The Surfer Pt. 2

The call about the surfboard came out of the blue. It came from Steve Bluemel, the son of my day's boss. "I have this surfboard I need to get rid of. I have to leave for overseas and I can't take it." I casually asked what it looked like. He said, "It's ten foot Dewey Weber with a redwood stringer and skeg and "fire-engine" red rails. It looks fast." I couldn't believe my luck. I had never seen a real surfboard up close, but I knew Dewey Weber was one of the best. I visualized that stout little fireplug Dewey Weber ripping across a Malibu wave. I couldn't wait to get one of their decals on our Plymouth. I tried to be calm. "Weber's one of the best hotdoggers around" I chimed in to sound smart. He dismissed it and said, "Do you want it? Can you pay for it?" "I'll ask my dad. How much?" "Forty dollars even." Now I might have been in eighth grade but I know a bargain when I heard one. I had forty dollars I had saved from my paper route. My conversation with dad was ornamental. I wanted the surfboard and I didn't care if we lived in Denver. "Can you bring the surfboard over tonight?"

Bluemel drove up the driveway with the surfboard strapped to the top of the car. While getting out of the car, Bluemel said, " I threw some car racks and a wetsuit." The surfboard was beautiful. The red was the reddest red I'd ever seen. Redder than even our fire engine red Plymouth. It looked shiny and new. No, it wasn't a Sandy surfboard. Sandy was a local surfboard maker here in Riverside. It was a Dewey Weber shaped in Hermosa Beach. I immediately sent for a Dewey Weber decal for our car. The decal said it all. Dewey Weber with a poster like graphic about eight inches wide. My mind drifted. I could feel the warm sun and the tropical trade winds blowing across the face of the gradually pealing perfect wave. I was in heaven. It was also a dream. I'd only been to the ocean a few times and it was with a house full of my sister's girlfriends.

I eventually went to sleep with the surfboard laying next me like a newly wed.

The next morning I woke up and walked the surfboard over to our swimming pool. The board obviously needed a water environment. I jumped in and sat on the surfboard. I must of sat there for an hour or so before I decided to walk the board down to the mall. The Riverside Mall was probably a mile or mile and a quarter away. I'm not sure I noticed the stares. I'm not sure if I heard the uproarious laughter when people caught sight of me walking down the street like a businessman carrying a thirty-five pound nautical devise. I do remember Jim Fogler yelling across the canal at me. "You're an asshole Quinn." I didn't care. I was thirteen, and hopefully someone would mistake me for a surfer.

The surfboard would sit in the pool for weeks on end. Once in a while I wold wax the top of it and paddle it back and forth around the pool Guests treated it like a pet. My parents visitors invariably ended up in the backyard staring at the board. They usually would say, " its the first one I've seen up close.


The one thing I hadn't counted on was the transportation to the beach. It's difficult being a thirteen year old surfer and living 60 miles from the Pacific Ocean. After three months the tension became too much for even my father. "Don't you think it would be a good idea to see if that surfboard works. " You mean go to the beach?," I shouted. I really wasn't prepared for that. I tried to think of the place with the smallest surf on the west coast. "Doheny? I exclaimed. It was a small gently breaking wave on the south side of the Dana Point Harbor. It was tucked in between Laguna and Capistrano Beach. Hobie Alter lived down there. I thought to myself, "maybe I'll run into him."


My father impatiently unwrapped the surf racks that Bluemel had given to me. Every tangled knot or misplaced screw taxed my father's extremely low threshold of comfort. He finally attached all the pressure points on the racks and he slid the surfboard on top of the car. We had traveled no more than three miles down the Santa Canyon highway when people in cars we drove by began frantically pointing towards the car rack. Because I was so caught up in the excitement of being seen with a surfboard on our car I hadn't noticed the distinct metal on metal banging of the car rack's disengaging strap hooks pounding on the roof of our car. The sight was not pretty . The surfboard had completely separated from the front rack and the force of the wind was standing the board completely on end. As we slowed to stop, the surfboard gradually and then, not so gradually, fell down across the roof and small pieces of surfboard fiberglass feel to the ground. I hadn't even make it in the ocean and I had my first "ding." My father was livid. "Goddamn it! I knew that board was going to fuck our car up. I don't know why we ever did this. That's great, goddamn it."


The scene always played itself out the same way. I was excited, but if it entailed a little work, imagination, patience, or industry my father would be thrown into a rage. He would rage at the problem. And then he would rage at me. In the end he took anything that was new and I was excited about he would make fun of or condemn it. At an age when the world was before me I began I knew that nothing was going to be easy. I felt scared for no particular reason and like my life was being sucked out of me.


Somehow we got back on track. We made it down to Doheny State Park. The entrance was confusing but after being dangerously exposed on the frighteningly unforgiving PCH. (Also known as Pacific Coast Highway.) Some how the directions, the speeding traffic, the cost of parking, and even the weather, had all become my fault.

The closer I walked towards the water the faster my heart began to beat and the emptiness and fear overcame me. The skies were overcast and the fog made it difficult to even see the water past the shore break. There was no horizon. It was cold and foreign. Only then did I realize I had never seen anyone surf. The closest I'd ever been was the pages of Surfer Magazine. I didn't have a clue what to do. I kept pacing the beach looking for a stretch for a stretch of water that didn't look dangerous. I slowly began to take off my clothes. Each piece of clothing was an eternity. I then began to pull, and I mean pull, the wetsuit on. One inch at a time. I was exhausted and it was only pulled up to my waist.

I just couldn't do it. It was too scary. I knelt down and needlessly re-waxed my surfboard over and over. Finally I looked up at my father and said, " Let's go to Huntington Beach. It might be better." With resignation my father replied, "great." I walked away from the water feeling extremely self-conscious. It was March in 1963.

One hour later we were there. As we drove into the parking lot the sun dramatically burst through the fog and overcast. As I gazed out toward the ocean a large section of water was lit up by the reflection of the sun. The ocean looked inviting. I felt a breeze drive across the beach and pass out to sea. The smell of chaparral and mustard blew across the bluffs and eventually over the sea grass across the highway. The waves took shape and the wind peeled off across the wave face and sent a slight splay of water across the back. I took off my wetsuit and sat down on the sand. I felt much better. I breathed deep and closed my eyes. I felt the warmth of the sun. I walked to the water's edge.

I began to run into the surf and tried to lay down on the board. I was having trouble negotiating, what seemed to be an impossible shore break. It had to be at least two feet high (that's a joke.) I didn't seem to be going anywhere and my surfboard slid from side to side. I hang onto the rails but the chop knocked me off the board. I eventually discovered my problem. The "skeg" underneath and at the back of my board was stuck in the sand and I was in no more than six inches of water. A glance to the side of my trunks and I was pleased to see my Kanvas by Katin had, so far, weathered the severe elements. I jumped off the board, turned around towards the beach, and looked towards my father. He was not looking. He might have been embarrased, I don't know. He rounded up a beer and was watching the cars on the highway above us. I turned around, tried to relax and began paddling out past the shore break. For some reason, everything seemed to slow down. I steadied myself until I saw a wave developing over the horizon. I furiously paddled but it passed underneath me. I paddled out again and settled in. The air was perfect and the warm breeze invigorated me. The sun charged me with confidence. I began to feel more at home in the water, and I thought to myself, I'm going to stay out here until I catch a wave. Most of the time I was too early taking off, but usually I was too late. The wave of the day began to build about fifty yards in back of me. It looked huge (it was probably 2-3 feet). I turned around and began to paddle. I paddled with deep, deliberate strokes. I knew this was the one. I began to feel the water begin to move me. It was no longer through my efforts. I was caught up in natural law and I stood up. The surfboard was no longer listing and sliding from side to side. I was going fast but I was no longer fighting it. I felt in harmony. As I pulled up and looked ahead I felt as high as the tops on the palm trees across the highway. Within minutes the wave began to collapse around me, but I rode straight into the beach and almost on the sand. I stopped and yelled at the top of my lungs, "Cowabunga." My reading had served me well and my vocabulary had grown.

Today I look back and I realize that it worked for that one moment because I let go of my fears and stopped fighting the water around me. Only then did I begin to surf. I had never understood that important lesson before. Like my dad I raided and raged against my imperfections. I could never be perfect. When I stopped caring, I relaxed and my fears and insecurities feel away and I slowed down enough to learn. When I stopped fighting I could do anything. The water became my metaphor.

Although my father would always argue that the surf he grew up around in Atlantic City, New Jersey was much bigger and more difficult to manage, we both grew up a little that day. When I came in to shore he wasn't as mad as before. I think he even admired me. It wasn't so much that I had managed to stand up; it was the fact that I had stuck with it even when I struggled. I had shown grit. And I know he admired that. It had been a long time since " a job well down" had meant anything to him. He was too lost in his booze and memories from World War ll. But underneath the torrent and the rage that day he managed to look beyond himself and looked at me and said, " great job out there Mick."