MY FIRST SURF MOBILE 6-18-08
By Corky Carroll

The other day I was driving along about ten miles inland from the beach when I passed a kid riding his bike with a board under his arm. I was thinking that this dude was pretty far from the surf to be biking it. But then with the small and light boards of today and also the sleek fast bikes I guess it really wasn’t such a big deal. But it did remind me of my very first surf mobile. It was my purple Schwinn three speed that I had when I was in the sixth grade. It was on this faithful ride that I took my very first surf safari.

The year was 1958. I remember it well as I had just seen my very first surfing movie. It was titled “Surf Safari.” It was the first release from John Severson who would later make many surf films and also start and own SURFER magazine for many years. The first issue of the magazine was actually more of a promotion for his second movie, “Surf Fever,” than I think it was intended to be an actual magazine. He billed it as an “annual.” But it went over so well he decided to continue it on a quarterly basis.

When Surf Safari came out the mother of some kids down the street took us all to see it. It was showing at some little art theater in Hollywood. We were so stoked. To this day I will never forget when the big wave sequence came on. John had the classic “Theme from Peter Gunn” blasting out of the speakers and his narration went something like “On December 15th the biggest swell to hit the Hawaiian Islands in over thirty years came marching out of the North Pacific….. and only a handful were on hand to meet the challenge.” Da da da da..da da dan’t daaaaa. Bwaaaaaa bant. It was classic surf cinema. I later used that line to open a surf tune called “Big Wave Rider” that I wrote for the soundtrack to a surf film. Even today whenever the surf gets big the first thing I think of is the beginning of that sequence in John’s film and the pounding opening to the “Theme from Peter Gunn.”

Anyway. Not long after seeing the movie I decided to build a surfboard carrier to pull behind my purple Schwinn three speed. I got some old lawn mower wheels and a few two by fours and nailed this thing together that hooked on behind the seat that I could tie my board onto. It was a bit crude but it worked very well. At first I only used it to go up and down my street and maybe down a ways into Sunset Beach. I lived in Surfside at the time and even though Sunset was right next to us it was still like going “someplace else.” There was this dude named Keen Kurly that lived towards the south end of Sunset Beach and sometimes I would go down and surf by his house. Keen was a bit older than me and a really good surfer.

But then one day I was ready to make my first surf safari. I tied my board on the rack, put on my best straw hat, slung my ukulele around my neck to try and get that sort of “Kahuna” beachboy kinda look and took off to surf “Power Plant” in Seal Beach. This was like two miles from my house. It seemed farther though. Thinking back I must have looked really stupid coming down the hill into the parking lot at Power Plant banging away on my uke and yelling a bunch of “cowabungaesque” kinda stuff. But I was as stoked a stoked gremmie as there was anywhere at that time.

Not long after that first epic safari to Seal Beach I got really bold and started riding my Schwinn three speed, which also was equipped with one of those squeezy rubber horns, all the way to the Huntington Beach Pier. That was about eight miles from my house. I started doing that regularly. It is amazing that I was never killed trying to ride between the cars parked on the side of Pacific Coast Highway and the cars screaming by on Pacific Coast Highway along “Tin Can Beach” (now known as Bolsa Chica) and also along the “cliffs” area. It did almost get blown over a few times by the wind from big trucks and Greyhound buses going by. It is a good thing that my mom never found out about all those trips to the pier on the bike, she would have killed me. And for sure she would have taken it away from me after she killed me, squeezy horn, board rack and all.

SUMMER VACATION IS FUN
The Wave ~ 6-18-08
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.