======== Newsgroups: alt.surfing Subject: Death of a grommet From: nos@nexus.cprinc.com (Nosurfatu) Date: 21 May 97 15:32:40 GMT I was ten years old (almost eleven) on the day I died. Our family had packed up the van and headed off to Surf 'n Sand (a beachside campground somewhere near Morehead City) to hook up with friends and camp out overnight. On the way, the eight-track blared "Jesus is just alright" by the Doobies, while my older brother and I talked about the fear we both had of ever going into the ocean again. The movie "Jaws" came out that summer, and we both had gone to see it with our aunt. Since that time we'd gone sailing to cape lookout and ocracoke, but didnt dare dip a toe into the water opting instead to take the dingy to shore with rapid, almost frantic strokes of the oars. Now here we were, going to the beach with my father the frog (he was UDT seal whose impatience with our fear of getting wet had reached the breaking point) and our mother. He began firing stinging little salvos at us, calling my brother and me "pantywaists", among other things. I can remember his scowling face framed in the rearview mirror as he chided us for being "girls" when my mother chimed in: "Dear, stop torturing the boys. If they don't want to learn how to surf, that's their decision" - SURF!? What did she say!? My brother and I looked at each other with our jaws agape. We were both hardcore skate rats - we'd even built a shabby ten foot ramp at the back of the church parking lot out of bits of scavenged plywood and two-by-fours. We skated on it daily, religiously repairing even the slightest separation between the parquet of beat up wood. One of the NCO's that worked in the quansett hut snack bar down at the marina heard us yacking about it one day, and not long after he showed up with his G&S board with "juice" wheels (we found this incredibly cool at the time). After he'd cut several wide arcs across the upper portion of the ramp he stopped to catch his breath and have a smoke. "You kids ever tried surfing?" he asked the group of us. "No" was our cacophanous reply. "Man, there's nothing like it." He went on to tell us great (and most likely, tall) stories of the California coast, and how he'd started surfing there when he was a teenager. For weeks after that, we'd go into the snack bar where he worked and he'd give us free Snickers bars and tell us all about his travails as a surfer with a gleam in his eye and a faraway voice. We HAD to try surfing, but when? where? We lived on the Neuse river, which was as flat as hardpan even on the windiest of days. Well, now was our chance, it appeared. One of my father's buddies, a marine harrier pilot, was joining us at Surf 'n Sand and was, according to my mother, bringing his surfboard. My brother and I were still incredulous, and duelling with thoughts of that great white shark we knew was looming just off shore with a taste for pre-teen kids. Sure enough, about an hour after we arrived and pitched our tent, he and his family arrived in their station wagon. Perched atop was the biggest, ugliest (not to mention the first) board I had ever seen. It was about 9 feet long, weighed nigh a ton (I could stand it up on one rail and topple it to the other side, but I couldn't lift it), and was made of two-tone brown wood coated with about a half inch of laquer. There was no way 2 skinny kids could ride on that thing - not without help. After pitching camp, the pilot (who's now a general, so I'll leave him anonymous) took off through the dunes with the surfboard with us trailing not far behind. The waves were not huge, but rolling in steady sets that capped off at about waist to chest high. Because of the relative seclusion of the site, and the lateness of the season there were only a handful of people on the shore, and nobody was in the water. My brother and I sat perched atop a dune with the wind blowing steadily against our backs watching as the pilot caught wave after wave, waving to us as he stood and letting out an occassional hoot. In retrospect, he was probably a kook surfer, but it sure as hell looked like fun. What finally did it for us was the fact that after half an hour, he still hadn't been eaten by "the shark". Hell, he'd sit out there between sets on that barge laying tits-up as if he were back home lounging in bed. If he wasn't afraid, why should we be? So we headed back to camp, got our rafts and joined him out there in hopes that he would teach us how to surf. He was more than happy to oblige. Grinning ear-to-ear he invited me to hop on the front of the board, which I did carefully as I was very eager to avoid submerging any part of my body if at all possible (just the paddle out was a lesson in utter terror). He turned the board toward shore and paddled a little closer in to make the take off a little easier, leaving my wide eyed and terrified brother holding onto my raft near the outside. He scratched and clawed for the first wave but the board was bogged down with my extra weight and the wave passed under us (or around us) and we bobbed like a weather buoy. We seemed to be in perfect position for the next wave, however. "Hang on, sporto" the pilot muttered from the other side of his head, which was facing away from me toward the oncoming wave. He clawed again. I then felt the sensation of the tail of the board being lifted as we began planing down its four foot face. Exhileration overtook me, and I'm sure my face must have been chiseled with an enormous grin. It wasn't an amazing wave, nor was it an incredible display of unparalleled ability, but it gave me a feeling like I'd never had before - joy, peace, exhuberance, invulnerability, I later came to know it as "stoke". The pilot was skittering around on the deck, trying to maneuver the tree when his feet shot out from under him and he landed half on the tail, half in the shoulder of the wave with a splash. I was left alone on the board (the front quarter, no less) and so immediately jumped off to the left, going with the pitch of the slanted deck. The wave curled to its apex, and crashed down on me, driving my face into the sandy bottom. Next came that ever feared "thump" on the back of my head as the tank came crashing down on me, knocking me out cold. Coughing and sputtering, I sat up on the beach and began to vomit. The pilot was sitting beside me gasping for air himself (he'd been giving me mouth to mouth). My brother was kneeling at my feet, swaying like a hula dancer. Well, thats how it looked anyways, the whole world in fact was swaying from side to side. I ended up receiving twelve stitches in the back of my head and spent the night in the infirmary. My concussion, the nausea and "ear ringing" were all but gone a week later. Funny thing is, I still had the desire to capture that moment in time where, like an epiphany, everything just came together in a flood of emotion that cannot be described, but must be experienced. A month later, on my birthday, I asked my father for a surfboard of my own. This utterly blew his mind. I'll never forget the look on his face - it was filled with pride. To him, I was no longer a pantywaist kid who was afraid of the water. Not only that, but I had died the last time I went surfing, and I still wanted to try it again. His son finally had the "cojones" to face up to his fears, and that was all he had ever wanted. I haven't died again (yet), but I keep trying. One of these days I'll get it right. --noSURFatu ======== Newsgroups: alt.surfing Subject: Re: Death of a grommet From: kes.NOSPAM@acpub.duke.edu (Strayhorn) Date: 23 May 1997 17:27:39 GMT N.B. - posted and mailed due to server problems. In article , nos@nexus.cprinc.com (Nosurfatu) wrote: > I was ten years old (almost eleven) on the day I died. Our family had > packed up the van and headed off to Surf 'n Sand (a beachside campground > somewhere near Morehead City) to hook up with friends and camp out > overnight. < . . . > > Well, now was our chance, it appeared. One of my father's buddies, a > marine harrier pilot, was joining us at Surf 'n Sand and was, according to > my mother, bringing his surfboard. Ah, does this bring back memories . . . Surf-n-Sand is a recreational area operated by the Marine Corps for the families at Camp Lejeune and Cherry Point. It's actually just south of Atlantic Beach in what used to be a wilderness area. It's where I learned to surf in the late 60s, yea these many moons ago. The Marines brought surfing to the coast of the Southeast, no matter what anyone else might tell you. Young guys like your father's friend came over from the West Coast after being stationed out there and brought their boards with them. The first surf board I ever saw was in '67, a Conn "Chrysalis" model with the butterfly logo, used by a young pilot from VMF-513 at Cherry Point. He had learned to surf while stationed at San Diego. His name was Donald Colglazer and he was killed in Vietnam in '68. At that time the hot spot was "shark's bay", one of those odd names that locals give to spots, odd because the coast there is straight as an arrow (no bay) and I never saw a shark in the 18 years I lived there. Anyway, Shark's Bay was just north of Surf-n-Sand, and a great place to hang out and learn to surf in the tiny shorebreak. The road south from Atlantic Beach was deserted, not a house or any other building until you got to the Coast Guard station on the south end of the island, 12 miles distant. You parked on the road - there was no shoulder and very little traffic - and walked stooped under the branches of the scrub pines. Now, of course, that area is covered by a Ramada Inn resort and acres of asphalt, and the road south from Atlantic Beach is solid houses, 7-11s and other shit. The only surf store was Marsh's Surf and Sea, run by old Mr. Marsh and his two sons. I bought my first board there for $35, a used Weber with a balsa wood stringer. Ricky Eder was the shaper for the Marsh shop, and Rick Rasmussen used his boards for some time. I've been told that Ricky now shapes for some of the pros in Florida, but I haven't seen him in some time - if any of you Florida guys see him, let him know he still owes me 5 bucks from the party at The Pavilion. Surfing in those days was pretty much a trial-and-error affair, no one really knew anything about it. Every now and then someone would get a copy of "Surfer" in the mail and we would stare at the photos, trying to figure out the hot new moves. We were apprentices to a magician we didn't understand, we just knew we were onto something different. So we hung out at Shark's Bay and waited for ridable waves. A culture was born and the people who stuck with it mostly ended up moving to either Nags Head or Wrightsville, where things were happening on a more regular basis. And meanwhile the coast of North Carolina has pretty much been covered in condos. Guess it's time to move to Costa Rica. -- Strayhorn Not Duke policy, etc. The mystery is why a proud people, descended from revolutionaries, is willing to submit, with good humor, to the intrusion of corporate and governmental authorities. - Barbara Ehrenreich