YET ANOTHER "I REMEMBER" COLUMN

9-19-07
By corky Carroll

I remember most of the radical changes in the sport of surfing. Humongous, heavy surfboards made out of redwood and pine. Only true beach behemoths could lug these giant logs into the shore break. These gut busters were replaced by lighter, easier to control, balsa boards that could be surfed anywhere, not just the point breaks. The problem with balsa boards is that they sucked up water like a dying man in the desert. They were way difficult to shape. Hobie, and Grubby Clark spent a year secluded in a Quonset hut with blacked out windows, in Laguna Canyon, perfecting the lightweight polyurethane blank. Lots and lots of dudes became shapers. Some of the old school shapers called them “mowers” because the foam blank was so much easier to shape than a balsa blank.

Then, boards really got shorter and shorter and super shorter.

I remember when the movie Gidget turned the inland masses on to how super cool surfing is. All of a sudden guys who could hardly surf showed up with bitchin’ babes in restored woodies listening to eight track cassettes of the Beach Boys. We checked the local surf spots. The dudes in the woodies cruised the surf spots. Dick Dale was the King of the Surf Guitar. Dick Dale and the Del Tones played the Rendezvous Ballroom on the Balboa Peninsula every weekend. If the Beach Boys and the Beatles had not showed up Dick might have wound up being Elvis.

I remember wearing an authentic Pendleton wool shirt over my J.C. Penny’s Towncraft tee shirt. Pendleton was the outer garment of choice for surfers and low riders. We wore them unbuttoned. The low rider dudes carefully folded their Pendletons over their forearms. Does anyone remember Sir Guy shirts?

I remember surfing a contest in Santa Cruz when this dude showed up with a surf leash. He took chances none of us would dare take at big Steamer Lane. No icy swims for him into the rocks. We all caught on real fast that the surf leash was the way to go. However, this performance enhancing invention also allowed the kuks to stay in the line-up after blowing the take off. No more miss the take off followed by an exhaustive swim to the beach. Now the kuk could just climb back on his board, sit right on the spot and do it all over again.

I remember before the surf forecasters when a surprise swell was a half-day gift to surfers who lived on the coast.
I remember when wave skis showed up at San Onofre. Don Craig’s dad Doug, who was the president of the San Onofre Surfing Club, made a bumper sticker that said, “USE A PADDLE, GO TO PRISON.” San Onofre Surfing Beach was for surfboard riding only. They moved the butt boarders to the south end of San Onofre.

Surf God Laird Hamilton has changed surfing once again. Super surfer Laird was photographed on a sick Godzilla size wave in Tahiti that scared me just to look at the photo. And then he did it again on a stand-up paddle surfboard. This death-defying stunt earned him even more publicity and international acclaim.

For centuries, until that moment, stand-up paddle surfing was something the ancient Hawaiians had done to stay in shape when the surf was flatter than my eighth grade girlfriend. Now super fit guys in their early 40’s, prettier than Sam George, driving shiny new SUVs are embracing the sport.

Orange County is full of guys who used to be hot short boarders who have decided to forsake time in the water for a business career. These guys can be seen charging on their humongous stand-up paddle surfboards with carbon fiber paddles in restricted areas from Seal Beach to the south end of San Onofre with the butt boarders, canoers and kayakers.

A rare opportunity to compete on stand-up surfboards will happen on Sunday, October 7th during the inaugural Classic Surf Cup presented by Infinity Surfboards at Old Man’s Surf Break, San Onofre Surf Beach. In addition there will be tandem and a contemporary longboard contest. Nalu’s Island Grill will serve a traditional Hawaiian plate lunch to all competitors. Check out www.classicsurf.com for information. San Onofre is the one of the last of the good old drive in and spend the whole day with the family surf spots left. Grab that humongous stand-up paddle surfboard, the wife, the kids and the dog and head down to San O and enjoy the way surfing used to be. Did I say humongous surfboard? Amazing how history repeats its’ self.

The Wave ~ 9-19-07
By Corky Carroll

Last night I was sitting on my deck talking with my pals Blue Dog and the Iguana. Another long time friend came by whom I can’t honestly name due to the content of the rest of this story.   I will, for conversational purposes only, call him Don in this story. Don is a good surfer who has spent a lot of time surfing in Fiji and also in Mexico near my tropical hang out. At the present time Don lives in the beach section of Orange County but he used to live back in the hills where it was a bit more rural, so to speak.

We were sitting there doing a taste test on some extremely fine samples of different tequilas and listening to the surf and watching the dogs run all over the place. We have a lot of dogs.   Don mentioned that he used to have a big husky that was named Heathcliff. I guess Heathcliff used to like to ride on the nose of Don’s longboard but he was so big that Don had to get a special eleven footer made just so he could take Heathcliff out once in awhile. If he took the dog to the beach and didn’t take him out surfing Heathcliff would sit at the edge of the water and howl at the top of his lungs until Don came back in.

Don’s house at the time was in a little area where there where only a few other homes and he was surrounded by hills. Obviously this was back a few years when there where still such places in Orange County. Heathcliff was also the guard dog for Don’s house.   There was quite a bit of wildlife in the area at that time. Cougars and Mountain Lions and all sorts of stuff lurking around. Heathcliff had a major league bark and was pretty good at keeping the homestead safe from unwanted four legged, or two legged for that matter, creatures.

This was all good and dandy until a skunk showed up and started eating the dog food.   Don would be sitting on his patio and this bold skunk would walk right up and start eating Heathcliff’s food.   And ol’ Heathcliff would just sit there sleeping and not do a thing about it.   This sort of upset Don. He would toss a rock or stick or something at Heathcliff to wake him up and chase off the skunk but no mater what he did the dog just laid there sleeping right next to the skunk eating his food.

One night Don had enough and went into the house and came out with his .22 pistol and decided to take matters into his own hands.   From about maybe, in his own words, four or five yards away he started shooting at the skunk. He fired off an entire clip and missed him completely. All the while the skunk kept eating like nothing was going on. Don was furious and went back into the house and loaded up the pistol again.   Same thing, missed him clean with every shot.   He was saying how hard it is to hit anything with a pistol. We all just were thinking this dude is really a bad shot.   It sort of reminded me of one of those movies where thirty bad guys are all shooting at the hero from close range with automatic weapons while the guy is running up and down staircases with the wind rushing through his perfect hair and bullets are whistling past his ears right and left but he is never hit once. Then he turns around a pops somebody 300 yards away and nails him right between the eyes.

Anyway the skunk finished his meal and wandered off.   This kept up for about another week while Don was thinking about buying a shotgun.   Then one night Don opened the door to let Heathcliff in and that big ol’ Husky had a huge smile on his face. Don says, “What are you smiling about anyway?”

Heathcliff opened his mouth and there was a bunch of black and white fur and he had the worst skunk breath you can imagine.   For two weeks after that Don rinsed out his mouth with tomato juice and would not let him in the car to go to the beach to surf.   This sort of angered Heathcliff and he wasn’t too happy about the tomato juice rinse thing either. I guess dogs aren’t really into veggies all that much. But it did solve the dog food eating skunk issue nicely.