Neoprene 'Zine

PISMO BEACH

We’d heard there were some beaches along with the way that allowed camping. We didn’t really have a plan, exactly, to camp, but on the off chance that things lined up right, we’d brought some rudimentary camping gear.

We checked out of our hotel in the early morning and got some breakfast. I had the biggest, most insane omelette ever: five eggs; fresh basil, oregano, parsely, and cilantro; green, red, and white onion; olives; tomatoes; something like four or five different cheeses; and finally, chorizo and bacon.

I ate about a third of it, and suddenly felt like a wounded soldier in a war movie: clawing at the ground, head down in exhaustion, telling my buddies that I’m not gonna make it and to, “just go on without me.”

Today’s adventure was one long beach day! We made sure we had some snacks and drinks in our beach bag, and plenty of sunscreen--which didn’t matter because I fried like bacon anyway.

It was about one by the time we got ourselves situated. The wind blew right offshore, into the faces of oncoming waves, stalling them, causing them to stand tall instead of hunch their shoulders. These were small and medium sized waves--two to four feet--that broke in either direction; there was even a few A-frame waves.

We spread out our towels and marked our territory with a perimeter of bags, coolers, plastic bottles of suntan lotion, and tubes of sunscreen.

I sat on my board and studied the waves from behind my sunglasses as Brianna checked her work phone and just enjoyed the sunshine. A family of three was building a sandcastle in front of us, while children frolicked in the wave wash, adults dipping their toes in the water, shrieking, and then running up the beach to complain about how cold the water was. A man stood in hip-deep water with a small child on his shoulders. Beyond, several teenagers horsed around in the waves. But to my right, hugging the point, a group of surfers bobbed like little black neoprene buoys, rising and falling with the swells.

I’d unzipped my wetsuit, pulled my arms out and rolled it down to my waist to get some sun. Now, I zipped myself back up, grabbed my board, and headed out to meet the locals--which isn’t always a good idea. Surfers are tribal and territorial, and if you’re not of their tribe nor their territory, you can be treated with disdain and even hostility. After I turtle-rolled my way through the breakers, I paddled out in water almost certainly deeper than I was tall. Images of the shark sign at Surf Beach flashed in my head.

When I reached the line up I was surprised to see that everyone was around my age. They were all like me: working-class professionals, who “adulted” to the best of their ability when they had to, but never matured to the point of abandoning the great sport of surfing. They were husbands and fathers, and business owners, dentists, and the such--not the rowdy boys I was used to at “The ‘Bu.”

We all got a few good rides in throughout the day, and in between, I’d sit with Brianna in the sun to warm up, or have water fights with her. No one paid us any mind when we were lovey-dovey, not even this far removed from “Gay L.A.”

After two spectacular wipeouts after getting a little too cocky and trying to show off, my body was just...done. “Done” was a term I’d adopted since my MS diagnosis. It’s when your body is sore and stiff, and your joints don’t work, and you have exhaustion, head fog, and a headache that feels like your brain is trying to push your eyeballs out of your sockets from behind, and you just...can’t anymore.

I collapsed into a puddle on the sand, trying to sap some strength from the setting sun, as Brianna packed up around me. She left me there, packed the car back up, and even strapped my board to the rack, before coming back down to the beach and practically dragging me back.

We stopped off at a little store for food, water, and firewood. The idea of cooking hotdogs or something over an open fire sounded fun. But as I said, I was done. I shuffled through the store like a sunburnt zombie, dazed and confused, unconscious and uncaring of where I was and what was happening. So, instead of hotdogs, we just a bought a premade Greek salad and some cheese. Good enough. We also thought it would be great to sip from a bottle while lounging around a campfire, but made the mistake of buying some tacky liqueur because we thought it was fruit-infused vodka.

We drove down to the campsite in a hurry because the sun was getting low, and we didn’t want to have to try and set up a tent in the dark. Brianna again took point, setting up the tent while I helped in any way that I could from a sitting position.

There are always those jokes about lesbian relationships...about who opens the jars and who kills the spiders. Anyone who follows my hijinx on here, may recall me discussing this very issue when we had to cut into a spaghetti squash. Sometimes, you just need a man’s help. Most of the time, we happily make due, and, while both of us have been camping before, we discovered that neither of us knew how to start a fire. Thankfully, one of the rangers--I guess was his title--was a gentleman and helped us out.

Somewhere in the darkness, the surf boomed. Scattered laughter sounded in the distance, and lights from the nearby RV campground cast golden mottles of light on the dark sand. The fire crackled and the liquor warmed my tired bones. We ate our salad, having to take turns because we only had the one fork that came with it, admired each other’s beauty in the firelight (there is just something about the warm glow of a fire that accentuates an already pretty face), and talked out hypothetical scenarios of moving to the Central Coast.

We sat around the fire in hooded sweatshirts and beanies as the night temperature continued to plummet into the low 50s.

“This is the most beautiful place I’ve seen. I want to live here.”

“You’ve said that about every place we’ve been.”

“I know,” I said. “But I mean it this time. I’ve got you, I’ve got the beach, what more do I need?”

“Can you believe it’s been a week since the wedding already?”

I nodded sleepily.

“And you didn’t even want to come on this trip.”

“That’s not true. I said I couldn’t wait to start regular, boring, mundane real life with you.” My words made little sense and I was too tired to try and articulate further. But, basically, what I had meant was that I viewed the honeymoon as an extension of the wedding, and I was just so over all of that and ready to start the happily ever after part.

Brianna laughed. “You were this close to scrapping the whole thing in favor of a stay-cation--this close.” She held up her hand, her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “Trust me. When we’re back home, we’ll fit right back into our lives--you love L.A. You’re so proud of it. It’s home now. You can’t possibly be in love with this place. It’s only been four days.”

She was right. But a lot had changed in those four days. “I mean it though. I mean, yes, you’re right. L.A. is home. And we’ll go back and live in L.A. But we’re not dying there. Moving to Northern California just became a life goal.”

She smiled, nodded, and agreed with me.

We lounged around in the sand, passing the bottle back and forth, the fire dying down. I don’t know what time it was when we crawled into the tent and went to sleep, but it was the best night’s sleep I can remember in a long time. Snuggled together, limbs intertwined, the sound of the incoming tide, and Brianna’s soft snoring against my earlobe, I dreamed a thousand dreams that night--some were ones that had already come true, and some were ones I vowed to make come true.

LOMPOC-LOS ALAMOS - SANTA MARIA - SAN LUIS OBISPO

“This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. I want to live here.”

It was a sentence I uttered in one form or another in every town we investigated. As we drove meandering highways through the rolling hills of the Central Coast, the seashores got more rugged, the towns smaller, the open space larger; palm trees were fewer and farther between. This was the California I’d always imagined, what had been peddled to tourists back East. L.A. suddenly seemed tacky and fake, and the prospect of returning home to asphalt, palm trees, and a lush, tropical “paradise” that was, in actuality, an unsustainable desert region that must go on a quest to find water every quarter of a century, seemed unappealing.

“We should move out here,” I said.

“Uh huh. And what would we do out here?”

“You’re the doctor...you can find work anywhere.”

“And what about you?”

“I’d be happy to work in an antique store down by the water, or that bakery back in Los Alamos.”

Brianna said nothing for awhile, the beautiful countryside whizzing past the window. “No concerts, no clubs, no gay-friendly enclaves, no coffee shops where you can go and chat with artists, debutantes, or other writers. We’re citified. It’s a beautiful place to visit”--she gestured vaguely at a valley in the distance--”but we’re not cut out to live here.”

I knew she was right, but I didn’t want her to be. I wanted to be the type of person who would be content to live in these small towns nestled in the valleys of wine country, or cradled in the tiny spots of land between the hills and the ocean. But, perhaps I had been citified, and that thought distressed me.

We were on our way to the small city of Santa Maria--which was only on our itinerary because I’d confused it with the town of Santa Mira from the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I’d always had a penchant for old black and white horror films. Something I inherited from my mom. I remember her showing me the original Dracula and Frankenstein movies when I was little. I wasn’t scared. Something about the naivety and innocence of the Frankenstein monster resembled a child and when you watch that movie as a child, it makes a lifelong impression on any child. But, I digress…

Not only was Santa Maria not Santa Mira, Santa Mira turned out to be completely fictional. The town I thought I was going to see didn’t exist. I don’t know what emotion consumed me more: embarrassment or disappointment. The town--the real one, Santa Maria that is--had one of the last remaining drive-in movie theaters in the country, and for some reason, I had assumed they would show Invasion of the Body Snatchers every night, and that I’d roll into town and end up lying in the back of our car--hatchback open, seats folded down, blankets spread out--with my beloved, hand and hand, the way we spent many a date back in high school.

When we were growing up, the drive-in was the place. Brianna’s dad had a truck, so did my mom, so most dates were spent spooning in the back of a truck bed on a pile of blankets. We had the opportunity recreate our high school experience. It seemed as if fate were playing a role here. It all came together so perfectly. It seemed...right. All the planets had aligned.

Yeah, except they were showing some kid’s movie--a Pixar something-or-other--and we were just too “grown up” for that.

Thanks but no thanks, Santa Maria!

When we first coasted into town, we had no idea where we were going or what we were going to do. We pulled into a restaurant to use as a kind of basecamp, and had coffee while we figured out what the area had to offer. A local guy at the counter overheard us and offered some suggestions--lighthouse tours and museums, hiking trails, a certain bed and breakfast in Morro Bay, camping on Pismo Beach. Turns out he was from San Diego and came up to the Central Coast with his wife, fell in love with the place, and basically never went back to SoCal.

So camping on the beach would be our next big adventure. But first, walls of gum awaited us in San Luis Obispo…

No, that’s not a typo. There is an alleyway covered in old chewed up bubblegum. I didn’t know why; I didn’t care to know why. But for some reason, my wife desperately needed to see this.

After we couldn’t get a room at the quirky and world-famous Madonna Inn--a motel known for its insane architecture, amazing breakfast, and wildly creative themed rooms--SLO was kind of off the table. But since Santa Mira--er, Maria--had been a bust, we had nothing else to do, so we were on our way to see old bubblegum.

I didn’t know what to expect. A sculpture perhaps? What kind of “attraction” was old chewed up gum? Well, Bubblegum Alley, as it is known, is pretty much what it sounds like: a narrow alleyway, the walls on either side of which, are covered with years and years worth of old gum. People at the far end of the alley were sticking their own gum to the walls as I stood there dumbfounded, trying not to gag. There must have been germs from a thousand gallons of saliva lurking down there.

Brianna wanted to walk down the alley--I don’t know, just to say she did it, I guess. But she was going solo. No way in hell I was setting foot in that life-size petri dish.

So yes, we’d seen the world’s largest fig tree, a wall smeared with old gum, and a potential murder crime scene in a cave. Who needs Rome or Paris for a honeymoon?

LOMPOC - SURF BEACH

Surf, California was a “town” at one point in time. Nothing existed there but a train station. A handful of employees worked for the rail line. Many had families and so Surf’s population in the mid 40’s exploded to 41 inhabitants. Today, the station is all automated and the town portion of Surf--what little there was to begin with--is long gone, and the beach is the only thing to really put the place on the map.

We came out of Lompoc in the early morning under a thick marine layer that dulled the bright morning sky to the color of unpolished steel. The clerk back at the hotel had shown us to a rack of brochures for things to do--hence my abbreviated history of the area in the paragraph above--and we discovered Surf Beach. The name piqued my interest immediately. The previous day we’d driven right past Rincon and I never put my board in the water. But a beach named Surf Beach? Had to be a sign. Oh, and there was a sign alright, but we’ll get to that later.

Brianna’s main interest was the Sea Caves--a cluster of indentations in the cliffs overlooking the beach that had been beaten by millions of years of wind and tide into caves. From a distance, walking down the beach, balancing my board on my head like an African woman bringing a basket back from a market, we saw the caves--porous holes deep in the rock formations, resembling some kind of medieval castle nestled into a cliff. Brianna tugged at my arm and pointed to the caves excitedly.

Brianna wore nothing but white shorts and pink t-shirt and rubbed her arms in the early morning chill. Inside the caves, such as they were (and, let’s face it, these were caves like Surf was a town), the temperature was a lot cooler. I was a little warmer in my wetsuit, but there was definitely a damp, salty chill in the air, thick enough you could almost brush it aside.

In some of the indentations within the insides of the caves, places where water had collected, and, then, trapped, failed to run out with the outgoing tide, we saw sea snails and crabs and other critters who waited like travelers at an airport for the next tide.

However, our spelunking didn’t last long. In one cave we came across what looked like a blood spatter, as if something--or someone--had been smashed in the head with some blunt object, or even shot. That’s when we decided we were good, and to go check out the beach.

We walked along the beach for awhile, Brianna playing detective, and trying to analyze just what foul deed had taken place in the cave, me gazing out at the waves, looking for the right break--the right right break!

The beach was deserted and for good reason: the waves were poor and not good for riding. But we came across one blessed spot, where an unknown anomaly on the seafloor was significant enough to change the shape of the waves in this one area.

I had this idea the night before. I had an old funboard at home gathering dust on the back patio. I decided that I would now pick up a sticker from every beach I surfed, stick it on the funboard, and use it as a kind of passport book of places I’ve surfed. All I needed to do to qualify was get in one ride. Just one.

I was on my hands and knees, rubbing sex wax onto my board. Brianna had wondered to a nearby parking lot at the top of grass-splotched dunes in search of a bathroom. I was in my own little world rubbing down my board, my body and head swaying with effort and cadence. I focused on the tranquility of the abandoned beach, enjoying the sounds of the surf and the calls of the seagulls, hoping it wouldn’t be ruined by an Air Force jet roaring overhead as I was warned it might.

I attached my leash to my ankle, picked up my board under one arm and walked my way down to the chill water. I didn’t make it to my knees before I heard Brianna screaming my name, the offshore wind blowing her shrill voice at me for added emphasis. I turned around to see Brianna standing at the water’s edge--bent over at the waist, hands on her knees, hair hanging in her face, chest heaving.

“Sweetie, what’s wrong?”

“Don’t go! Get out of the water!”

Confused, I walked out of the water, dropped my board in the muck at the water’s edge, and asked if she was alright.

“Yeah, I’m fine, but…” Her voice trailed off. “Come here.”

She led me up the beach and to a sign that stood next to a picket fence in a thatch of scrub grass. She pointed at the sign as if it were a snake and backed away from it as if it were a live booby trap, allowing me to read it for myself:

“WARNING: Repeated Shark Attacks. Some Fatal. Swimming/Surfing in These Waters is ​

Extremely Dangerous.”​

The warning was repeated in Spanish. Yup. It was a sign alright. So, no Surf Beach sticker for my passport. Thus, that morning’s excursion was ended fairly quickly. I did some quick research on my phone, and learned that there had been two fatal shark attacks on surfers off this same stretch of beach in a two-year time span. That's like being struck by lightning twice. Or winning the lottery twice. The odds are astronomical. And, yet, it happened. Bad vibes at Surf Beach, man...

​

Instead of a beach day, we went back to the hotel, changed and checked out downtown Lompoc. There were a lot of murals painted on the sides of the buildings, and it was something of cheap date: free art museum.

After lunch, we did some wine tasting in a section of town known as the “Wine Ghetto”--a cluster of 20 or so wineries from the surrounding valleys and beyond, all crammed into an industrial park. The area was small and walkable, which is good when you’re filled to the brim with wine and in no condition to drive. I’ve always enjoyed cabernets and red blends, as well as sauvignon blancs. But I walked--er, staggered--out of the experience a fan of pinot noirs and chardonnays.

Thanks, wine country!

We stumbled back to our room and, predictably, went to bed early with little fan fair before walking late the next morning, and, through the fog of a fearsome hangover, managed to find out way to the cute little town of Los Alamos for breakfast.

Then it was back on the road to check out Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo!

WEST HOLLYWOOD - SANTA BARBARA - LOMPOC

The day started off the same as virtually all the days to come: we awoke, alone, together, Mrs. & Mrs. There was the usual traffic sounds outside on the streets, but the house was still. We moved at a slow pace, taking our time--enjoying our coffee on the patio, catching up on the news, bantering back and forth about whether or not to eat breakfast.

Eventually we showered and dressed, and packed our remaining toiletries among everything we had already packed the night before: Numerous changes of clothes, beach attire, camping gear, a bottle of gin, my Avonex, some Tylenol, sunscreen, bug spray, etc. SInce we didn’t have a ton of money and neither of us had been up the coast before, we decided to take the Pacific Coast Highway all the way up north and see what the rest of the state of California had to offer.

But, first, the surfboard debate…

I wanted to be on the road no later than 10:00am, but it just never works out that way. I don’t know. Maybe it’s something about the character of the American West--a place where people mozy (is that spelled right?) instead of hustle. We had been here long enough to be on “L.A. time” and adapt to the fact that traffic was never going to be our friend, and any attempt to rush anywhere was fruitless. At any rate, this was the beginning of our honeymoon and I thought we might be able to get it off on the right foot. No dice.

After basically having to Tetris everything into the back of the car--an endeavor that involved us saying things to each other like, “You know what? Pull everything back out--again--and let’s just start over.” Finally, it’s after 11:00am before we’re ready to pull out of the driveway.

But, Brianna being Brianna and thinking of me over herself, slammed the car back into park before I could back out into the street, and cried, “wait!”

I furrowed my brow and looked at her with confusion.

She pointed up, to the ceiling of the car, indicating the rack on the roof above. “Your board. We almost left it.”

I’d no intention of bringing a surfboard. While the idea of an expedition up the coast, complete with hitting some new spots was intriguing, surfing was my thing. This wasn’t about me; it’s was about us. I wanted experiences I could share with her.

“No, no, no,” she insisted, “you have to. And you want to.”

I did. But I wasn’t going to. “Look, it’s sweet that you’d let me--”

She cut me off. “I’m not letting you; I’m insisting.”

So, a half hour later we finally left the house, board strapped to the rack, beach bag stuffed with a rash guard and full wetsuit.

The first scheduled stop was Santa Barbara. The plan--such as it was--was to get there at around noon and stop for some lunch. Well, it was already 11:30 and our tummies were complaining, and I didn’t want to make the two-hour drive on an empty stomach. So our first stop was this French place in WeHo for poached eggs and croissants. If I was going to eat carbs, I might as well make it count since I love me some French pastries.

Our bellies full, it was time to set out for Santa Barbara.

We didn’t know what Santa Barbara had to offer really. Neither of us had ever been there. All we did know was that the original Spanish mission and chapel still stood. And that was our first stop--second if you include the croissants three minutes from home.


We did the self-guided tour of the mission grounds, but the chapel was the true attraction. I’ve never seen a place so beautiful. I felt so at peace and relaxed. I think it was the first time I’d exhaled since May. We sat for awhile, and admired the art and architecture, before praying, and lighting some candles for some of our dearly departed. We knelt and made the sign of the cross before leaving, like the good Catholic girls we had once been.

I felt cleansed walking back outside into the sunshine. It had been a humbling experience. Then we made our way down State St. and just walked around. The old world architecture was just amazing. L.A. is so modern, but Santa Barbara kept its colonial heritage. In some ways, it was more New England than SoCal. It had the arty and historic vibe of Santa Fe, though it switched out Spanish pueblo architecture for that of the Spanish mission style. We saw a bunch of quirky stores, including a good ol’ fashioned candy shop. I found Clark bars for the first time in years, as well as gummy Coke bottles--which I can’t even find at the moment. By the time we hit the pier and the educational Sea Center (where we got to play with starfish and sea anemones), it was dinner time. All along our walks we made sure to find locals and ask them where they recommended eating. We got a variety of answers, but everyone did have one recommendation in common: Fishouse.

Okay. Seafood, that makes sense. But everyone told us not to bother with the seafood. We had to get their hot wings. Best in the world. Not even on the menu. But ask them for their famous hot wings...they’ll make them.

Neither of us liked hot wings, but, when in Rome...or Santa Barbara…

Oh. My. God. If these weren’t the best chicken-based creation in the world, I don’t know what is. I wish I could tell you how they made them. I wish they could have told us--and believe me, we asked. But, alas, like Coca Cola or the KFC recipe, it is kept under wraps. But I’ll say this: the coating involved green onion and parmesan cheese--no breading--and the sauce was worth going to war over.

After we licked our fingers and finished our drinks I remarked to Brianna, “This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. I want to live here.”

The cheapest rooms we could find were $150 a night. We weren’t having that, so we drove 50 minutes north to the town of Lompoc, the gateway to California wine country, and--from both a geographical and cultural standpoint--the border between Northern and Southern California, the true beginning of the Central Coast.

We booked a room for two nights. We had no idea what the sleepy town had to offer, but we were eager to find out. I did discover a sleepy little stretch of beach known as Surf Beach that I wanted to check out before we left.

And that was an adventure in and of itself. At least, almost an adventure.

Tom Ryan taught me to surf in the summer of 1993.

He ran a surf camp out of Rye Beach in the summers. Every day. Rain or shine.

I literally bumped into the place. His office was nestled in the back of a store called the Beachcomber which sold everything from bathing suits and life jackets to coolers and inflatable rafts to beach pails and shovels and, to my surprise and delight, surfboards.

I'd been in the place many times before, but the surfboards were a new addition. So, there I was, a lanky 13-year-old, yet to master the use of my still-growing limbs, and instead of watching where I was walking, I was looking up at the various boards hanging from the wall, when,BAM! I walked right into a desk covered in brochures advertising a surf camp.

See? Literally bumped into it.

Tom was an immense mountain of a man for whom the simple act finding clothes to fit him must have been a challenge. He stood well over six-feet tall, a thick layer of fat concealing his muscular build. His fat was firm,not the build of an overweight couch potato, but rather, that of an athlete who still loves his pizza and ice cream. A bushy beard wrapped around his face and he reached out his catcher's mitt-sized paw to shake my hand.

I quickly introduced myself and asked him for the guy who ran the surf camp. He laughed and said he was the guy who ran the surf camp.

That was the first lesson about surfing I learned,the first myth, if you will, to have debunked: Not all surfers were young, toned, beautiful people.

The camp ran for one week in June and then another week in August. Five half days. So, essentially, two-and-half days unless I did both weeks. But that was four hundred dollars and I didn't have anywhere near that amount of money. I thanked Tom for his time, took a brochure and a registration form, and went off knowing that I was going to have to beg, borrow, or steal, but come hell or high water,whatever that meant,I was going to be present on the first day of camp.

Fortunately, my mom pulled some strings with some friends of hers from the equestrian circle, and got me a summer job feeding horses, cleaning out stalls, and whatever else was needed. I was tolerated, the way someone tolerates a stray dog that keeps showing up. I wasn't a real employee and, despite my mother's best efforts, I was not,nor had any interest in,riding any of the horses. I was just there to make surf money.

I was paid in cash,no set amount, no regular pay schedule,and eventually acquired the much-needed four hundred bucks.

The next time I walked into the Beachcomber, I marched right up to Tom's desk and handed him the registration form,complete with my mother's signature,and the four hundred dollars in cash.

"So, I'm good? I'm all signed up?"

Tom chuckled. "Yes, except that you over paid. Camp's only two hundred."

"Oh, no, I'm signing up for both weeks"

Tom nodded and scratched at his beard. "You know, it's not an advanced class or anything. That second week is the same as the first. You won't be learning anything new. No sense in,"

"Yeah, but I don't have a board. I won't be able surf outside of your camp."

He slid the extra two hundred dollars across the desk. "For two hundred bucks, we can find you your own board, kid."

My own board? The thought hadn't even occurred to me. But first things first, here. I had to learn to use one.

Surf camp turned out to be me and about ten other kids between the ages of nine and sixteen in ill-fitting wetsuits freezing on the beach on a cloudy morning in June. Tom's van sat in the parking lot overlooking the beach. It was overloaded with surfboards. Racks on the roof and sides contained multiple boards. As we showed up, one by one, he pulled a board from his van and handed it to us. We were instructed to go down to the beach but not in the water.

Walking down to the sand with that board under my arm, I felt like a surfer. And I hadn't even been on the damn thing yet. When the last student arrived, and Tom passed out the last board, he carried a large plastic bin down to the beach. He set the bin down in the cold sand and yanked off the lid. He dug into the bin and pulled out wetsuits that he tossed in our general directions after appraising our size based on little more than a glance.

When I was all suited up,a process in and of itself which required me to turn the neoprene wetsuit inside out, putting one foot at a time through the bottom, and literally unrolling the suit over my legs, arms, and torso,I was ready to sprint into the greenish gloom of the ocean. I wiggled my toes. I was antsy. Let's go! Let's do this!

Tom walked among us, looking at how our suits were fitting. "Good," he bellowed. "I wanted to you to get a feel for the wetsuit and learn how to put it on. But you're not going to need it today. We won't be getting
into the water until tomorrow.

Say what?

Tom gestured at the water, the incoming waves representing missed opportunities in my mind. "Are these waves beach breaks? Point breaks? Are they breaking to the left, or right? Are they closing out? Is the breeze onshore or off?"

I understood the individual words, but had no idea what Tom was saying. For most of that morning, he taught us to read the ocean. He taught us the terminology. He taught us what to look for,which conditions were optimal, which would leave us bored, and which would leave us pounded into the sand beneath the water. He reminded me of my dad, and I drew on some of those early lessons he taught me.

But surely, he was joking about the not going in the water part"¦

Finally, we got to get on our boards,not in the water though. Tom had us spread out and lay our boards down in the sand. We attached out ankle leashes and laid on our boards while miming the paddling techniques necessary to propel the board beyond the breaking waves,or, the outside as it was called in surfspeak.

Tom walked amongst us, correcting issues here and there with each student,reminding us that the board was not a bed: don't lie on it. Chin up! Chest up! You're not swimming, you're paddling! (Admittedly, mimicking paddling on dry land is next to impossible)

After a half-an-hour or so of this, Tom announced that we were now ready to learn how to "pop up",that is, to go from paddling in the prone, to standing on the board. He asked us which foot should be front and which should be to the rear.

One student, a teenage boy with curly red hair and a stubborn case of acne, spoke up. "Right should be in front." Tom told him he was wrong. Since there was only one other answer, I happily offered, "Left!"

"No."

Damn it! This is a trick question.

After a few less-than-scientific methods to determine which is my instinctive foot,that is, the foot that anchors you, that balances you,I learned I was a goofy rider. Only about 30% of surfers are goofy. That means our left foot is back, holding our weight, acting as a kind of rudder, while our right foot is to the front. The term goofy,and I've only recently learned of this,comes from an old Disney cartoon in which Goofy was surfing, left foot back, right foot forward. So there's some useless trivia for you.

Now came the pop up. We practiced popping up into our stance,in my case, left foot back, right foot forward. He had us on these boards, down on the sand, paddling imaginary water and then he'd yell, "Pop up!"

We were far from synchronized in doing this as each student's athletic abilities were different, but we'd all grip the rails of our board, put chest and chin skyward, and leap up, scrambling our feet into position below us and, hopefully, landing in our proper stance.

And we did this over and over at the command of, "pop up!"

We'd be laying on our boards while he was addressing us, talking about something other than popping up, and,"pop up!"

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

By the start of the second day, we knew the drill. The command to pop up could and would come at any time. It was being drilled into us. I felt like Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid, doing the same seemingly mundane task over and over and over until it became second nature, all the while wondering when I was going to do something fun.

Finally, the time to really paddle out had arrived. Tom and his two teenage sons walked into the sea, giant Tom looking like some kind of sea monster returning home. We grabbed our boards,some of us dragging them, some carrying them under their arms, and some of us, myself included, holding the rails and balancing the boards on our heads, and walked into the water.

Once the water reached my knees, I fell forward on my board and began to paddle. We hadn't yet learned anything about getting outside so when we encountered whitewater and foam, Tom or one of his sons helped us get over the wave. Soon we were all bobbing in a kind of half-assed line up. Tom and his sons, in water up to their shoulders, came up to us and, one by one, positioned us correctly, held our boards as they let inadequate waves pass beneath us, or gave us a little shove to be in optimum position when a wave they judged as acceptable began rolling toward us. I felt the momentum,the sensation of movement both forward and up.

"Pop up!"

I was up and in my goofy stance before Tom's command was finished. It was muscle memory. It was second nature. I understood why we never got in the water that first day.

My legs were unsure, as wobbly of those of a newborn calf's. But I was up, damn it! I was surfing! The wave pushed me straight into the beach. Lacking the ability to do a proper kick out, I simply hopped off the board in shallow water when the wave's momentum had run out.

I grabbed the board and turned around. Other students, in their struggle to stand up, tumbled from their boards in hilarious and clumsy manners. Those who did make it to the beach stood on the sand with their boards, unsure of what to do next. Me? I charged back out"¦



Twenty-two years a later, Tom and I stood on a stretch of beach outside the town of Wellfleet, Massachusetts. Our boards lay at our feet, covered in wax and beach sand.

Tom, still surfing and still my mentor, asked me what I heard.

I must look absurd, standing there in a neoprene wetsuit and blindfold, a bearded giant escorting me down to the sand. But this was Tom's method. This is how I started the process of getting wired in at a new beach. I listened to the sea. "Let's see"¦direction of the sound suggests they are breaking to the right. The boom is significant, but nothing like a post storm surge. Sounds like",I paused, calculating,"maybe shoulder high waves. I'm hearing a kind of hallow raddle as the break though. They sound tubular,are their tubes out there?" I asked with excitement.

"You tell me."

"Sure sounds like it. But not totally. Some of these waves are closing out. But not all of them. Offshore breeze"¦optimum conditions, bruh."

Tom removed my blindfold with a chuckle and I was delighted to see that the scene I'd pieced together in my head based on what I heard, was, in fact, accurate. It was a chilly afternoon in October and other than a few sea birds and sea scrub, the beach was deserted.

"Not bad, huh?" I asked.

"You did well, Grasshopper." Tom paused, as if he were going to take the conversation in an uncomfortable direction. "So"¦California?"

I looked down at the sand. "Yeah."

"Well, you'll fit right in. You probably should have gone years ago."

"I couldn't afford it years ago."

Tom laughed. "You're probably going to find that you can't afford it now."

I shook my head. "I don't care. I have to. Look, some people want world peace. Others want to be rich and famous. Me? I want to surf Malibu, Rincon, Huntington Beach, La Jo,"

"I know, I know. But it's not like the movies. Heat waves, smog, Sigalerts, a cost of living that is through the roof, not to mention all those locals half your age carving up the waves with their 6-4 tri-fins that are going to regard you as nothing more than a “kook' when they see that 9-6 Takayama you're dragging around."

"I can shortboard!" I said, defensively.

"Yeah, but you're not a shortboarder, Katie. You never were and you never will be." Tom paused a took a deep breath. "You know, over the years, I must have taught over 1,200 kids to surf? Where are they all?" He waved his arm in the direction of the sea. "It got too hard and so they gave up. I'd say 1,000 of those 1,200 hundred kids surfed a summer or two,maybe. But you? You I've been trying to get rid of for twenty years."

I laughed.

"See you get it. From day one, you got it." Tom shook his head. "It's not about conquering the wave,about beating it. All these kids spending all this time and money on techniques and technology designed to pretty much eliminate the wave from surfing. Longboarders are a dying breed. We don't overpower the wave, we harness it; we don't conquer it, we work with it. It's about style and grace and not brute force. Katie, you're a figure skater who wants to go hit the ice with a bunch of hockey goons. The Aloha Spirit,“hang loose, bruh!',get that out of your head right now. It's not real. Not anymore, at least."

"It should be real. It can be real again."

Tom nodded and smiled. "That's why the surf scene out there is going to benefit from you: You're innocent and naive enough to be an idealist. Peace, love, and waves. They need you out there."

I smiled and looked away.

"Just promise me one thing. Consider this your last lesson." He grabbed me by my shoulders and made sure I was looking into his eyes. "Don't ever change. Don't ever lose that innocence. Don't become one of them," he said, cocking his head to the west.

He was serious. This I could see.

"I mean it."

"Yeah. I got it."

"I know you're a nine-to-five person. You'll have to be. It's California. Most of your time is going to be either being at work or being stuck in traffic going to and from work. I understand you'll have a life outside of surfing. But when you're in the water, you're a representative of you and your ideals and of me and mine."

"I won't let you down, Tom."

Tom smiled and inhaled deeply, pulling the sea air into his lungs. He exhaled, closed his eyes in a moment of Zen-like tranquility before saying, "Well? Shall we?"
I was already trotting down the beach, board on my head, halfway to the water.

"Katie?"

"C'mon, old man! Catch up!"