Tag Archives: surfing

wally-portrait-from Buzz Blodgett’s-college-photo-class

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All right, this shows my lack of computer skills. This is Buzz Blodgett’s photo of his father, Wally.
Buzz is my age, and back when I was cruising the surf spots along the bluffs between Leucadia and Cardiff, Wally was packing his car with boards and kids. The difference between Buzz’s father and mine, and probably yours, is Wally got in the water.
The first irony here is, though I spoke to Wally, I never really spoke to my peers.
I have a story about Wally. This isn’t it.
My story isn’t polished enough. Not yet.
It’s a tale of glass and art and, really, that sort of taking a minute for kindness.
Meanwhile, Buzz sent me this and another great photo. I finally figured out how to get this one from my e-mail to my site. So, here it is.
The second irony is: I was taking a photography class at Palomar Junior College at the same time as Buzz, but, unable to get into the beginners class, I tried to sneak into the advanced group.
Though I was instantly revealed to be a kook in the darkroom, I was allowed to stay. I remember almost wetting myself, refusing and unable to leave as the first images of my first self-developed roll came to life
If you can wait a bit longer, I have to make sure the finished piece is worthy.

Classic Arch Pose in 1972 Blackball Session

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Image                        CLASSIC ARCH POSE IN 1972 BLACKBALL SESSION 

 It would have to be categorized as summer ‘fun surf;’ early afternoon, pre-glassoff texture, the lines broken up enough to offer some peaks with workable shoulders; nothing scary, nothing great, just, fun.

 The surfing area in Pacific Beach gets pushed, each summer, well north of the Crystal Pier, the black ball flags and lifeguards making sure the swimmers have a chance at rolling and tumbling. It was one of those days where the crew of painters I was working with, having finished our day’s assignment, headed for this bar or that strip club. Trish still at work, I headed for the beach.

 The whole purpose of telling this story is to justify the classic Hawaiian arch. Pose? Maybe. Fun? Oh, yes. A tradition worthy of passing on? Indeed.

 I would argue that the move, leaning back, reaching your hands heavenward  to thank God, the Universe, or whatever Deity you recognize for allowing you to be racing across some wave face is a surfer’s praise position, a moving Hallelujah.   

 And it’s a natural reaction to the joy of a particularly enjoyable moment, like rotating your stance just slightly to place your hand into the curl or wall of a breaking wave, maybe out of some sense of respect, maybe just to feel the rush of water.

 But, there is the ‘look at me’ argument. It is a pose. Hang five. Hold it. Backpeddle.

 I don’t know where my ride fits in. I was wailing across a wave, sneaking my left foot forward on my roundy-nosed six foot board… arching, possibly even letting out a ‘eeeooowww!’ as if I were surfing with just a few friends.  I wasn’t. The other surfers out were a couple of school kids, strangers, both of them wading out, witnessing.

 They shared a laugh between themselves. Some grownups. Geez.

 Yet, on the next ride, one of the kids, still laughing his ass off, kind of timidly slid his front foot forward, kind of awkwardly leaned back. “Eeeeeooowwww!”

 Another tradition passed on. Another moment held, held a little longer… and backpedal, drop down, pull back up and onward, rotating just slightly…

Hallelujah!

 

Cheater Five

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Cheater Five

Since I check out magic seaweed.com just about… no, every day, I was struck by this image. Tagged as “Crouching and elegant,” the photo was taken at Cote des Basques, France, by McSnowHammer.
The image is striking in it’s balance between black and white. It’s a well-surfed little tube; might be equally pretty in color, softer.
There are some differences between the drawing, free-handed on scratchboard, and the photo.
Actually, the more I look at the photo the more I wish my drawing could reveal a little more detail. It is, after all, merely scratches on a smooth-but-blank surface.
Yet, we all seek to capture or recapture a moment; a little unexpected inside power pocket.
I may go back, do some more scratching. For now, Thank you McSnowHammer, thank you Miss “Crouching and elegant.”

Joe Roper Surfed Crystal Pier Like it was Pipeline

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JOE ROPER SURFED CRYSTAL PIER LIKE PIPELINE

Joe Roper was the standout surfer among a group of kids who hung around and mostly surfed the Pacific Beach (PB) side of Crystal Pier.  By kids, I mean younger than I was when Trish and I got married in November of 1971, moved to a one bedroom apartment within easy walking distance. I was twenty, Trish barely nineteen. Two months later we moved to a two bedroom up Mission Boulevard, easy biking or skateboarding distance.

The stretch of beach from PB Point and Tourmaline Canyon to the pier was my new locale, I was a local; sometimes venturing to the reefs of Sunset Cliffs, sometimes the breaks of La Jolla.  

A Local. It didn’t mean a lot to Trish; meant a whole lot to me.

Joe and his cronies were in the early years of high school. Rather small in stature, driving across or tucking into the lefts off the pier, Joe made it look like getting barreled at the Bonsai Pipeline. And Joe got consistently barreled.

My two years plus tenure in PB seemed to line up with the “Dogtown” resurgence of skateboarding, and, while I was lettering new prices on the menu board for the little sandwich shop that shared space with the P.B. Surf Shop, close to the pier, trading some graphics for a wetsuit vest, trying to sell some original surf art at the Select Surf Shop on Mission, Joe and his buddies were doing low Larry Bertlemann spins on skateboards on the street, one gloved hand centering the turn, scraping across the pavement.

Just to further time stamp this tale, “Maggie Mae” and “American Pie” were hits on the radio, and surf leashes were still called kook straps.

I had yet to purchase one.

To someone who learned to fall on his board if he fell, how to swim in if he couldn’t, it was quite annoying when some grom dropped in, and, when it got hairy, simply bailed.

ROPER STORY ONE:

One afternoon, sitting just a little farther outside, I witnessed Joe, on a left, ride it into the shorebreak. He could have avoided contact with the equally-young surfer approaching on the right. Nope. Rather than kick out, he kicked into a full board-to-body board slam, followed not with an apology but a version of the classic, “Get fucked and go back to the valley.”

I actually asked Joe why he had behaved so violently. It seems the recipient of the slam was guilty of being from Clairemont, just on the other side of I-5, the real setting for fictional “Ridgemont High,” as in “Fast Times At…”

What this meant is the territorially-attacked inland cowboy lived within five miles, ten max, of the beach being so vigorously defended.

ROPER TWO:

I started surfing in Western Surfing Association (Ray Allen, to drop another name, was local head at the time) sanctioned contests, beginning with the first one held early in the 1972 season. Because I did well enough in that contest, I was seeded into the second round of the next event. This, and the contests to follow, featured more contestants, but, being seeded, I could avoid the first round.

Though I never won an event, somehow my surfing was adequate to maintain a somewhere-between-seventh-and-third-place performance level. Oh, yes, I was moving up. 2A, amassing points toward 3A.

Each contest provided another lesson in hurrying-up-and-waiting. On a particular Saturday, the contest was to be held at Crystal Pier. My heat was scheduled for about 10:30, which meant sometime later, I cruised down in Trisha’s VW bug to check it out.

There was Joe Roper, signed up to compete, and two or three of his buddies, standing around, and no contest. “It’s been moved to La Jolla Shores,” one of the kids said. A few minutes later, their boards on the rack, mine secured with my surf leash (yeah, I’d joined the kook strap set), it holding my almost new, custom painted (by me) surfboard.

This particular board was shaped and glassed by the local surf shop, the design pirated/copied/stolen from a photo accompanying an ad in “Surfer” announcing the Tom Morey-designed, Gordon & Smith-built model, the “Waterskate.”  Just like the original, mine featured a concave deck that rose up, side to side, from the stringer, to some thick downrails. It was probably about six-two..  

So, going down that last swooping hill from La Jolla proper to La Jolla Shores, the part of the leash holding the nose of my board popped off, the board sliding down the passenger side, the rail of the nose bouncing on the pavement, once- slow down- twice, three times- “Somebody grab it!”- steady scraping- pull over- Stop. Wince. Re-tie.

“Sorry, man,” Joe said in the parking lot, running off to join his friends.

                 Image

EXTRA ROPER:

After moving into a condo in University City (north of Clairemont and East of I-5- inland cowboy territory) the south end of my surfing grounds was probably Windansea. It was probably sometime after we moved to Encinitas in 1975 that I picked up a copy of “Surfer,” saw a photo of Joe Roper in a Gordon and Smith ad, tucked into a wailing wave at Pipeline that could have been, a bit smaller, one of those lefts off Crystal Pier.

Joe is and has been the owner of a surfboard repair shop in, I think, Mission Beach (other side of the pier). No, he didn’t repair the ripped up rail on my ripped-off/fake Waterskate, but… well, maybe there’s no ironic connection here.

However, in the karma-will-get-you department, the first or second time I waxed the board, climbing over the rocks to go out at Tourmaline, Skip Frye, test rider and surfboard designer and shaper at Gordon & Smith, was heading the other way.

Skip Frye was already a legend who could find a wave between waves in a crowd, who quietly ruled the range between PB Point and Crystal Pier; I was just another after-work-and-weekends surfer, but, this time, I was the weekend warrior with a pirate’s board, trying to hold it so Mr. Frye didn’t see the top. Unsuccessfully, though he didn’t say anything.

Once the board developed dangerous cracks along the spines on the deck, I ripped the glass off (my painting was mostly on the bottom), shaped it down to a saner, flatter shape, reglassed. Along with a board I got back in my Oceanside days, one that had a sort of bad-surgery-technique removal of the mid-section popular in the rush to move into the short board revolution, it was one of my favorite boards of all time.

As, maybe, more irony than karma, and not because I was tying it down with a surf leash, the former fake-waterskate blew off on I-5, nowhere to be found by the time I got back to the area.

It was between the onramp from Grand/Garnett in PB and the first exit to Mission Bay- 1973ish- just in case, maybe…

JOE ROPER SIDEBAR

There’s a guy who I’ve seen many times at my favorite break on the Straits. Big guy, rides, without a paddle, the same SUP model I own. We’ve spoken several times in the water. On this occasion, he was out at my, and his, backup spot.

Just about to get out, the break suddenly crowded (northwest version- 7 or 8 others) with also-skunked-elsewhere-surfers, I must have said something about San Diego. “Where?”

“Different parts,”

It turns out Dave (that’s all the name I’ve gotten so far) was part of that Pacific Beach brat pack. Dave’s father was a chef at Maynard’s, a restaurant near the pier, and, while I was just over 20, Dave, in 1972, was in middle school.

Yes, he knew Joe Roper. Yes, Joe was the best of his contemporaries. No, they didn’t like anyone from east of I-5.  Dave filled me in on a few P.B. details. He said Phil (Italian last name- Dave knows it), the owner of the Select Surf Shop, had died. 

 “Oh. I tried to sell some art work there. You punks didn’t buy any, just pawed through them.”

“We didn’t have money for artwork,” Dave said.

“That’s what Phil told me. Oh, and he tried to pick up on my wife.”

“Well.” Dave smiled and nodded. “Great place to be raised.”

I smiled and nodded. “Great place to be twenty years old.”

 

Bob Townsend- Same World, Different Era

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BOB TOWNSEND- SAME WORLD, DIFFERENT ERA

 

It isn’t really even ironic, now that I’m so deeply involved in my ‘real surfers’ project, wherever it’s leading, that I should unexpectedly run into real surfers in odd places. There was the mailman delivering to a paint store Bremerton who, seeing the surf decals on my work/surf van, had to tell me about his surfing days. There have been several others approaching me with surf stories at several different gas stations.

Each ex surfer would get a sudden mad glint in his eye when giving some brief career resume, with an emphasis on some high spot; some session on some magical waves.

There was a homeowner, several years ago, in Port Ludlow, sort of the La Jolla of Jefferson County, Washington state, who told me, back in his Southern California days, he briefly had an employee who founded some sort of surfboarding magazine.

“John Severson?”

“Yeah; that was him. Nice kid.”

I probably- okay, definitely- do bring surfing into most conversations. So, checking out a possible painting job in the same Port Ludlow, a house on a beautifully landscaped bluff falling away and down to a lovely lagoon, some twisty finger of the ocean, it shouldn’t be surprising that, when the homeowner said he wanted to go back to San Diego, after I asked “Why? It’s summer;” after he said he has a house in Rancho Santa Fe, after I said, “If you ask people in La Jolla where the rich people live, they’ll say Rancho Santa Fe;” after he said, “Well, that’s not us;” and after I asked, sort of off the cuff, “Do any surfing down there?” he turned and said… “Used to.”

Okay, so Bob Townsend graduated from San Diego High in 1050, a year before I was born. He started surfing on a paddleboard in the late 1940s, “With a cork on the front so you could let the water out once in a while.” He went to college in Santa Cruz, but, other than that, never surfed north of San Onofre, never wore a wetsuit.  His last board, ridden somewhere around 1959, was a redwood/balsa combo.

Whoa! I was impressed.

Asked where he surfed, he listed Sunset Cliffs, Blacks, Windansea, Swamis, and San Onofre. He knew where Pipes is located, but never, apparently, bothered with Tamarack, any of the North County beachbreaks; and didn’t even consider heading north to, say, Malibu.

“Why would I?”

“Well,” I’m thinking, “Because you could.”

What I did say was, “When I was a kid, going down 101, through the little towns; it was magical. You could still see the ocean past the houses. When we’d go through Del Mar, my father or mother would always say, “Desi Arnaz lives here.”

“Nice guy,” Mr. Townsend said, chuckling a bit; “I sold him a car once.”

Hanging around for over an hour to give a five minute estimate, I had to ask Bob if he remembered there having once been a pier at Cardiff Reef, across from Don Hansen’s original surf shop.

“Yeah, and there was another one in Del Mar.” “Really? Where?” “Over by that restaurant.” “Like, 15th street?” “Guess so.”

I’m not sure if the former car dealership owner (Townsend Lincoln/Mercury, Mission Valley- he sold in in 2006) was just tired of our northwest winters or missed his family enough to miss out on our northwest summers. We agreed San Diego is so much more crowded than back when I was a kid and he was surfing point breaks and deep reefs. 

“I remember hearing, late 50s, I guess,” I said, using an example I often use, “that there were 100,000 people in San Diego proper, another 100,000 in the rest of the county. If I thought it was crowded back in the late sixties…”

“This all brings back great memories,” Bob said. “You know, it was a life style. We used to head out, camp on the beach. Great.”

Later, when I absolutely had to get to another project, Bob told his wife that the painter is from San Diego, actually lived in Mission Hills, Fort Stockton Drive, same street they’d once lived on. She was busy preparing for their drive south, their house over the lagoon on the market. “And he surfs. Up here.”

Last question: “Do you think there’s kind of a code of, I don’t know, honor, in being a real surfer?”       

“Definitely.”

“Yeah. Me, too. I’ve tried to, anyway. I mean, real surfers don’t…”

I didn’t have to fill in any details. We both nodded. I wrote up a quick quote, said his real estate agent could check out my work, let him know if he should send a check.

“Just call me,” he said, handing me two business cards. “Use this number.”

Still trying to visualize someone riding a heavy board at Sunset Cliffs, I had to ask; “Maybe it was New Break.”

He hadn’t recognized that name. “Over by the college. It’s supposedly super localized.” “The college wasn’t there then.”  

No, I guess not. But there were those magical.waves on mystical reefs; waves that only get bigger, glassier, more forgiving with time.

UPDATE: Bob Townsend called me on the cell phone the other day; introduced himself as “Your old surfin’ buddy.” No, I hadn’t primed and painted the section of railing. It had been raining, a heat spell on the way. He and his wife had made it to San Diego. Yes, I’ll get it; if not the next day, the day after that. Yes, I had mentioned my brother-in-law, Jim Scott, is the real estate broker with the longest business presence in the Mission Hills area. Did he need a real estate agent? He did. 

I had a couple of new questions to ask Bob, partially because I’d been talking to Keith Durrock about his father. Keith’s dad is somewhere in age between me and Bob. He surfed, had been a lifeguard in the Pacific Beach area, and, according to Keith; “It was a whole life style thing. Besides surfing, he and his friends dived for lobster and abalone…it was a different era.”     

So, “Did you do any of that?”

“We all had crowbars with us at all times.”

“Crowbars?”

“For prying the abalone off the rocks.”

So, in my constantly evolving creating and storing mind pictures, I’m adding wetsuitless divers in the kelp, crowbar at the ready.

And the water’s so…your picture might be a bit different.

Blink, back to now.

Image

Windansea, Chris O’Rourke, and the Neanderthal

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WINDANSEA, CHRIS O’ROURKE, AND THE NEANDERTHAL

 

“Neanderthal,” the Kid said with the deepest voice he could manage.

The first time I decided to surf the famous Windansea, a foggy, glassy, afterwork afternoon, December of 1971, there were, maybe, eight or ten surfers clumped around the peak. Trish was waiting in the car. I must have promised to take her somewhere. Newly married, we lived in Pacific Beach, across the street and just up from Tourmaline Canyon.

Yes, it was practically La Jolla; right where Mission turns to La Jolla Boulevard. So, why not Windansea?

When I got out of the water at dark, after something less than an hour, my bride asked me why I, notorious wave hog, hadn’t caught more waves.

“I was lucky to get three or four.” The waves I did get were insiders or those waves the various members of the local crew were a little too far outside for. And, competing for the scraps on the inside with me was this Kid. It was Chris O’Rourke, before he became famous, before he got cancer. He would have been twelve or thirteen, and was begging the older surfers for waves.

“Can I go? Can I have it? Can I go?”

It worked. For him. I didn’t try. Wouldn’t. Ever. Though I’d also seen several of the surfers out that evening in PB, they were either also being denied waves or were part of the pack, defending their home peak.

The main feature of the rights was a steep drop. Bottom turn, hit the shoulder, cut back, bounce a bit, hope to have enough speed when the inside section jumped up. The lefts offered a longer ride, but, no, I wanted the rights.

Sitting on my board away from and on the side of the peak that would favor going left, but hoping for a sneak-through right, I exchanged a glance in the waning light with the Kid. Not quite a nod. He turned to the group, and, in a stage whisper, with a nod to make sure they knew who he was speaking of; said, “Neanderthal” in the deepest voice he could manage, “Ne-an-der-thal.” Everyone looked. Most chuckled.

I did surf Windansea again, without the freeze-out, but only on those days when most other nearby spots were closed-out. Oh, there were some spots along Sunset Cliffs that would hold a bigger swell. After getting brutally washed against those cliffs once, having my board end up in a cave the next time, finding myself in the biggest tube of my life another time, the choices being- make it or end up against the cliff; I ventured back.

Oh, I made the tube, figured I’d beaten the odds, looked for a way in.

On my first bigger wave session at Windansea I lost my board on two of my first three waves- once nailed by the lip on the drop, the other not having the speed for the inside. On my second swim-in, someone had, nicely, pulled my board from between two of those big, soft-looking rocks, and set it on top of one. Tourist, no doubt.

A couple of years later, competing in a Western Surfing Association contest, I was in a heat at Luscombs (sp?) at Sunset Cliffs for second place finishers in previous heats. Only the winner would advancing. Lined up for the wave of the day, there was the Kid again.

“You going?” He must have been in the contest, but, at this moment, I was the surfer wearing the jersey.

“Oh, yeah.”

I went right; pretty sure he took the left, probably aceing-out some other competitor. Even if he didn’t, the right was better; and I won the heat; probably my sweetest victory in a brief WSA career.  

I can’t say I witnessed Chris O’Rourke break any rules of proper surf etiquette. All these year later, a thousand miles plus away from Windansea, if I run into someone with a connection to La Jolla (and I have), his name is part of a surprisingly well known list of La Jolla surf alumni. Folks from there know their surf local history.

“Neanderthal? He called you a Neanderthal?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Image

I’d like to thank Kirk Lee Aeder for responding when I e-mailed him with a few questions about his friend, Chris O’Rourke. Kirk is renowned surf photographer and the author of the O’Rourke biography, “Child of the Storm,” and said my story “Sounds just like him.” The book would be a proper addition to your surf library. You can find the book at Amazon.com or at Kirk’s site (which you should check out) kirkaederphoto.com

Speech 101 With Cheer Critchlow

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                        SPEECH CLASS 101 WITH CHEER CRITCHLOW

There probably should be some time stamp here. Along with the peak of the Baby Boomer wave, I graduated from Fallbrook Union High School in 1969. “Sixty-nine, Man!”

Before I went to Palomar Junior College, the closest I’d come to hanging with anything that could be called “the North County Surf Community” was when I was on the Fallbrook wrestling team, going against San Dieguito. That school district included Leucadia, Encinitas, Cardiff, maybe even Del Mar; and excluded Carlsbad and Oceanside- separate tribes, separate Junior College. But Fallbrook was included in the Palomar district. Sure, Escondido and Vista were also included. But, what going to Palomar meant…

…it meant a lot to me. Now I knew other surfers ‘from school.’ I could nod to them, maybe, on campus, or, better, at the top of the Swamis stairs; maybe even hang for a while, comparing notes on the surf, they drinking homemade smoothies, some talking about Jesus; me with my chocolate milk, and, having already used a few swear words to describe the crowds, unable to testify, to say I also had a deep love for our living Savior from before it was cool.

I knew who Charles ‘Cheer’ Critchlow was before he showed up in Speech 101, one of the night classes I took to allow more time for work/surf/girlfriend/church, Speech. It was him image, tucked into a little tube, that was on the sign for Hansen Surfboards, A photograph had been in “Surfer” Magazine, tucked into another tube at a contest in Santa Cruz.  I’d seen Cheer and Margo Godfrey casually walking out to surf the outside peak at Swamis on a big choppy afternoon when Scotty Sutton and Jeff Officer and I kept to the inside peak.

Mr. Critchlow had actually, though he was also still in high school, been a judge at a North County high school surfing contest at Moonlight Beach. Jeff and Scott and I, though we’d ripped in the warm up, were harshly eliminated in our first round heats. We were gone so quickly that several girls from my school showed up after we’d taken off.  Maybe I’d lied about even being in it.

No, Jeff’s Dad took us to 15th Street in Del Mar, near where they had a beach house- and we ripped it up again. No points.

Cheer Critchlow was one of the surfers I viewed, from the shoulder, wailing from fifty yards deeper in the pit during the first day of the swell of 1969. “They (the surfers who were successful) must have some Hawaii experience,” I said at the time.

When I gave a speech on our trip to Mazatlan in my nervous-as-shit, rapid-fire delivery, Cheer Critchlow spoke clearly and calmly, and with some humor, about his first time surfing big Sunset Beach with Mike Doyle.

“So, Mike just told me, ‘If you don’t just go, you’ll never go.’ And I went.”

When I brought in a surfboard I’d shaped and painted as a visual aid, Cheer brought in templates he’d used with and borrowed from, again, Mike Doyle.

When I gave a speech on my future plans, writer, artist; Cheer’s speech revealed school was part of his backup plan. He’d tried very hard to be a professional surfer, and it wasn’t working. Maybe someday, he said, a surfer could make a living from surfing. Very convincing, moving, successful speech.

Still, he could have given me, maybe, a few more points at Moonlight.

Not Nearly Enough on Ray Hicks

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Ray Hicks is my surfing contact with Southern California. He is, in fact, my oldest friend from there I still have regular (more like any) contact with. He has to be, in all the time since we first met in sixth grade, the coolest person I’ve known, in that I never saw him lose his cool, even when those around him totally lost ours.

He is also, and I’d love to have some sort of modifying disclaimer here, but, other than that I never thought I wasn’t a surfer, the main reason I got back into surfing at fifty years old plus.

Well, let’s say Ray getting back into surfing and my own petty jealousy.

I was always a better surfer than Ray (okay, there could be several disclaimers here, but I’m the one making the claim). After all, I’d stuck with surfing after high school, when he went to some inland junior college, moved to Barstow, then went into the Air Force (mostly stationed in Italy, cruising in a Porsche), then got out and managed the Radio Shack in Fallbrook (Radio Shack Ray).

But, in 2004, down for my father’s 80th birthday, Ray was a better surfer than me. Way better. It’s been about nine years of me trying to catch up, he and I exchanging e-mails on surf sessions, occasionally surfing together (never up here- yet), and I still haven’t caught up.

Not sure I will.

Image …………………………..

This is Ray and his Surfboards Hawaii Model A back in 1969 (or so).

Ray now lives and works in Carlsbad, pretty much surfs Pipes exclusively. The regulars there are mostly longboarders in our age category; some with boonie hats strapped on, sun screen (mostly too late) slathered on, forming a little pack at the main peak. It’s all very mellow and polite, but it’s not like everyone is invited to join the pack.

Even with the prevailing crowd/ghetto mentality of Southern California, longevity has some rewards. If Ray doesn’t know everyone’s names (or appropriate nicknames) and histories (as he would, say, on the Straits of Juan de Fuca), there is a mutual recognition.  And, sometimes,  consequences.

On one occasion, Ray wrote me, he paddled for an outside wave; someone farther in took off behind him. Because Ray felt he had priority, he didn’t give way. The other surfer took offense, may have bumped my friend on the inside.

So, the local peeksters held a little conference, a trial of sorts, and decided Ray was in the wrong.

“If I’d been there,” I wrote, “I’d have defended you. Next time, run over the inside guy.”

No, probably not. Still, in deference to his surf spot mates, the second time he and I surfed there in our current carnations, he allowed us to go to the main peak, as long as we sat to one side. Fine; always been an inside prowler.  But, somewhere in that session, shoulder-hopping and scrap-chasing, I saw a great wave, yelled “Outside!” and, when the pack responded, caught the wave.

It’s a trick you can get away with… once.

“Hopefully you didn’t hear about it” I wrote from the relative safety of the Northwest. “Oh, I think somebody said something. Don’t worry about it. It’s cool.”

Cool.

John Amsterdam- Final? Chapter

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scratchboard wave

scratchboard wave

-Sometime in 1975, Swamis parking lot, Encinitas-

This was before our first child was born. We had finally achieved my longtime goal of living in Encinitas. We had arrived by way of our first and second apartments in Pacific Beach, P.B.: then a condo in University City; sold for a profit of $1,500.00 and a used VW; and now a two bedroom tract home east of I-5.

So, not the full dream. In real life, Trish was working thirty miles south in downtown San Diego, I was working thirty miles north, repainting the interiors of houses on Camp Pendleton, the trailer we worked out of just up the hill from, and with a million dollar view of… wait for it… Trestles.

And, though I wasn’t supposed to be able to, I did park on the beach, with immediate access to Lowers; an hour and a half a day on a half hour lunch break. Sometimes, after work, I’d get in an afternoon session, maybe at Church when the northwest winds blew.

Those ten months that job lasted were, this far removed, dreamlike, surf-wise; and sort of made up for rarely getting to surf Swamis. Still, Trish and I could go to the La Paloma, she could shop at local boutiques- we were, despite living east of I-5,  locals. For a former inland cowboy, this was great.

Several times a week Trish and I would meet up after work, get some takeout food, go to the parking lot at Swamis to check the surf and the sunset. Even if the surf was marginal, there were always people hanging out; tourists, surfers, posers; something else to watch while eating.

On one such evening, a tall, thin, and already-wasted guy in Hollywood surf attire was chatting to people near the railing, leaning into car windows, talking surf stories. “Oh, and then there was the classic swell of December, 1969.”

“I know,” Trish said, “You were there.” After a bite. “Go tell him.”

“No. It’s just… yeah; I was (pointing at the water) there.”

At this time, with the second set of formal stairs in use, the cooler thing to do after surfing was to scale the bluff. I did it a few times. Sure, you’d be arrested or stoned (more like lectured) by a mob in the parking lot if you even tried it nowadays. Someone would surely sacrifice an environmentally friendly and reusable smoothy container to knock you back down.

On this evening, in the grainy light of dusk, Trish and I partway through some Mexican food, and directly in front of our partially-steamed windshield, two surfers popped up from the cliff and into sight.

John Amsterdam, wetsuit peeled down, was one of them. I can’t say for certain that he recognized me, but I’ll always swear he gave me the harshest look.

This was the last time, to my knowledge, that I saw Mr. Amsterdam.

I always feel that, maybe some day out at some semi-secret spot on the Straits of Juan de Fuca, I’ll see him again. Judging me; harshly; maybe almost as harshly as I judge myself.

John Amsterdam may always hate me.

John Amsterdam May Still Hate Me (Chapter 5)

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-Spring, 1970- Grandview-

With no time to actually surf, I was just checking Grandview out late morning. This was just a little detour between my early (academic-rather than art-related) classes at Palomar Junior College in San Marcos and my job at Buddy’s Sign Service in Oceanside. Seeing Bucky Davis on the beach, I made my way down.

I was, by now, accustomed to surfing without a crew. Phillip Harper and Ray Hicks were going to some JC somewhere farther north. My other friends were also scattered by jobs, or real colleges, or, for some, military service. And I had a busy schedule.

Though I had the reputation, well earned, during high school, that I’d go surfing with anyone willing to drive, or go with me, Ray and Phillip had long been my closest friends and best surfing partners. I wasn’t reaching out to others. No time.

There was work, and school, and church on Saturdays, and a girlfriend. Steady girlfriend. I had become pretty much a regular at the Oceanside’s south jetty, hitting it seven-thirtyish to eight forty-five (give or take, depending on wave quality) most work day mornings. Still, being known, knowing some others in the lineup; these weren’t friends; we didn’t talk.

Still, I was grateful Buddy, Florida Prison-trained sign painter, of Buddy’s Sign Service, didn’t even think about working before nine. If I just couldn’t talk myself into getting out of the water I could make it up by staying later.

If the waves south of Oceanside Pier, the ocean one block and some railroad tracks away, were just too glassy, too irresistible, and there wasn’t a lot for an apprentice sign painter slash shop nub to do;  Buddy could usually be convinced to let me go.

“So, you can come in on Sunday to make up for it. Right?”

Because Buddy tried to maintain a persona that included some amount of ex-con toughness, and, with his real name being Lacy, he had earned it; the answer to making up for time lost to waves and school and church and a girlfriend was always, “Sure.”

Other mornings I’d hit whatever piece of sandbar seemed best in the neighborhood. Sometimes, with some inkling of a larger swell, I’d take off earlier from home, starting as far south as Swamis, racing up 101, hoping to hit a few favorable stoplights once I got to Oceanside.

WHEN THE NOW-LEGENDARY SWELL OF DECEMBER, 1969 smashed against the shores, closing out almost everywhere else, I managed to surf Swamis every day of the five day event by skipping school and not telling/lying-to Buddy.

On the first and biggest day; totally undergunned, offshore winds spraying would-be shoulder-hoppers back, most waves would have someone on them, from sixty yards up the reef, locked-in and wailing. The entire bluff was filled each day with onlookers, a few less as the swell dropped enough for Swamis to offer more manageable peaks and walls later in the week.

I had nobody to share the story with other than my girlfriend, my Trish, Trish Scott. A year behind me, she was still in high school and working Friday nights and Saturdays at the Post Exchange on Camp Pendleton. I still told her how, on the second day of the swell, I got thrashed by a section at the inside peak, figured that was enough, swam in, couldn’t find my board, saw the entire cheering section atop the bluff pointing and yelling “It’s in the rip!” So I jumped back in, swam out, and, by the time I reached the board, I was almost in the lineup. So, I looked for an empty shoulder on an inside wave…

“No, no; I’m listening. Go on.”

Trish was more interested in how I’d sometimes see her old friend from when she lived in Oceanside, Barbie Barron, while surfing at the Oceanside South Jetty. “We were in the Oceanside Girls’ Surfing Club,” Trish would say, always adding that she had started board surfing before I had.

“Yeah, but I surf now.”

I WANTED TO TALK TO BUCKY. I knew his relationship with his Trish, Phillip’s sister had ended; she had moved on. Their romance was one my circle of friends seemed to have discussed enough that we created our own fairytale/groupthink/consensus version of their reality. But, I hadn’t heard any of this from Bucky. Or from his Trish.

Bucky had shown up once when Phillip and Ray and I were surfing Swamis Beachbreak, our Summer/small wave default spot. I was filming my friends with my Super 8 camera, trying to convince them to film me. He dropped his cool a bit, got all competitive, told us the problem with boards was they weren’t yet short enough. We had some fun.

I also knew Bucky’s brother had been killed, murdered in some stupid/tragic event. The sort of whispered and incomplete version I heard included some implication that his brother had stepped into some confrontation in defense of the intended target, Bucky.

It may have also been that I wanted to talk surfing.

My conversation with Bucky, him in trunks, me in my school/work outfit, looking sideways at the waves, was low key; what we were up to, how much life was slowing down our surfing, where we were in the draft, Bucky was, somehow, out. I was, with my birth date having received a ‘36’ in the first lottery, and the war predicted to go on forever, and those whose deferments ran out definitely going to Vietnam, considering dropping my student deferment and taking a chance on the next lottery.

“No, I’m really just a nub. Buddy won’t even let me wash out his sign brushes.”  I was waiting for a moment to tell him how sorry I was that…

John Amsterdam. Without either of us acknowledging the other, the previously unnoticed John came up from behind Bucky, put his arm over his friend’s shoulder, did, finally, acknowledge me with a dirty look. Actually, it was more like the same harshly judgmental expression.

“Hey, Bucky; let’s go on down the beach, get our heads on.”

And they did. I wasn’t invited. I watched them go around the curve of the bluff. Bucky looked back once, gave me a slight nod.  It was all right. I watched the surfers for a few more moments, checked my watch. I had sign boards to paint, and maybe, when it glasses off…