======== Newsgroups: alt.surfing Subject: Why old guys surf From: goob Date: 29 Oct 1996 19:33:13 -0500 Here is the question. Why should a middle aged guy, ie over 40, surf? In particular, why should he go back to surfing after a 25 year hiatus?? What is the attraction?? Please e mail me at Broderick@ConnRiver.net. Thanks in advance, old guys. ======== Newsgroups: alt.surfing Subject: Re: Why old guys surf From: Foondoggy Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1996 16:11:58 -0500 goob wrote: > > Here is the question. Why should a middle aged guy, ie over 40, surf? Foondoggy's Top Ten Reasons Middleage Guys surf! 10. Cool Clothes: At our age no other sport allows us to be so fashionable wearing baggy shorts & shirts, sweatstained ball caps, and praying mantis rainbow shades. 9. Cool Cars: Living in suburbia living vicariously off of surf movies, we have no good reason to own a fully tricked out HUMMER. But if we're going on a surfari to say, Central America (or just braggin about going), then a guy's gotta have the appropriate wheels. Right? 8. Cool Language: It's not often in our high level business meetings we get to say, "Dudes, Mackin, Worked, Housed, Floater, Airs, Kooks." So surfing allows us to enrich our vocabulary and syntax. 7. Cool Magazines: Guys get tired of reading Forbes, Money, Fortune and Golf Digest. The surfing rags have more pictures, so we don't have to read, plus once a month you get a nice butt shot of the Reef Brazil girls. (Did we mention "Woodie" in the language part?) 6. Long Boards: Riding the big ones (boards and waves) announces you're at the top of the food chain in surfing. They paddle easier, catch waves sooner, and you don't have to throw your back out turning them like you do on those damn potato chips. 5. Travel: There's nothing like a good swell as an excuse to blow off the weekend "Honey-do" list and go to the beach.("It's only this good once a year sweetheart, I can clean gutters anytime!) For those who can get away with saying you're going to some South Pacific island that has only thatch-roofed huts, no running water or electricity and only raw fish for food, having a Tavarua brochure on your coffee table has a certain cache to it. Of course, most of us won't go since there are no hot tubs or places to buy cigars. 4. Male Bonding: Though not normally a team sport, surfing seems to be dominated by guys. So if you're so socially maladjusted you can't find a girlfriend, there are plenty of guys out in the break between sets you can bitch to about women. 3. Virility: Scientific studies by Dr. Peter Amschel have proven conclusively that straddling a surfboard in very cold water causes the gonadal tissue to contract and shrivel, thereby stimulating and increasing the production of testosterone. Though surfing is a unique activity in which this occurs, you can always dip your balls in a bowl of icewater, but it's not nearly as much fun. 2. Three Words - Chicks love Surfers! 1. Alt.Surfing: A great newsgroup to brag about your surfing exploits, even if you live in the armpit of Ohio, and because basically people who really know you wouldn't believe you anyway. -Foondoggy ;^) "They tell you that you'll lose your mind when you grow older. What they don't tell you is that you won't miss it very much." -Malcolm Cowley ======== Newsgroups: alt.surfing Subject: Re: Why old guys surf From: psilocin12@aol.com (Psilocin12) Date: 1 Nov 1996 08:02:54 -0500 >>Why old guys surf um...... same reason they still fuck? duh. He'e nalu no ka oi-Psilocin12 ======== Newsgroups: alt.surfing Subject: Re: Why old guys surf From: "Bonzer" Date: 1 Nov 1996 06:36:55 GMT Foondoggy wrote in article <3277C49E.7811@nist.gov>... > goob wrote: > "They tell you that you'll lose your mind when you grow older. What they > don't tell you is that you won't miss it very much." -Malcolm Cowley > That's not true Foon. "Of all the things I've lost, the thing I miss the most is my mind!" --- someone must have said it Bonzer -- ======== Newsgroups: alt.surfing Subject: Re: Why old guys surf From: Robert Rainwater <" b.rainwater"@worldnet.att.net> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 18:37:46 -0800 goob wrote: > > Here is the question. Why should a middle aged guy, ie over 40, surf? Well, I guess you might put me in a different category, being almost 52. I look upon 40-year-olds as still in the spring chicken class. In short, when I grow up, I want to be a surfer. But you know there's more to it. While many of you young people surf for stoke, I'm out for beauty and truth. Due to job pressures, I had to leave my long-time home in an incredibly beautiful spot in the Northwest and come down to Santa Barbara--the lesser of evils. Everyone here talks about how beautiful Santa Barbara is. That's a joke to me. It's suburban shoppers' and drivers' world. I have noplace to piss outside. There's a "national forest" of pure brush. All there really is here to me is the ocean. I'm just glad that the vast majority of the people here don't hang out at the beach. Up in the northwest, I would step outside every couple of hours, have a smoke, and remark to myself how extremely beautiful the earth is. It's tough to do that here. I find myself appreciating micro things, like a tree or flower, rather than the whole landscape. Except at the beach. I bought a board and proceeded to surf for stoke. As a beginner, it wasn't totally satisfying. But I won't ever forget the sight one day, as I was paddling out outside where you hot rods were jumping on the waves. I was just cresting a wave and looked down it and saw the curve of the wave and the sky and the cliffs and one of you dudes riding it and was struck how i n c r e d i b l y b e a u t i f u l it was. Especially the c u r v e o f t h e w a v e. A landscape of beauty was available for me to bask in even in nutso-suburbo CA. It's the ONLY landscape beauty available here. Of course there's more--I like to catch a good wave like anyone else; I need to work these old muscles; I need a good douse in the face to clear the cobwebs. But at least equal to catching a good wave is just being there--sitting on the beach sizing up the waves, and being in the waves and noticing how incredibly beautiful they are--cramming my whole field of vision with beauty, grace, and power.