Tag Archives: surfing

A (Revised) Last Look at the Second Occasional Surf Culture Event- and A Bit on Drew Kampion and Something on Author Justin Hocking

Posted on by under northwest surfing, old surfers, Port townsend surfing, real surfers, surf adventures, surf culture events, surfing in Washington State, surfing Southern California in the 60s, surfing the strait of juan de fuca, Uncategorized

Alienating Drew Kampion is something that sits high on my worry list; right up there with being called a Kook or a Hodad (first I was thinking young surf punks who don’t appreciate the experience and innate coolness of someone who has been surfing for, forever- but then I really mean anyone, even if I’ve done something Hodad-ish or Kook-like). Mr. Kampion is held in a rare position in the surfing community. While surfers like Miki Dora and Greg Noll are admired for living a lifestyle unavailable to those of us who love adventure yet opt for some sense of security, and other surfers are noted for gloriously blazing and tragically (but, maybe predictably) burning-out, Drew Kampion has kept a toe in the waters and an eye on the changes in the surfing world since the evolution/revolution in the mid-to-late 1960s, pushing “Surfer” into new-age journalism while most of us were cutting old boards down and sticking one hand in the wave to duplicate some controlled sideslip we saw in the magazine. It would be pretty difficult to find a surf-related book without a forward or comment or endorsement by Drew Kampion. Or written by him.

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It was with great excitement that Port Townsend Librarian Keith Darrock was able to persuade Drew to come over from Whidbey Island for the first Surf Culture on the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Salish Sea Event. This photo is from the second time I ever met the legend in person. When I first met him, last time, I said, “My only hope is that this isn’t all too cheesy.” “Have no fear,” he said, “I live in the cheese.”

Well, there’s cheese and there’s cheese. As I mentioned, I’m fortunate enough to be included in a group receiving a weekly email featuring a poem by Walt Whitman. I always write back something long, frequently something about the latest surf trek to the wilds of the Olympic Peninsula; sometimes a rant. I get back (thrilled to get anything back) some terse and brilliant.  I may never reach brilliant… or terse, but I am grateful to not be called out as a poser/kook/hodad; but if I did get called out, I’d have to believe it.

REVISION/NEW MATERIAL- Just to show there were younger folks at the event, and because he was the keynote speaker, I had to get back to this to say something about Justin Hocking, author of “The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld.” Just this last weekend I ran into someone on the Strait who, like Justin, surfed Rockaway Beach in New York State.  Connection? Because Justin spent some time in Colorado, and because Stephen Davis was raised there, and because Stephen read his book before Mr. Hocking was invited to speak, and was impressed by it, Steve sort of grabbed (someone more sophisticated than I would say ‘button-holed’) the author during the after-presentation part of the program; and then I attacked him, interrogated him. “San Diego, huh… what part?” “Well, and this affected my skateboarding verses surfing; it was mostly geographical.” It turns out he lived in La Jolla for a while, then, when his father remarried, moved inland. “Not to, like, El Cajon?” “Yes. El Cajon.”

It explains a lot.  Stephen wanted to buy a book. I wanted a book. I had money, but someone else gave Steve enough for two books. “Steve, I can buy my own book.” “No, I’m buying you one.” Slightly more aggressive, maybe, than Stephen, Justin was busy writing something on mine when Keith came up, saying he wanted a book. He was out of books, but I still had some money, and bought one for Keith, offering some extra money for shipping. In my mind, it all kind of evened-out, and, anyway, I have my personalized copy.

So, what I’d like to say is, as always, there are connections, if we attack/interrogate/converse with someone enough to find them. I know this book isn’t the end of Justin’s work; I know attending cheesy gatherings and such activities is important to the promotion process; but, in the same way I hope for the best for those who are daring enough to pursue a career in the dangerous world of art and literature, like surfer/artists Todd Fischer and Jesse Watson, I would like to think Justin’s ride will find success. Go, Justin!

Hocking,Justin(AnnaCaitlinHarris)

A legend on the Strait, TIm Nolan. Google "Tim Nolan and the Wave of the Day" for more. It's somewhere in the realsurfers.net archives. Still dominates.

A legend on the Strait, TIm Nolan. Google “Tim Nolan and the Wave of the Day” for more. It’s somewhere in the realsurfers.net archives. Still dominates. Oh, and check out the paintings in the background by Stephen Davis (center) and Todd Fischer.

part of the crowd at the event

part of the crowd at the event. Hey, there were some younger folks, also. No, really. That’s Stephen Davis with the man-bunn.

Singing and Surfing and Remembering and Not Remembering, In Reverse Order

Posted on by under mind surfing, northwest surfing, old surfers, Port townsend surfing, real surfers, secret surf spots on the Straits of Juan de Fuca, surf adventures, surf culture events, surfing Southern California in the 60s, surfing the strait of juan de fuca, Uncategorized, writings of Erwin Dence

The Second Occasional Surf Culture On the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Salish Sea Event is coming up in Port Townsend on July 11. I’ve been working on several things for it. One item is music. For the first event, Archie Endo, now stuck in Thailand, working, some surfing, brought a little amp, played surf music. Great idea (his), and really added to the evening. This time, Pete Raab is putting together a sort of mixed tape from his huge music collection, with classic surf instrumentals and some island-themed ‘ambient’ music. Thanks, Pete.

My evil scheme was to have Pete (and he was willing) sneak two of my original surf songs without informing event curator Keith Darrock. That’s the evil part.  I originally recorded the only two strictly surf-related songs I’ve written at a former Theater in Quilcene (right on Surf Route 101) with the help of longtime professional sound engineer Tom Brown of HearHere, with me playing harmonica and singing. Pete was doing a surf music show on the Port Townsend radio station, 91.9, KPTZ, along with his old friend, and former music store owner, Ron McElroy, and graciously incorporated one of my tunes, “I Just Wanna Go Surfin’.” The other song is “Surf Route 101.” Naturally.

But, here’s the failure: Pete couldn’t find his copy, I couldn’t find mine (and searched frantically), and Tom Brown, after checking, determined the digital recording is somewhere on a dead computer.

Oh, and although I’m willing to read the piece I’ve been doing more thinking about that working on, concerning the images and memories we save, I won’t perform music live at this event. A sigh of relief might be appropriate here. Not that I’m embarrassed by my harp playing or the lyrics…

But, thinking about music, and singing, I wrote to my old friend Ray. You have to read it bottom to top. I do think it was him with the Monkees tape.

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NO way, I never owned a Monkeys tape, you must have me confused with somebody else I swear.

From: ERWIN
Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:28 AM
To: Ray Hicks

Ray, have a good time on vacation. I checked back before leaving; glad to see a response. I’ll be working until dark anyway (9ish). I do remember you once telling me that the best song ever done was the Cream song…. wait, was it ‘white room with white curtains at the station,’ or, no, I think that was it.  Otherwise, “driving in my car, smoking my cigar, the only time I’m happy’s when I play my guitar.” Join in anytime. Now I better go. And, hey, that was probably enough gas to get home, to school, wherever… See you, Erwin
I am pressed for time, so I might use this on my site, not mentioning that you had a Monkees tape, or that I liked some of their songs also.

From: “Ray Hicks”
To: ERWIN
Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:14:06 AM

HI Erwin,

Not in Hawaii yet. Today is my last day before starting vacation but we don’t leave until Thursday. I’ve never been much on lyrics, to this day I hear the voice as another instrument rather than a method of delivering poetry or storytelling.  My loss according to Carol. I do remember the ‘fruit of the vine’ song though. The music that brings back surf memories to me is Cream. When I hear some of those songs I am taken back to driving down the coast highway cruising by the camp grounds in South Carlsbad with an eight track player under the dash. I listen to the Sirius radio classic stations now and hear that music all of the time. Occasionally I’m driving down the coast highway when I’m So Glad comes on the radio and it really takes me back. I also hear the Doors often and still love it. Other than classic rock I listen to the blues. I just love the B B King channel on Sirius Radio.

I remember one occasion of us surfing at Swami’s  then coming up starving and thirsty, buying something to eat at the liquor store in the middle of Encinitas then buying gas for your Morris Minor in Carlsbad with the left over change. Maybe 26 or 27 cents worth.

The only music I associate with Phillip is Jethro Tull because he introduced me to them, still one of my favorites.

Ray

From: ERWIN
Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 8:08 AM
To: Ray Hicks
Ray,
not sure if you’re in Hawaii right now. I almost called you yesterday. I’m working on a thing for the surf culture event on surfing images we keep in our memory banks. The idea is, if we think of surfing as something magical, and we can conjure these (I was originally thinking only visual) images, allowing us to ‘mind surf’ when we can’t actually surf; this is kind of magical.
That got me thinking that my memories of my high school surfing adventures include fewer actual surfing images (maybe because I seem to concentrate on my own surfing rather than noticing that of others) than images of you and Phillip and the other assorted characters going to or from the beach, hanging out around various fires. Mostly pleasant memories, maybe with five of us in the back of a CHP cruiser less pleasant, but, overall, good images. Jeez, we were going to, at, or coming home from surfing.
So, as I was driving an hour to a job, I started thinking about songs we used to sing cruising around town or going surfing. Maybe we were in cars (like mine) that didn’t have radios; maybe we had only AM radios with the pop stations the best we could get.  This line of thinking might have been helped along because the local Port Townsend radio station played the Doors cover of the song with the lyrics, “Show me the way to the next whiskey bar; oh, don’t ask why…” followed by something about “Whiskey, let me go home.” A theme, evidently; and I was trying to remember the song that seemed to be one of Phillip’s favorites, without much luck. A few miles later I pulled (from the brain archives) out a few lines. “Bottle of wine, fruit of the vine; when you gonna let me get sober? Leave me alone, let me go home, let me go home and start over.” It took a few more miles before I remembered, “Pain in my head, there’s bugs in my bed, my pants are so old that they shine; out on the street, I tell the people I meet, to buy me a bottle of wine.”
I’m not even sure if those lyrics are fit together correctly. Perhaps you remember. Oh, and my singing hasn’t improved a bit. If we were going surfing together and I started singing, I’m sure you’d still reach for the radio control knob, whether the radio works or not.
The other, and real point of the thing I’m working on is that if we keep trying to remember, we keep the connections straighter, and if we keep surfing, we’re always refreshing our image files. More to conjure.
Writing this actually helps in writing the real piece, keeps me away from a couple of peripherals.
I’m in the usual summer position of too much work, not enough time, and no rain in sight. Luckily, perhaps, the waves are really small. Hopefully you’ve managed to slide a few. See you, Erwin

album-monkeesthe_doors_-_waiting_for_the_sun_acreamMI0001564294.jpg-partner=allrovi

Tom Paxton wrote the “Bottle of Wine” song, but we probably heard the version by the Kingston Trio. White people. Oh, but, when we sang it, it was  sort of another contest, who could sing it with the most soul, raspiest voice… you know, another thing to compete in. Guess who usually won? And that’s why someone (else) always reached for the radio control knob. Oh, and maybe it was someone else with the Monkees tape. hey, hey!

High-Lining Again

Posted on by under getting barrelled, northwest surfing, real surfers, secret surf spots on the Straits of Juan de Fuca, surf sessions, surf stories, surfing in Washington State, surfing Southern California in the 60s, surfing tales, surfing Trestles in the 70s

I just kind of stared at the title for a bit too long. It could say more, or, maybe it says enough.

You have to love the waves you don’t think you’ll make, ones on which you’d like just a little more speed out of your board. You’re trimming high on the wall, focused only on the wave ahead and below you, and it’s only getting hollower; and you know that section ahead, that last pitch before you can glide; it breaks, explodes, really, on river rocks, round, smooth; no oversized chunkers; cobblestones; and you’ve already been caught in that shallow trap, board dropping out and down as the lip hit you; you’ve already pirouetted and half-twisted and leaped toward the open ocean, and been thrashed, bounced off that reef, your board going over you in inches of water.

And you made some. Easy. Too easy; you must have been too far out in front.

Blacks photo by Matt Aden

Blacks photo by Matt Aden

“Again” is really all you’re thinking; “This time…” Maybe you’ll crouch, hand in the wave face, tight, ready.

This time you might make be in that perfect spot. More speed. You take off at an angle, too far over, probably, project out of a down the line bottom turn, and find that high line again. Speed; you need more. You see the ribs of the wave ahead, the already-pitching lip. More speed. You don’t tuck in; but you move your weight forward, subtly pumping, just tweaking the angle. If you weren’t holding your breath, you are now. No, you’re ready to scream, success or failure; this is where you always wanted to be; that high line between… between frightening and thrilling.

The board skitters, no way it would hold in the thin lip; it side slips down the curve, you in the curtain, trying to stay on, your back hand pushed farther behind you, focus still on the deep water ahead, and…

…and now you’re laughing, and not thinking of anything else but… “Again!”

This piece was inspired by my last session, able, by luck and tide, to find and surf some rights, rare in the Straits of Juan de Fuca; no, not the pitching sand-spitters featured a few posts down, but something in preparation, maybe, for those. I’m dying to surf those, maybe not quite ready. I’m more ready now.  I was fortunate enough to work up the hill from Trestles for ten months in 1975, and, remember well telling my friend Phillip Harper, on the phone (he was in medical school at the time) that I would get going so fast down the line that I’d pull up to the top of the wave and my board (and I) would freefall, catch, and the process would be repeated. However, forty years later, I should admit that I pulled a few tight waves standing, but, probably the ride I’ll remember longest, the ride the longest and the tightest, I was on my kneeboarding it after a very steep takeoff, and, eyes wide open, I was totally covered in that moment of weightlessness.

Okay, now I’m sort of staring into some file in my memory bank, hitting the ‘save’ button, and hoping you know exactly what I’m talking about. “Next time…”

How to ‘Water-Proof’ Your Child

Posted on by under northwest surfing, surf adventures, surf illustrations, surf sessions, surf stories, surfing tales, Uncategorized

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“Daddy, is that what will happen to me if I go in the (pointing) ocean?”

“Well, yes; it could. I mean, no, no; that sea lion was probably old and… The ocean (pointing) is a dangerous place and…”

“Will a seagull (pointing at the carcass) bite my eyeballs out?”

“No. No. Probably not. Usually some… (fluttering his eyes) small fish will…”

“But… (points) you go in the ocean; and you don’t get eaten.”

“Well, yes; but that’s because… (points to himself) I…”

“Do you have… (puffs out his chest, strikes pose) super powers? I mean, when you put on your costume, and…”

“Super? Well; sometimes… (puffs chest, strikes several surfing poses) I get a super ride; a head dip or, um, three; but usually…”

“I want a blue and red costume when I get super powers. Okay? Oh, and, Daddy; you know… (walks closer) you’ve just given me Post Twamatic Stwess Disorder… for life, and, someday, when I’m older, with or without my superpowers; I will have to sue you. (long pause, looking into each others’ eyes)          Oh, and about swimming in the pool, later; I won’t need the waterwings.  I’ll just watch.”

“No, no; watching’s good. You know I’m supposed to be watching you. Right? Well, if Daddy catches a few waves…”

“Sure, Daddy; But remember it when you give… (removes a glove for effect) your deposition. (smiles somewhat menacingly) Later. Much later.”

Thanks to Adam James for the photo, one of several from a recent James Family trip to the Long Beach Peninsula area of Washington State.

“Hey, So… WHAT’S YOUR DEAL?” Called Out In the Parking Lot

Posted on by under surf adventures, surf sessions, surf stories, surfing tales

Yeah, running around from side to side of my car, unhooking straps, grabbing wetsuit pieces, turning to comment (positively) on the glassy waves, and on the six surfers already out on the lefts (mostly negatively), I was called out by the young Port Angeles (I asked, he told me) in the driver’s seat of the little (as in not full or over-sized) white pickup that just pulled in beside me; called out for being over-enthusiastic, over-amped, over-coffee-ed, grumpy, and (I’m trying to imagine what I looked like), but, somewhere after I said I didn’t want to be one of those guys who gets all aggro over small waves… “but these waves are… (I may have hooted at this point)… I’m going to go after some rights, before…”

“Hey,” he said, with the emphasis, somehow, on each of the three words, “What’s YOUR Deal?” So, maybe the emphasis was mostly on the ‘your.’  My response was something like, “I’m old, I’m excited, I’m…” I guess he didn’t want to listen, or maybe the waves weren’t good enough, maybe he was heading to one of those fabled (or even, ‘secret’) Straits of Juan de Fuca spots farther west, and maybe six surfers already out this early on the lefts and me on the rights just didn’t seem too enticing; he backed out with me still ranting and running around the car, and pointing, and hooting, and…

“I’m old, and I’m… I’m just excited… just…”

Yes, it was what I was thinking about while (mostly clumsily) surfing the rights, the tide already a bit high, alone. Oh, I do long to be mellow, but I had wanted, somewhat desperately, to go the day before. Rumors of waves two feet bigger, glassy, maybe without that ‘wonk’ from overnight winds; phone calls of surfers hitting it three days in a row; the forecast showing a dropping swell on this day, the buoys showing a swell in that ‘iffy’ range, angle-wise, the ‘race’ (in my mind) with the SUV with two boards on top through Port Angeles, me in front, then “nooooo….” he was ahead  of me on Surf Route 101, then behind him all the way out on 112, until… “Oh!” He had to pull off, “Probably to whizz.” Ha! “Oh!” Yeah, now I had to pee. Desperately.

I barely made it, the SUV pulling in a few moments later. I had wanted to ask the driver why he had a “PB” decal on his back bumper, but now knew it was Dave, “Big Dave,” a grom in Pacific Beach when I moved there in 1971. Big Dave who rides an SUP as a regular board. And he was going to the lefts. I knew, when the tide got higher, the rights would go away and I’d be moving over to join the group on the lefts.

Knowing I, my promise to myself that I would surf until I was exhausted (or the waves were) and I would possibly add to the frustration of surfers who were not catching enough waves, I did paddle over after twenty or so unshared waves. I was actually kind of surprised when, paddling for my second wave (first being an insider everyone else missed), a long line outsider, no one challenged me, starting paddling for in down the line.

Later, when I mentioned this to Dave, he said he had overheard surfers grumbling that it had been mellow, but was getting ‘aggro.’ “You mean when I came over?” “Pretty much.” “Hmmm. Do I just look so intense?” “Yeah; guess so.” So, I apologized to several surfers as I passed them, looking for (yet) another set wave. And, on the beach, I told Rajah (hope the spelling’s right) that, “it’s exhausting being a dick.” He seemed to agree.

There’s more to this story, but you’re probably backing away, ready to move on, still not sure what my deal is. “Yeah, I’m just excited.”

The Ghost of Bill Birt

Posted on by under Uncategorized

             

We have a framed photo on our living room wall, a photo that survived a fire that destroyed our first home in the Northwest, near Dabob Bay in Quilcene, Washington. The photo features Trish, at our wedding, going down the aisle with her father. The image has definitely ‘ambered’ and darkened since November of 1971, but, there in the background, in profile, with his signature thick, black-framed glasses, is Bill Birt.

Actually, the pair of glasses would be truly Bill Birt-characteristic if they featured finger- dirtied medical tape at the bridge.

Now, and for years, though he was one of the first of my friends to pass on (and I’m not totally pleased with using a softer version of ‘to die,’ which he did, and tragically), somehow, Bill Birt hangs around, sort of a ghost.

Bill might laugh, too loudly, at that dumb little joke.

I have too many Bill Birt stories to tell here. There’s “The Bill Birt Shirt,” “Bill Birt and the Magic Lougie,” “Bill Birt and the Stream of Urine,” “Bill Birt’s Stolen Surf Racks,” “Bill Birt and the San Onofre Octopi,” “Bill Birt Talks to Girls,” “Bill Birt Tries Out (too many) Boards from the Surfboard’s Hawaii shop,” “Bill Birt Follows up the Psychedelicizing of the Senior Area with Vandalism,” “Not-Quite Ditching Bill Birt,” “Bill Birt Goes a Hundred mph,” “Bill Birt and the Three Fingers.”

WHAT I should mention is that William Birt, Jr. was one of my friends since first grade or so, and that most of the stories reveal him to be someone who so desperately wanted to be cool; at least cooler, at least as cool as the cooler among his classmates. This proved almost impossible for a guy who was bigger than his contemporaries, who had hair on his chest in the sixth grade; enough, as my comment at the time went, to seem to want to choke him. He always seemed to have a little wad of white spittle in one or both corners of his mouth. 

WHAT (and this was somewhat surprising to me) I became aware of as I started writing about Bill as another one of the guys who started surfing a year or so after I did, is that I was (and am) a (possibly) just-slightly-cooler version of Bill Birt; so desirous of the same things he wanted; to be part of some group. 

WHAT most of these stories have in common is that Bill Birt rarely filtered things that came into his mind before he spoke. And, in speaking, when most of us wanted to be present but sort of unnoticed (because each of us is aware that any grouping of teenagers reveals the often-cruel struggle to develop and maintain some sort of hierarchy), Bill spoke out.

This was brave, and, often, I was the beneficiary of some new insight. When Bill told a girl in the line at the snack trailer at school (really, ice cream and candy) when we were, probably, Juniors, that he had heard she and her boyfriend were now having sex, and she, sort of shyly, looking at both of our faces (my expression no doubt not containing the shock at the question and the anticipation of the answer), nodded.

“And how is it?”

“Billlllll.”  Long pause, during which her shocked expression turned to a (slightly wicked) smile.

WHAT our so-soon-after-high school and now long-broken circle of friends didn’t really grasp, is that, away from us, in other groupings, Bill found a wonderful girlfriend, got married, and achieved real success. Bill Birt was the youngest registered lobbyist in the State of California. And then, on some rain-slicked highway… this story isn’t at all clear, he went off the road.

But, he’s still in the photo on my wall.

Image

                                                                   Bill Birt On Every Wave

Still angry about my ‘borrowing’ his wetsuit for Donn Franzich to use, Bill was talking about me at school. And I, of course, was defending myself.

“Yeah, well, his mom got on the phone after I admitted taking it…Bill said he wouldn’t get mad… and, you know, they were at church… besides… and his mom said, ‘Billy needed his wetsuit. He went surfing, and he got cold.’ So, Billy’s mom…”

“Yeah, well; next time, I’ll…besides, your mom… his mom got on the phone with my mom and said she was sorry her son is such a thieving dork.”

“I have to go.”

“So,” continuing the rant to Phillip and Ray, “next time we’re surfing, I’m going to take off in front of Erwin on every wave.”

“Every wave,” I heard from Phillip, and Ray, and probably Mark, Bill Buel, Billy McLain. “What’re YOU gonna do?”

“Every wave?”

The next time turned out to be the day after Ray, and Bill Buel and I stayed up way too late (for me) at Phillip’s house, smoking cigarettes, listening to the Doors, Buel acting all scary and weird. I rode to the beach in the back of Ray’s Ranchero, maybe trying to sleep under some blankets and boards. When we got to Grandview, it was stormy and overhead. 

Bill showed up a bit later, alone. Someone must have told him about the night before. Bill Buel, probably. “And Erwin was, like, freaking out.” Buel, no doubt, went into the same Jesus-on-the-cross (in this case, with a cigarette) pose. “‘This is the end… my only friend, the end…’ He was all scared and shit.”

Later, up on the bluff, one of our mutual friends asked him about his threat, supposedly (the way I heard it) after the wave on which I got briefly covered up, came out sitting down. “So, every wave?”

“Well. You know…”

“But you never even made it out.”

“Well. You know; Erwin probably did think I was at church. I mean, I was.”

“Uh huh.”

WHAT I’d like to say is I rode back home with Bill Birt, shotgun, comfortable in his parents’ super big car with the super big trunk with the big cardboard box (for wetsuits, trunks, damp towels) with big block blue letters that spelled out, ‘KOTEX,’ all caps.  No, I’m sure I rode back in the back of the Ranchero, under a blanket, under some boards, knowing (or merely wanting to believe) I was somewhat cooler than Bill Birt.

WELL. You know…”

Of all my old surfing friends, I see Bill most often.

NOTE: Wanting an illustration for this piece, I actually considered removing the photo from the professionally-sealed oval frame. Checking it more closely, beyond Bill is the woman who would become his wife. Very attractive. She didn’t come from Fallbrook. She supposedly asked Bill why, when they would run into old friends of his, they always seemed surprised.

I’m imagining Bill just shrugged.

Remembrance of Something I May Not Have Seen

Posted on by under Uncategorized

Surfing, really, has been the only sport in which I could be (take a quick pause here) competitive.

It was because I was an Adventist, one of very few at Fallbrook High, and because wrestling events did not take place on Friday nights (start of the Jewish and Adventist Sabbath), that I went out for the sport. This was right after I competed (take another breath) in Freshman Football, third string replacement lineman. Though I had running back size and short distance speed, I couldn’t catch for… couldn’t catch well. “Afraid of the ball” the coach said. “Only if it’s thrown at me” I said (to myself). 

Basketball had too much running, and I never had ‘a shot.’ Oh, I could pass, play defense; hip check to some tall guy’s knees, but shoot for the basket. No, pass.

Swimming might have been a good fit, and I did go out, but, evidently, my breast stroke was ‘unconventional.’  I finally dropped out when the coach said wearing the bunhuggers would be required. [I backspaced several attempts at further explanation here, including any parsing of the word ‘modesty.’]

Not that Fallbrook High’s wrestling outfits, evidently purchased in the mid-fifties and sewn from some wool/cotton blend, were less embarrassingly ridiculous; particularly for junior varsity athletes, but were preferable to wearing gym shorts, any ‘accident’ during lunchtime exhibition matches met with titters from any groups of girls in the bleachers.

I must add that, at my best, I was a technically proficient wrestler. What I didn’t have (then) was the competitive (let’s say ‘killer’) instinct.

On this afternoon the Fallbrook Union High School wrestling team, with those of us on the J.V. wearing the retro, crotch-snapped, long-sleeved tops with matching red tights, was the visiting team, going against San Dieguito High (Encinitas, Leucadia, Cardiff). And we were losing too many matches.

Their team members all seemed to have huge upper bodies. “That’s from the surfing,” the coach said, “They have the big lats.”

“I surf,” I said.

“Yeah, well…”

In what would be one of my best results, I achieved a desperate and last second takedown, having pushed myself with some real belief that I was only behaving in such an (over) aggressive manner ‘for the team.’ With those points I scrapped to a draw.

“Sorry” I said to my opponent.

I wasn’t. I was elated; still feeling some aftereffects of victory as I sat in the bus, going over the hill from the school toward Highway 101, toward the railroad tracks, toward…

Image

 

…toward Swamis. It was dusk. I could see the golden dome gleaming, shimmering glassy water beyond and extending toward a horizon line hidden in the same glow; and, in the midst of that brightness, there was one person sitting outside, board angled upward as if preparing to turn with an approaching sunset line, that line a subtle shadow.

And then the bus turned right, parallel to the tracks, heading home. The image was gone.

Not from my memory. Ten years later, when I lived in Encinitas, a place I’ve always thought was washed in magic, I tried to reproduce the image. I drove up and down that very hill. I got out of the car. No, you just can’t see the lineup, even on some astronomically huge day; not from there.

Now, almost forty years beyond that, I’m more unclear about the results of my attempt to see again what I thought I saw than that I did see something on an evening in 1965.

The solitary outside surfer slowly turns as the waters swell, rise. He drops the back of his board, springs forward, paddles; one stroke to even out, one toward shore. The wave lifts him. At the top, one last stroke and…

Maybe you should check it for yourself.

So, my current illustration is temporary, something to show my sister Melissa what I’m going for, only more…more intense; prettier, better, something to match the clear 48 year old memory.

Ditching School on a Dare from Mark Metzger

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The first time I went surfing with someone other than my own family, Phillip Harper’s mom, or (once) with Phillip’s sister’s boyfriend, Bucky Davis, involved my Mom dropping me and a board (and a towel, and probably a sack lunch) off at Mark Metzger’s house. Or Don McLean’s house. It was a house with a pool, at any rate, in the summer before my sophomore year; 1966.

These were my friends from Boy Scouts, though most had gone all through grade school with me. We had a history. My surf mate, Phillip Harper, was new in town, and had not been a Boy Scout. It took a bit of time, with Scouting being less a part of my life as surfing became more a part, before Phillip became a member of this group, aided by being a neighbor of Boy Scout and new surfer, Ray Hicks.

This rotating band of contemporaries, with some friends deciding surfing wasn’t their sport, new people wanting to give it a go, eventually became a fairly stable group of fairly unstable surfers.

Mark Metzger was possibly the least stable. He was one of those red-headed, hot-headed, usually barely under control kids, and, on my arrival at the house with the pool, he quizzed me. “Which way do you set a surfboard down?” “If it’s on grass, like here; top down so the wax doesn’t melt. Like I did.” “No, wax side up so you don’t take some of the kickup, or rocker, out of the board.” The other punks probably nodded along with Mark. I set my board with the others, on the lawn, under the tree, wax side down.

Then, the duty parent not ready yet, we took turns throwing our used boards, in various shades of yellow (no self-respecting parent would buy a new board for a kid until discovering if he or she was going to ‘stick with it’), into the pool, each of us then jumping on, riding across, trying to dismount still dry. I was not the best at this.

“Well, when we get to real waves, maybe Erwin’ll do better,” someone, maybe Gerry Moore, said. Definitely; I was a year ahead of these kooks.

Image

 

As Juniors, Mark and I ditched school one day, on his insistence. Between first and second period, Mark used the unassailable argument that a real surfer wouldn’t waste such a beautiful, Santa Ana day. Yeah, he dared me, and when I waffled, he used the “p-caw, p-caw” chicken imitation.

Wait. Is it “p-caw?” If it didn’t sound exactly like a chicken, the “What, you chicken?” got the point across.

And, it usually worked. For example, though I was happy enough riding Lupe’s Left Loopers, I was ‘p-cawed’ into being the guinea pig on a (theoretically) right in Mazatlan that showed outside but broke on a concrete slab-like shore. This was while Phillip and Ray watched, from the beach.   

Ditching being tougher once already at school, I told classmate (Eagle Scout but not a surfer) Wayne Raymond, that, if he was at all cool, he’d sign me into Chemistry class, just before lunch. No after-lunch teachers ever took attendance. Maybe he took it as a dare.  

In the school parking lot I switched my longboard onto Mark’s almost brand new (but his) 1968 VW Bug and we headed out (yes, this says something about his parents). On the straightaway on the far side of the largest hill between Fallbrook and Bonsall, Mark, who always told me he took his half of the road out of the middle, passed a car, yelling some rude remark they couldn’t hear comparing the speed old peoples drive with his estimation of their sexual, um, I guess, rate of speed.
Somewhere in the passing, the clamps on the Aloha racks that Mark’s Father had loosened to save the paint job loosened just enough. The boards took flight, wax side down, off, up, and, thankfully, over the just-passed car.

Maybe they did a flip. Don’t know. Just heard a ‘whissssssssssssss.’

The board/rack/weapon landed, still upright, boards still facing forward, on the side of the road.
I’m guessing the old couple, having not had simultaneous heart attacks, and maintaining their (safe) vehicle speed, probably exchanged a comment comparing a young man’s driving skills with, yeah, sexual competence.

Mark’s board had a new ding, mine had no new ones. Wordlessly, we each picked up a side, reattached the racks, tightened into the new paint, took off. Somewhere past the Bonsall Bridge and the Vista/Oceanside turn, we took a breath.

When we got to Oceanside, right at the bluff, we were confronted by one of those fifteen hundred foot high waves of fog that race in when the Santa Ana winds break down.

“Now what, Mark?” “I guess we go back to school.”

When I came into Chemistry class late, Wayne having done his part, proving his coolness, I got busted anyway, but not for truancy.  Not this time.

“Oh, and Mr. Dence,”  Mr. Douglas, the had-to-be-on-purpose stereotypical science teacher with the out of control eyebrows said, “I’ve become aware that, in addition to decorating the desks in my room with surfing pictures, the English teacher has discovered similar artwork.”

So, no surf, but no detention. I did get to clean all the desks every lunch time in both the English and Chemistry classrooms for a few weeks. Mark, as usual, had a clean getaway.

But, as a sort of bonus, I had several great conversations in the rotten egg-smelling classroom, the science nerds and me. If I hadn’t been a surfer… smart kids; they always laughed well before I got to the punchline.

Oh, and if you think they don’t make fun of the cool people…

“I’m just studying the ways of the self-proclaimed cool people,” I may have said. “I’m not really… Hey, that’s not the funny part.”

NOTE: Our mutual friend Ray Hicks, when Mark and some of his cronies didn’t show up for our fortieth class reunion, said the former idea man for many an unrecorded (here) event, may not want his family to realize he wasn’t always the calm citizen he tries to project himself as now. Well, good plan, Mark.

 

Wally Blodgett and the Spinning Glass

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I first noticed Wally Blodgett in 1968, sharing that same route along the bluffs (Grandview, Beacons, Stone Steps, Swamis) I took, dawn patrol in an older car filled with teenage surfers, always quite a few boards on top.

 

Wally was like the Dad, the duty driver. But, since most of his passengers were old enough to drive their own cars (as I did), and seemed perfectly unembarrassed by riding with Mr. Blodgett, and since San Dieguito* kids seemed to learn to be cool in grade school, anyone would have to assume Wally Blodgett was cool.   

 

Unlike most of our dads, off working during surfing hours, Wally went out surfing Always one of the older surfers in the water, he rode a belly board. My lasting image is of him prowling the inside lineup at Swamis, waiting for an empty wave. Or maybe he just wanted that on-the-shoulder water angle for watching and cheering on his son, Buzz, and their mutual friends. Extra coolness points.

 

As I surfed more frequently without my friends, I would have loved to have been included in that crew.

 

Someone eventually told me, “Wally Blodgett, he throws pots for a living.” “Throws pots?” “Vases and stuff.” “Oh.” “He gets up super early, throws pots or fires them. When he gets enough, he takes them up to L.A., sells all of them, wholesale.” “Cool. You know, I’m an artist, too.” “Uh huh.”

 

While the members of the Blodgett Crew did the standard teenager thing (enhanced by being surfers, perhaps) of ignoring anyone else they might be competing for a wave with, Wally was always nice to me in the water and the various parking areas. I was riding boards I’d made myself at the time, usually shaping and glassing blanks gathered from stripped-down longer boards.

 

“It looks like you make these boards with an ax,” he said one morning, after what was, I thought, a great session at Swamis; “but you seem to ride them pretty well.”

 

“Um…Thanks.”     

 

Some time in 1969, at Mira Costa Junior College (Oceanside/Carlsbad) for a surf movie, and glad the circuit had a venue closer than Hoover High School in San Diego, I pointed out a yawning Mr. Blodgett and his Crew, coming in together and fashionably late, to my girlfriend, Trish. Wally was giving the crowd a proper and discerning look-over.

 

“He throws pots for a living.” “Oh, nice.” “Vases, stuff like that.” “I know.”

 

My art classes at Palomar were afternoon events; three hours every day except Friday. This gave us allegedly-creative types time to work and hang out and pose all artsy-like. And one could wander from one studio to another, checking-out and ruthlessly critiquing what others were doing

 

As with surfers, artists judge each other harshly. I confess to having felt a little more artist-like than those Hippie/posers. I had, after all won best Sophomore, Junior, and Senior Boy artist at Fallbrook, though they awarded a scholarship (actual money) to my main male competition, Chester Meck.

 

And I did most of my art homework at Buddy’s Sign Service, where I was a signpainter’s apprentice, with real brushes and bright enamels, and easels capable of handling four foot by eight foot signs at my disposal.

 

The former home and printing facility for the Oceanside Blade Tribune newspaper was a space quite dingy enough to be much closer to a true artist’s studio than someone’s Mom’s kitchen counter. There was a huge skylight over an equal-sized hole in the concrete floor, the former home of the printing press.

 

The building, at First and Tremont, was a block from the Oceanside bus station, suitably dangerous; and a block of train tracks from the beach; perfectly city-surf set. I was working, developing my semi-artistic skills one block from the city version of US 101, where the efforts of hawkers of cheap jewelry, electronics, and available women periodically caused the Command people at nearby Camp Pendleton to declare the area off limits to Marines.    

 

Just to further set the scene at Palomar Junior College: “Trout Fishing in America” was a must read. Protest signs and posters were everywhere on the campus. One read, “Remember My Lai” (1968 Vietnam massacre). Another read, “If God didn’t exist it would be necessary for man to invent him” While student-made anti-war banners were hung and removed regularly, those two were in the office windows of obviously-tenured professors.

 

And, freed from dress codes and more direct parental supervision, kids from my high school I knew as dorky suddenly had long hair and other affectations of perceived coolness, and were suddenly aware of social injustice and corporate corruption.

Great. Still, I was busy, just wanted, somewhat desperately, to learn. In art classes, anyway, trying to slide through the academics. Richard Brautigan, in the book I did eventually read, spoke of all that was going on in those hyper-crazy-aware times, the universe screaming at us all, then wrote, “I just wanted to go fishing.”

 

I could relate**.  

 

 

ImageThe poster in the Art Department area I remember most (placed on an approved bulletin board) was of a studio converted from a working barn, all wood and rope, sepia-toned, with a naked model casually leaning against a post, not-really-posing, almost blending into the scene. To me, that was art.

 

But, there in one of the classroom/work areas, was Wally Blodgett, spinning and blowing glass; heat, spin, blow, heat, spin. “Hey, Kid. You go here, too? Check this out!”

 

Wally was excited, totally immersed in learning the craft, the art. Not unrelated to the potter’s wheel, this spinning of molten glass must have seemed like a natural progression. And both required fire; clay to a finished vase, sand to glass; so balanced, such a naturally perfect symmetry.

 

No; few things in nature are perfectly symmetrical. But Wally’s work could approach that. So new, so exciting.

 

Thirty-five years later (and this was a few years ago now) I googled “Wally Blodgett.” What I discovered is that his son, Buzz, has carried on the glass art tradition, and has carried it way beyond those first steps taken at Palomar J.C.

 

There is an obvious ocean influence on the works Buzz creates. Handed down, passed on; this is the Wally Blodgett legacy. More likely, it’s part of his legacy.   

 

Since there was a site, blogettglass.com, I e-mailed Buzz. He wrote back. He didn’t remember me; listed some names of a few Fallbrook surfers he had known, none of which I recognized. Different crews. That’s all right. I mentioned what his father had said about my handmade boards. “That sounds just like him.”

 

Well, um, yeah; because it was him.

 

*San Dieguito includes the beach towns of San Diego’s North County; not Fallbrook

**Allegedly frustrated by the lack of success of later books, Richard Brautigan eventually took his own life, something I note here because I noted his passing at the time. Fashions change. He may have forgotten he is separate from his words.