story I told his widow I would tell, and I’m going to try to write it out rather than ramble on in some fashion that might embarrass the others as well as me.
BUT FIRST, “SWAMIS,” the novel I’ve been thinking about, writing, rewriting, tightening for way too long. Having thought about how I needed to tighten a SCENE with the protagonist, JOEY, and the closest character to an antagonist, BRICE LANGDON, I tried to devote a bit of time to it yesterday, but got an urgent text: THE floor guys didn’t show up, could I PLEASE do some painting. PRAYER EMOJI. Shit! Fuck! I made the changes, pulled out the thumb drive. The emergency painting and looking at another project pretty much did the day in. OH, and then thunder and lightening; the weather kind. I went to bed and did not get up early… enough.
ORIGINAL ERWIN NEWS- I paid back some seed money I was loaned by local master builder/climber/skier/hiker/all kinds of other stuff, JIM HAMILTON; the money intended for my investment in getting some t shirts going, which, four months later, I did. Most are gone now. Thanks, Jim. BUT, DWAYNE at D&L LOGOS has been working on a FULL COLOR DESIGN, and I am SOOOO excited to see the results.
DWAYNE did some digital editing and had eight of the image printed up. They are heat-transferred, in a modern, way-better version of the hated ‘iron on’ process. I have to wait to see what the my cost will be. SEVERAL are already promised. WE’LL SEE. I will get back to you on it.
IN A NOT-UNRELATED STORY, I showed my most recent illustration to the clients I met with yesterday, friends of ANNIE FERGERSON, the woman behind the recent documentary about, you know, me. NOW, I REALLY BELIEVED folks would have to have a copy. I had forty printed up, two sizes. I have 38 left, BUT, hey, sales is not what I’m good at.
Although I haven’t given them an estimate, I did get a text back saying, “this would make a great t shirt.” “Open for discussion,” I texted back. I should have included the PRAYER EMOJI, way more convincing when the two hands come together. WE’LL SEE.
ADDING TOO MUCH CONTENT to make the best use of my semi-free minute, here is a poem/song I’ve been working on. THE PROCESS is, again, the IDEA- overhearing a conversation about you; the FIRST DRAFT- this includes singing verses, trying out rhymes. This takes some time; usually when driving to or from a job; harmonica to see if there is a tune. It has to flow. And repetition to make sure I have it memorized. WRITING- Putting it on the thumb drive. REWRITING, EDITING, CHANGING- making sure it tells the story. TIGHTENING, TIGHTENING, TIGHTENING.
AGAIN, THIS is an imagined scene. Fiction. Maybe it’s a song I’ll never sing in public, a poem I’ll never recite; I don’t know; I wrote it and it’s part of the driving song collection, along with favorites by others, the result of many years of song writing.
I HAVE TO GO, and I still have to write something about the late PETER BADAME. Get some waves, huh? See you on the highway. OH, and I do claim and reserve all rights to my work, so…
A PRIVATE CONVERSATION
an excerpt from some longer story
It was a private conversation, words I was not yet meant to hear,
Thought I’d surprise you at the station, couldn’t have known that I was near.
Your words and tears shared with a stranger, someone you’ve met along the line,
I should have known this was a danger, if I did not the fault is mine,
I’m sorry, so sorry.
You spoke of time apart and sorrow, now… I could barely hear your voice,
You said that love’s something we borrow, said freedom is a frightening choice.
You spoke of hope and disappointment, small victories, great tragedy,
In all the time we’ve been together, you never disappointed me.
Not ever, not ever.
I saw the touch, though at a distance, saw how your fingers were entwined,
You didn’t put up much resistance, offered a kiss, you did decline.
That’s when I walked out of the station, this is my last apology,
You should need no more explanation, perhaps we’ve set each other free.
It’s frightening… so frightening.
But that’s another conversation, a private conversation, a very frightening conversation,
A private conversation
This version: August 9, 2024. Some changes August 17, August 18, 2024. AND YES, I did make a couple of changes after I put it on this page. FLOW.
http://www.allproreels.com — Washington Football Team vs. Seattle Seahawks from FedEx Field, November 29th, 2021 (All-Pro Reels Photography)
…decided I wouldn’t watch the Seahawks; at least not the pre-season. NOW, part of this is, I admiot, because Pete and I are the same age. I might be a couple of weeks older. ALSO, fellow Boomer from the summer of 1951, TOM BURNS, told me he ran into Petey in the parking lot at Westport a few years ago. “WAIT,” Peter surfs?” “Yeah. He coached at USC. So, yeah. I didn’t make a deal out of it. He asked me if it was good. I said, ‘Well, Pete; here’s the thing… It’s Westport.'”
TRISH, huge Seahawks fan, though she can’t watch a game if her team is less than three touchdowns ahead (or so), agreed with me that the corporate overlords did P.C. (just testing some nicknames) dirty by dropping him for some younger dude, and agreed that she wasn’t going to be interested… BUT THEN, yesterday, she starts texting me about how this guy got a touchdown, this guy got an interception.
BUT NOW, a day later, today, TRISH had some cruel commentary on the new coach. “Man boobs. Eyeliner.” WHOA! “What’s his name again, Trish?” “I don’t know. It’s not Pete.”
“No.”
DOG DAYS, FOG DAYS- I’ve been scanning the cameras and computers looking for signs of surf on the STRAIT. NOPE. Not yet. I could go to the coast, perhaps, and… I am a bit tired of saying, “Next time, I’m going.” But, yeah; I’m saying it again. “Next time for sure.” It is house painting season, however; though I’d sneak out if there was a chance. Oh, I mean a better chance of waves.
NOT THAT I’M POLITICAL, BUT… I didn’t have the time, but I wanted to do a drawing of Don, Junior looking all, possibly, allegedly, occasionally coked-up, and saying something like, “I’m hoping Big Daddy’ll say I can be in charge of the DEA and, oh, yeah, that’d be so… sa-weeet!”
Don don’t surf. Hopefully you’re getting some waves.
I’ve got to work on some writing. “SWAMIS” is not done. As with surfing, I have been thinking about a few changes I should make.
There may be more corrections and updates before the FOURTH OCCASIONAL SURF CULTURE ON THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA AND THE SALISH SEA EVENT, Wednesday, July 17, 6 to 8 pm, Port Townsennd Public Library.
Additions and clarifications:
“MERCURY VELVET” RICO’s last name is MOORE. Rico will be reading or reciting original poetry (because he said he would) at the EVENT.
JOHN HOLM will be adding some of his paintings in with a mix of the works of other local artists. Here’s a sample and a borrowed bio of John, who lives in Seattle and/or Port Townsend. To be clarified… later.
John fell in love with the ocean at a young age, living on the North Shore of Oahu. He learned to surf in Santa Cruz in the 60’s, while studying advertising at Art Center. Here he experienced the boom of the surf craze firsthand. After graduating, John became a Navy pilot and took in more beautiful surf and coastline while he was stationed in Monterey. A thirty-year career in advertising then took him to New York and later to Seattle, where he currently resides. He’s back to doing what he loves these days: painting and surfing. John’s early memories of the ocean and So Cal surf culture are strong influences on his work. The impressionistic style of his art captures movement and the intense connection of the surfer and the wave. He moves beyond the literal “perfect wave” and straight into the soul of surfing. John’s paintings have appeared in “Surfer’s Journal” and are available at “Club of the Waves” online.
OKAY. Check realsurfers.net on Wednesday. There will be at least one update, probably more.
Definitely more. I’m going to post a photo of the latest limited edition ORIGINAL ERWIN t shirt design, like, tomorrow night or Tuesday morning, AND I will have more information on the WORLD PREMIERE of the documentary KEITH DARROCK, local ripper, librarian, and curator of the event said should be called, “Villain.” I’m supposed to get a sneak peek, AND I do want to give proper credit to the producers.
MEANWHILE… “I was still… thinking.” Chuck Berry, “Little Queenie.”
It’s the big Sunday edition. FIRST, a reminder that the FOURTH OCCASIONAL SURF CULTURE ON THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA AND THE SALISH SEA EVENT is coming up on Wednesday, July 17, 6-8pm, Port Townsend Public Library. Special guests, art, and an emphasis on ‘TALKING STORY.’
BABIES- Ripper Mikel ‘Squintz’ Cumiskey, seemingly ping-ponging between Florida, the Pacific Northwest, and the Big Island (currently), and his wife, Kelsey (sp), had a second child. Since Mike sent texts to every surfer on his contact lists, it seems it might be worth spreading the word farther. It might have been, you know, nice if he had included more info, but… yeah, congratulations!
CoinciDENCES
My sister, Suellen, masterminded a reunion of her brothers and sisters in Long Beach, Washington, near Chinook, the last place our father lived, and meant to coincide with what would have been ERWIN ALLEN DENCE, SENIOR’S one hundredth birthday. He had every intent to make it to this landmark, but, having survived World War II, Korea, eight children and three wives, he did not. Our sister, Melissa, passed on several years ago, and the thought is this might be the last chance the rest of us have to see each other.
If it had all worked out perfectly. It did not. I had a short window of availability and missed seeing my brothers Jonathan and Philip. I did see Suellen, Mary Jane, and our youngest brother, Edwin (who assures me that, no, Erwin and Edwin are not variations of the same name… as in, ‘I’m Darrell, this is my brother, Daryl, and my other brother, Derrell.’)
Edwin lives most of the year in the “Chinook House,” and has done extensive remodeling on the place a block from Surf Route 101 (on which I live 290 plus miles away by the “Loop,” much, much closer via McCleary Cutoff), a block from the Columbia River. Chinook is the closest town on the Washington side to the Astoria Bridge. I made some (not enough) trips down when our father was alive, almost always heading over to Seaside (or Short Sands) for a few waves.
It is nice to have a place to stay down that way. There was a tradition of Peninsula surfers heading down when a northwest swell just isn’t happening, and, of course, ever friendly, ever sharing Seaside locals heading up to the Strait of Juan de Fuca when there is some rumor of, you know, waves. The friendliness, stay-at-a-friend’s-house factor may have deteriorated somewhat over the years.
I did, of course, as is my tradition, trek over to Seaside while down there. I had some notion that I might find a used SUP to back up my dinged-to-shit Hobie. Enough so that I didn’t bring it. I did check out the Cove and the Point. Northwest wind, weak swell, no one in the water two days before the fourth of July. Disappointing. Similar conditions on the Strait would probably have enticed surfers to attempt surfing.
Neither shop in Seaside had SUPs designed for surfing. “We have some of the… flat water kind. It’s just not that popular here.” Nor do they, possibly, wish it to be.
Because I had taken off so early and had plans to meet my siblings at the Pig N’ Pancake in Astoria, I hung around the shops a bit longer than I ordinarily would, eventually purchasing a t shirt from each; one for grandson, Tristen, and one for his son, Zander, due to come down on the Fourth with my daughter, Dru, our ex-daughter-in-law, Karrie, Tristen, his wife Aisha (sp?), and their daughter (complicated- Trish keeps track for me), and take over the room Suellen had set up for me at the RESORT (time share).
WHEN I go into a surf shop, I have always, and evidently still do feel like a KOOK. I did admit that to the three salespeople behind the counter, adding that if one works at a surf shop, one is, one, automatically cool, and two, automatically assumed to be a great surfer. They all nodded.
I had already talked to the guy in that group, 26 years old and self-identified as a Seaside resident. He said he is all right with the tourists and, of course, if the Point is pumping, he can, by status or skill level, join the local rippers hanging out in a private lot partway up, allowing locals the position to encourage interlopers to not take photos and to surf the Cove. Or go home. “Nothing too serious.”
“Of course not,” I said, recounting how I was yelled at for paddling past a local (for a look, only- I swear). “If you think the locals are… serious… here, it’s nothing like the localism on the Strait.”
To those of you who are… serious; you’re welcome.
With time, still, to kill, I went to the Costco in Warrington to pick up a watermelon for Suellen, some ground coffee (because I’m too cheap or stubborn to buy from a stand), and a Costco-sized container of Churros/donut holes, the intention being to turn them over to Dru and the crew from Idaho (yeah, Idaho- our son, James, went to college there, and stayed). I didn’t. I finished the last churro yesterday.
ANYWAY, the parking lot at the Costco is huge, and I could not remember where I parked the Volvo, exactly, so I headed out for the farthest reaches. No Volve, but I did start chatting with another self-identified lifelong local, a woman probably in her late fifties, of course, trying to separate myself from the Costco-sized tourists, mentioning that my had father lived in Chinook.
“We all surf here,” she said. “Probably started about eighth grade.”
“Oh, that’s about when I started board surfing.”
It isn’t so remarkable that I ran into someone in a legitimate surf town who surfed or surfs (and I’m always ready to make some surfing connection with anyone I meet). What is worthy of note is that, if she was behind the counter, or a customer, at a surf shop, I would totally believe she, one, surfs, and two, surfs well. I’m always disappointed in myself when I miss an opportunity to take a picture. It, of course, last longer. I did get a couple of shots at the Astoria Pig N’ Pancake.
LEFT TO RIGHT: A possibly exasperated or exhausted (it was between breakfast and lunch crowds) waitperson; me; Suellen’s grandson, Yurick (sp?); my brother, ED; brother-in-law, Stan; sisters Mary Jane (Janie) and Suellen. I’m sort of questioning whether to use this photo. In real life, Edwin is way bigger than me, and what’s the deal with my serious expression? I should add that Suellen did surf and, in fact, got me involved in board surfing, BUT, if any of us showed up in a surf shop…
DRU AND THE CREW did make it back from the coast late last night. I have to process all the adventures. All of them love the coast. Well. Yeah.
T SHIRTS: I will definitely have more on the upcoming EVENT later in the week. I will have some ORIGINAL ERWIN T-shirts available. AGAIN, More, later.
Real Surfers 