Today I went surfing at a secret spot in North LA County. There is a parking lot in front of it and 10 guys and 2 girls were out. Not that secret. I started talking to a man around my dad's age, as I often do, so I wanted to begin to record stories from these types of folks. Some of them are very cool, some are eccentric and crazy, some are mellow and some are burned out. What is perhaps most interesting is that a rarely see any of them again.
The interaction is like that of riding a wave, a conversation at a bar or a one night stand - when it is over it is over and cannot be regained or redone. It is a one surf stand. You never really know who you will see again, but after many years of speaking to people in lineups it has become clear that the conversations are best seen for what they are and will never be more. Here is the first account, which is in some ways typical and in some ways not at all:
I had just paddled out and there were two other guys out. We were spread out in the lineup and I was catching some fun lefts in front of some rocks. This guy paddled out and right near me. This is not the best etiquette, but as I found out, he was a goofyfoot too and he wanted some lefts. I obliged. He caught a wave and I noticed two things - he could surf and he was riding a Firewire, which is a pretty high-tech surfboard and one not commonly seen under the feet of men his age. We began to talk about board design and materials, then moved to how good young kids surf now.
He was catching tons of great waves. I am a wave magnet in certain scenarios, but he was today. He also had the right equipment for the conditions and I really didn't. He told me about his daughter's boyfriend, a pro surfer I had heard of, and we spoke of pro surfing and other pros who had come out of the area. His daughter is 19, a community college student who doesn't quite know what she wants to do yet, and she is gorgeous and a good girl, evidenced by her taking runner-up in a swimsuit contest. I told him I feel that kind of girl is hard to find, especially in LA.
He works in advertising and likes his job and the benefits it offers his family. I told him what I am doing for work and he asked that I create a masters division so he can surf in the contests because all he wants to do is surf. Most of his friends have quit surfing and he often surfs with their kids.
He grew up on Point Dume, a beautiful place. In high school he surfed POP, the spot where the kids in the Dogtown and Z-Boys movie surf. I told him I lived in Venice and he asked if I surf here often. I told him I don't, really. The crowds are bad and angry and the surf isn't good. He told me he was glad he never became a grumpy old man like some of the locals in Venice. They are way beyond grumpy, they're angry and looking to fight, I said. He knew the type - flannel shirt, big coffee in hand, big gut, mustache, dickish attitude, never actually surfs. I said if I ever became an old man who just talks about the good old days I would quit surfing.
"These are the good old days," he said.
