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Another Day in
the Lot Got up at 5:30 and drove to Ocean Beach. Small and blown out. What a surprise. Drove south to Pacifica and for the first time in memory beat Sir Richard to the beach. He lives in East Bay Egypt and needs to be home by before noon, so he gets up kind of early; like about the time Jay Leno signs off. So I call him on the wireless and he tells me he’s on Highway 101 just about at my house. Say’s he’s going to stop by and say hi to my wife. What a guy. I’m giving him a surf report and he’s hitting on my beautiful bride. So it was small but surfable at the north end of Linda Mar. That was actually good news, considering how flat it’s been in NorCal all week. It was a beautiful morning. The water was warm and it was great watching the sun burning through the fog and lighting up the hills along the coast. Rich and I traded waves, taking turns dropping in on each other and swapping bad jokes and updates on our fascinating lives. There was one shoulder-high wave that rolled through. Rich was paddling out and I went for the wave but just missed it. That was all he needed. “I’m sorry you got scared and had to bail out. Don’t be afraid!” All the way back to the lot it was the same. . . “You know it’s going to get big when fall comes, I hope you’ll still want to go surfing!” Jerk. Best friends are like your dog. Pain in the butt and you couldn’t live without them. I showered and sat on the tailgate of my SUV, baking in the sun. Our pal Marty the Wave Boar (or Bore) drove up. He and Sir Richard started jawing about their upcoming surf trip to Fiji. The Boar had made reservations for a connecting flight from LA and paid six times the normal rate. Rich, ever the capitalist, was busting his chops and giving a tutorial about making reservations on the internet. About then Kara pulled into the lot. Kara is a really nice and very attractive woman who’s married to one of my pals at work, Dave. They have two children and take turns watching the kids while one of them surfs. Dave and I suffer through staff meetings talking about the latest swell. He always reminds me that it’s OK for me to surf with his pretty wife, but if I put the moves on her he’ll drown me in polluted water. A guy I’ve surfed with before came by, walking his dog. Funny thing about surfing; you can paddle out with someone fifty times without exchanging names. So I learned that his name is Abe, and that he’s a marriage counselor and a volunteer therapist for foster kids and he’s written a few self-help books and is starting his first novel and going to Puerto Vallarta to an all-inclusive resort where they have a nice point break. . . I’m always amazed at the interesting lives of people who surf. Are creative and gutsy people drawn to surfing, or does the sport make them that way? So Marty the Wave Boar brought his second-favorite board for Rich to try out tomorrow, so they threw it in the back of Rich’s car and then Marty headed out to the north end. Then it came to me. Rich has Marty’s board. I have the camera in my car. I have a web site with a classified section. . . Let’s take a few pictures of Rich holding Marty’s board and put it up for sale! That’s the ticket. Just have to leave a note on his windshield: “Be sure to check the website tonight, I’m updating the classified section.”
For sale Kara comes back to the lot limping. Punched out of the back of a small wave and wacked her ankle on her board. She asks for a little help pulling her wetsuit over her foot. Injuries are surprisingly rare in surfing, but they happen, and usually when you least expect it. And what could be worse than getting hurt on a mushy little day? She told me she was already working on a story about how she twisted her ankle while doing a 360 on an overhead wave at Steamer Lane. I felt bad for even thinking it, but I couldn’t wait to get back to work and tell Dave I helped his wife out of her wetsuit. He wouldn’t really kill a friend, would he? I found out later that her ankle was broken, then I really felt like a cad. A guy walks up and asks about where to rent a surfboard. He’s from Chile and in the states for a week and wants to get in a couple of sessions. He asks about the surfing in NorCal and I explain that we really do have waves. . . just not today. So I give him a card with the SurfHumor internet address so he can check out the pictures from last weekend’s south swell. He goes back to his car and comes back with a flyer advertising what must be the first surfing tour business in Chile (www.surfchiletours.com). Way cool. Reluctantly I toss the board in the car and drive home and back to the real world. Just another day in the parking lot. And people wonder why we surf? Update. Got an email late that night from Marty the Wave Bore: Hey Shrink I'm really interested in that BC board on the site today. Anybody who owns that board has got to be a real ripper. Do you think Marty would throw in a few lessons with that board purchase? Oh, about those transportation dings. The kind of MAN who would surf a magnificent stick like that is going to probably turn his leash into something of a noose for the kook(s) who dinged it.
Weird Things to Like About
Surfing When it's flat the DogMan Chronicles turns to subjects other than recent waves in Surf City. There are a few possibilities:
A Top 10 with 20 items: This week's feature is an oddball: the top 10 weird things to like about surfing. Had so much fun with this that there are actually 20 items in the list. So without further adeau....
20. Surfing a popular break the day after a shark sighting, and having the lineup to yourself because everyone else is too scared to paddle out. 19. Letting another surfer have a wave that's yours, only to find yourself perfectly lined up for an even better wave that's behind it. 18. Putting on your wetsuit again for the first time after coming home from a surf trip to the tropics where you caught nipple rash, rib bruises, and scraped knees from surfing in only board shorts. 17. Being frightened by large powerful waves, stroking into one, suffering a horrendous face plant and hold down, surfacing while sputtering for air, then laughing about living through the experience and escaping unhurt. 16. Watching other surfers who rip more than you from close range, and learning a few things to improve your own surfing. 15. Watching a butt surfer spin in the white water like a popsicle stick in a blender set to frappe. 14. Pulling the Jedi mind trick on other surfers in order to get a few uncrowded waves, and it works! (A gentle horizontal gesture with your arm and hand, palm down, accompanied by "These are not the waves we're looking for.") 13. Riding decent waves at a spot no one else considers a surf break. 12. Suffering from surfers' ear, forgetting to take your ear plugs to the beach, and having another surfer you hadn't previously met give you a brand new pair of his ear plugs. (Whoever you are, I'm indebted.) 11. Breaking your leash during a mondo wipeout, coming up for air and seeing your board sitting calmly three feet from you. 10. Breaking your leash, watching helplessly as your magic stick is carried toward the rocks, then seeing a surfer on the shore retrieve it for you before it's smashed. 9. Surfing a wave with a bud, and you both shred it. 8. Rolling up the shore after riding a great wave all the way in and getting sand in your wetsuit. 7. The smell of fresh board wax. 6. Playing with your dog on the beach after a session. 5. Two words: Noodle Arms! 4. Pulling on a cold, wet, clammy, sandy wetsuit and liking it because it means it's your second (or third) session of the day. 3. Taking off on a wave you couldn't possibly make in a million years, and making it! 2. Walking to the beach in the autumn to surf the first double overhead NW swell of the season after groveling for knee high waves all summer. And the number one weird thing to like about surfing is: 1. Sitting at a business meeting after a session, and disgusting everyone when salt water spontaneously drains from your nose.
by Jeff Glover
Yes it's very shallow where these waves all come to roll, But have you ever stopped to think "just how shallow is my soul?" Stop to watch these men riding mountains, even a kid surfing ripples with grace, You'll notice one common bond each one displays with pride, The smile permanently glowing upon his face. This is the smile of those who can see through the wall, to the other side of the hollow, They know if their body becomes one with the wave, their soul soon shall follow.
by Jeff Glover
When these silver backed godivas come rolling in with a surge of power and submission, I cannot help but let my body and soul become overwhelmed with a sense of unity, so unique to this great sport of kings that it forces me to the sand, hands adorned with offerings of spirit, and I wait for my iridescent beckoning. The moonlight above signifies acceptance, and I – now overcome with felicity – begin my long trek into the divine blue. While I am cognizant that this meeting will be like all the others, I also recognize that this will be a rendezvous like never before; this time my feet shall not again see terra firma. I am not enlisting in a kamikaze mission of self-affliction, nor do I intend to see myself marred by any means. However, I can no longer justify the suppression of my pipe dreams. Some say that this sounds absurd, that there is no way fathomable to possibly remain true to both points made, but to they who truly deem that valid – I inquire: do we not observe this very example of duality in everyday life? Can this model not be applied to an activity that provides nirvana to many, if it can be applied to actions that provide paper representations of who is “truly” in life’s winner’s circle? Absolutely. How can we accept that one man is ‘better off’ than another simply because he furnishes his dwelling with more empty space. That is exactly what our concept of “more” is….empty space. Having made that differentiation, I now ask….who is fuller? The first man who spends the duration of his existence in the physical world allowing himself to be consumed by filling his life with empty space and therefore overlooks what ‘fulness’ actually is, or the second man who chooses the road less traveled and in doing so, stumbles upon an entire new world – one which does not encourage its inhabitants to fill up on that which is tangible, but instead to overflow on the non-corporeal elements which are much more filling. So then why return? Why not remain in the divine blue when the only thing waiting on shore is emptiness….emptiness by way of overbooking soul vacancy with empty objectives.
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