UNLEASHED CRAZYNESS ~ 6-11-08
By Corky Carroll

This morning I was sitting on the beach at one of my favorite local spots getting ready to go out for a surf session. I was with my pal Blue Dog Metcalf and it looked to be a fun, yet crowded, day of nice medium sized waves. We were watching this girl who surfs this particular spot all the time and is an excellent longboard surfer. She had a great wave and was getting a nice long noseride when some guy paddled right in front of her. She had to crank a sudden cutback in order to not run the dude right over. In the process she fell off. As she was not wearing a surf leash her board got away from her and wound up floating by itself about fifty yards from where she was.

On the very next wave there was this dude who also surfs this particular spot quite a bit and also is a good surfer. This guy rides a shortboard and was getting a nice long speed section when he came upon the loose board. Being a good rider he simply went around it and kept going. The wave picked up the loose board and it did kind of a strange thing as it went over the falls behind the surfer. The tail dug into the water and propelled the loose board directly towards the guy over on the shoulder. Just as that happened the guy did a little cutback in order to get back into the pocket of the wave. The loose board went right under his tail and knocked him off his feet. It looked pretty funny and both the Blue Doggie and myself cracked up.

Unfortunately for the guy when the longboard went under his tail it hit one of his side fins, his board being a tri fin design, and broke it right out of his board. This obviously did not make the dude real happy. You could say very honestly that he was angry about it.

As he came to the beach he was cussing about the loose longboard and how people should wear surf leashes and how dangerous it was when people didn’t. The girl came swimming in about then and was about to retrieve her board from the waterline when she heard the guy ranting about his broken fin and his views on people surfing without leashes. She had not known that her board had hit his board.

After checking her board for damage and seeing there was none she started to walk away. But the guy kinda yelled after her to wise up and wear a leash next time. She, being a good surfer and local, yelled back that he might not come so close to her board the next time.

And that is when it got interesting. The two of them started a very heated and verbally spirited, and also extremely entertaining, debate about the merits of the use and/or non-use of the surf leash. The girl’s contention was that a good surfer did not need to wear one and that they are only for “kuks.” Kuk is a surf term for someone who is a beginner or of very little talent. The dude’s side was that in crowded conditions, like it was today, that everybody should use one for the general safety of everybody else.

Then it started to get personal. The girl is what you might call a “full size” chick. Big boned would come to mind in describing her. Plus she is tall for a girl, maybe close to six feet. The dude is a little fella, sort of a Mickey Munoz kinda job. Maybe all of five foot two. And he is sort of one of those little dudes who overdoes it with the weights and has that “I spend way too much time in the gym” look.
So the conversation went something like her saying, “listen you little pip squeak, next time don’t come so close to a loose board.”

And his retaliation was something like, “Oh yeah Amazionia, next time don’t loose your board.” And they were standing toe to toe. We figured that at any moment there were gonna throw blows.

“I’ll take the chick for ten bucks,” chimed in Blue Dog. I had to think about that for a moment. It looked to be the better call to me too. But before we could arrange the bet the two of them stomped off in separate directions.

My humble opinion of this situation would be that when it’s crowded I agree that leashes are a good idea for everybody. Everybody falls off at times, even the best of the best. If there are only a few surfers out, and not the chance of your loose board creaming somebody, else then it’s up to you if you don’t wanna use one.

SUMMER VACATION IS FUN
The Wave 5-11-08
By Corky Carroll

The dream of most school kids and the nightmare of most parents is upon us. Summer vacation. It is also the nightmare of most older surfers who are used to more relaxing conditions with less crowds on the weekdays while the kiddies are still in school. Admittedly, I be one of those older dudes who is fortunate enough to be able to surf on weekdays. What is now almost mellow crowd conditions on the average Monday will soon be replaced with hordes of over agro screaming little meanies scrambling for every nook and cranny of a wave that comes by. Some of these little creeps bite too. I have been bitten enough times to know this. Way worse than sharks. They are like schools of piranhas. Wave and people eating ones, the worst kind.
Tattooed and pierced little hissing and hungry nasty wave chompers. It bodes badly for we of the geezer population.

But, long, long ago in a land known as Surfside there once lived a young prince. This extremely mellow and noble price was also a school boy. He, as with these ravenous beasties of today, loved his summer vacation. O.K. yes, you guessed it. I am talking about me of course. Back then it seemed like winter took soooooo long to get over with. Especially like the last month of school. It seemed to go on and on and time would slow to a crawl. Just a few days more and it was freedom city. Surf all day, everyday.

Lots of hot babes at the beach to work on while not surfing. Of course this was way before thongs or even string bikinis. The things chicks wore back then were more like one-piece wool nun outfits compared to the wondrously getting closer to non-existent thread thongs of today. I love the new suits. Unless it is some weird dude struttin’ down the strand in one. Geeze, I hate that. They are made for chicks and that’s that. If you are a dude, DON’T wear those things under any circumstances. In your own home fine. At the beach NEVER.

Anyway, my point being is that summer vacation was the most wonderful time of the year for me. We lived right next to the beach so I could surf all I wanted. There were almost no crowds back then. Sometimes it would get a bit jammed up down by the water tower at Anderson Street. But I could just paddle out in front of my house with nobody but me and maybe a pal or two. Mark Martinson used to hang out at my house a lot during our high school days and we almost always had the peak out front to ourselves.

The downside of summer for me was that nobody clued me in on using sunblock and my nose was always fried to a blistered and scabby lump of redness. And, it would go by way, way far way, too fast. Time is weird ya know. When you are a kid it goes so slow. Especially the cold winter months when all you can think about is the wavey crazy days of summer. Then when it finally comes around it’s like zippo and it’s over. The three words I used to dread the most in life were “back to school.” Now it’s like sweet music in my ears. Yeah baby, herd those booger nosed brats back into the classroom and open up some waves for yours truly. The pasture is so much more serene without packs of barking puppies, squealing piglet’s and screaming kittens running amuck were us geezers are trying to graze in peace and harmony with the universe.

The Iguana, Blue Dog and myself were sitting around on the deck the other night discussing the oncoming summer vacations and what we could do to maintain sanity yet one more year. Pepper spray was brought up along with BB guns. We have one dude who surfs where we do that has a dog that rides on the nose of his board. Anybody that try’s to drop in the dude gets barked at. I am thinking of mounting a set of bullhorns on the nose of my cowboard and wearing a bell around my neck. It is amazing how many people drop in on me on a daily basis and always come up the same old lame excuse. “I didn’t see ya coming.” Right. Come on. Here comes this huge fat dude wearing a red rash guard and riding a board airbrushed like a big cow. You can’t see THAT? Let’s see if some horns and a loud clanging cowbell might do the trick.