Kowabunga, Dude
In my last post, I prattled on about my mid-’80s trip to Germany. Humor me as I revisit the second half of that summer.
I returned home after my month long trip and barely had time to wash my clothes and repack before leaving again, this time for Los Angeles. As I’d mentioned, it was 1984, and the LA Summer Olympic Games were just wrapping up. I arrived at LAX, grabbed my bag and met my father, who had driven out to California some time prior. My stepmother and brother were eventually also there, as was my step-uncle, who was living in the area at the time.
We stepped outside, and right away I got my first glimpse of the Theme Building, a modernistic, space age landmark, which housed a fancy George Jetson-looking restaurant on its top.
Right away, I noticed how nice the air felt. The temperature was perfect and the humidity was nonexistent. Unlike Houston summers, I didn’t immediately recoil in horror and start pouring sweat.
It was a weekday, and we had to navigate the infamous Los Angeles rush hour traffic. And let me tell you, coming from Houston, I know bad traffic. But one day on the LA Freeway in traffic, and you will bow before the grandmaster of all shitty traffic.
As we passed through downtown, there were at least five dedicated lanes in either direction. All lanes in both directions were bumper to bumper, and barely moving. And worse, large chunks of the roadway is below ground level, which might be good when you are on street level, but is pure hell when all you see is cement walls and cars for hours. I have no idea how anyone does it.
As we crawled along, it was fun to see the passing exit signs for Sunset Blvd., Mulholland Dr., and others. You couldn’t see anything, of course, other than the signs, but it was still kinda cool for my 16-year-old self.
Once we’d cleared downtown, we headed north up to the Sherman Oaks area, before turning off onto Hwy 101, going west towards Oxnard. We drove through farmland, miles and miles of flat, dry, heavily irrigated crops and little else. It was a stark contrast from the maniacal energy of LA.
My folks had a condo across the street from the beach in a Navy town just outside of Oxnard called Port Hueneme. There is a large Naval base there, which is notorious as being the home for the Flying Seabees. The Seebees are a Naval flying force, made famous by the 1944 movie named after them, starring John Wayne.
We drove through town and right up to the Pacific Ocean. The sun was setting, and there was a strong, cool, salty wind off the water. The condo sat in a small complex just a bit north of the Port Hueneme wooden pier. The surf was around 8 to 10 feet, and I could see the last few surfers getting in some final waves before turning in for the night. The surf was so powerful, that every time a swell would break, there was a loud WHOOSH, followed by a massive THUMP as the tons of water slammed down. With each breaking wave, the sidewalk vibrated from the sheer force. There was a fragrant scent in the air, unlike anything I’d experienced before and it was intoxicating. I was in love.
I was deeply into surfing at the time, but had never surfed outside of the Texas coast, so my experience with big waves was nonexistent. The biggest waves I’d been in were driven by Gulf storms, maybe 3 to 4 feet at the most, choppy, and easy to handle. This was a different thing altogether. You had to be a strong swimmer to fuck around in this surf. But part of my reason for visiting was to do just that, and I could barely contain my excitement to get into the water the next morning.
I slept like a baby that night, lulled by the pounding of the surf right across the street. We went to the beach every day I was there. The air was nice. Cool mornings and evenings, warm days. Never crazy hot or humid. The water was cold, and I had to wear a wetsuit in order to maintain my body heat throughout the long day.
My dad had rented a surfboard for me, and he’d also bought a Boogie Board. I took both with us, but learned very quickly that surfing those waves was not something I wanted to jump into. I just didn’t have the skill. I was a strong swimmer, so I wasn’t concerned about that. But I also didn’t want to get suck over a big wave and have the tip of the board or the fins going right up my ass. I needed to get familiar with the break first.
And so, I took the Boogie Board out. After watching the locals on their Boogie Boards, I began to follow their lead, and before long was able to maneuver the wave pretty easily, getting into the tubes, and carving the wave faces. Eventually I was able to do barrel rolls, which was a total blast.
Another reason for my hesitancy to try and get into the lineup was due to the fact that the locals were not friendly. They had almost zero tolerance for “kooks,” which would be people like me who had no fucking idea what they were doing. If you paddled out among them, you had to endure lots of flack, even some threats. And there were lots of locals. They choked out the break, aggressively guarding it from newcomers. I could paddle out beyond them and just sit out in the swells, which I did a lot. But if I tried to join them, I had to be prepared to take a lot of shit.
One afternoon, I was out pretty far, beyond the break, hanging off the board and letting my body float in the deep dark water. This was a constant process, because you always wanted to regulate your body temperature. Enough sun beating down on your dark suit, and it was time to take another dip.
My arms and head hung over the board and I lost track of time and space as I gently up and down with the large incoming swells. Suddenly, something very large and very heavy slowly, and deliberately bumped into my hips and worked its body length along my side as it passed by. I waited for it to pass, and then quickly got back on my board and got the fuck out of the deep end.
I sat on the beach for a bit, so I could try and process what had just happened. I knew that there were big sharks in the area. The Channel Island as a close distance offshore, easily seen, and that entire area was a favorite spot for great whites. YouTube has a whole bunch of videos taken from drone operators on the West Coast which have take account of just how many great whites there are swimming not only close to, but among people.
In 1984, the great while population would have been considerably reduced from where it stands today after effective conservation efforts, but that isn’t to say they weren’t there. They absolutely were. If it was a great white, it was most likely a juvenile. That is because they are more inquisitive and curious than their elders, and are known for sniffing around humans just to figure out what the hell we are. Great White sharks are smarter than they’ve been portrayed, and as the drone videos have also shown, they are much less likely to attack than we’ve been led to believe by popular culture.
Which is, of course, not to say that you shouldn’t be alert and aware of their presence. Because even a test bite can be fatal.
Whatever said hello to me that afternoon, shark or not, it was big, heavy, and not to be fucked with.
Port Hueneme is the only deep water port located between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and is a major location for the trade of produce and seafood. One afternoon, my dad took us to the port so that we could purchase fresh tuna right off the boat. He picked us a huge sushi grade filet, and off we went. He cut slices right off the filet, and plated them on a large platter, and then with soy sauce at the ready, we ate as if this was the last fish on earth. I’d never eaten raw tuna at that point in my life, and I was blown away at how tender and delicious it was. Not even a little bit rank and fishy. The texture was perfect. It was like sea candy.
After dinner, we broke out into a massive water fight, which quickly took over our whole crew as we spilled out into the three-story complex. Armed with buckets, my step-uncle and I hid on the third floor waiting for a victim. Catching my brother sneaking by, we dumped our payload, which missed him and instead totally doused a poor old woman who just happened to appear at the worst possibly moment. As if it was in slow motion, the woman stepped into view, as we watched the water rain down over her head, soaking her from head to toe.
Rightfully so, she was totally pissed off. Realizing where we were, she pointed up at us, screaming “I know you!” She didn’t know us. And we totally got away with it. And yes, it was totally shitty. As my wife would say, “You guys were so bad. It’s no wonder so many bad things have happened to you since then. It’s your karma.” She’s probably right.
On the final day, I decided that it was my mission to try and catch at least one wave on the surfboard. I knew I’d regret not trying, once I was back home. And so I paddled out, among the cool reception of the locals. It was late in the day, and most of them had left. I struck a conversation with another kid around my age, and he gave me a bunch of pointers, and almost certainly shielded me from the worst of the local aggression.
I waited and waited for a wave that wasn’t taken already, which took a while, and then turned to face the beach and started to paddle hard to meet the momentum of the growing, incoming swell. As the wave began to reach its crest, I reached the moment of no return, quickly pushing off the board and popping up onto my feet in position. I was not prepared for the sheer force or the speed of the wave. Nor was I prepared for the steep angle of its face. As soon as I began to shoot down the face of the wave, I lost my balance, falling into the crashing mass of water.
The wave began to break, and before I knew it, the lip slammed into me, forcing into a chaotic tumble, instantaneously losing my sense of direction. As the wave continued to break, I was carried up to the surface, and then “sucked over the falls,” as surfers call it, which is exactly as it sounds. The force of the churning water pulls you over the crest and down into a sheer, swirling maelstrom of roaring, foamy power.
Slamming down on the surface, the enormous mass of water then forced me beneath the surface, repeatedly bashing my body against the sandy seafloor. As the wave continued its march to the shore, I was thrown in every direction, incapable of knowing which way was up, and equally incapable of getting out of it. At that point, it is a race against time, where you will learn real fucking quick how long you can hold your breath.
As I said above, I was a strong swimmer, and at the time, I could hold my breath for a ridiculously long time. Because of this, I was not scared. Disoriented, to be sure. But not scared. Eventually, the water began to thin out and slow enough for me to pop out and take a huge, life confirming breath.
I was a bit shaken, but I was also fully exhilarated. My dad, seeing what had happened to me, was running into the water, worried that I was in danger. I laughed it off, but now that I am also a father, I absolutely would have done the same damn thing.
My stepmother took a flight back to Houston, and my father, brother, and I drove back home. We took a brief detour to visit the Grand Canyon, a place I to which I would return and hike into a few years later. We even took a helicopter tour down into the canyon, which was super cool. The raw, overwhelming beauty and size of the canyon was awe-inspiring. If you ever get the chance to experience it in person, take it.
In the ‘80s, CB radios were the shit. My dad had picked one up before the trip, and we kept it on most of the way, learning the language of the truckers. Once we had it down, my brother worked out a routine and got on the radio, talking utter nonsense with some poor unsuspecting trucker, lasting far longer than I would have guessed possible. When the guy started getting suspicious, the game was over.
Driving through an isolated Native American reservation the middle of the desert, we were getting pretty peckish. When the ubiquitous golden arches popped into view in the distance, we exited the highway and stepped inside. We were the only non-native people in the building. Every single head in the entire place turned to watch us as we approached the counter. It was new to me to be in the minority. Especially in a McDonald’s.
As we reentered the highway, I ate my lunch and reflected on the weird blue shake my friend Stefan had ordered on my first day in Germany, just a few weeks prior. I also thought about the privilege I enjoyed of being able to do the things I did that summer, and how so many did not, and still don’t, have that same privilege. That an upper middle class family could move freely around the world, enjoying ourselves, while others, including millions in my own country, others like the crew and customers of that Native run McDonald’s, could not. It bothered me then, and it still bothers me now.
As I write this, I am 57-years-old, and through it all, I still have so much to learn. I know that my life has been defined by privilege, that despite the struggles I’ve faced, I am still very lucky. There is so much in my life for which to feel gratitude. I hope there will be a day when all people will have the chance to know that gratitude. I don’t know if it will ever happen, but I do know that it won’t happen any time soon. And that is a monumental failure. We need to do better, for each other, for the good of us all, including ourselves.
Go surfing. Hike a canyon. Be nice to others. Think before you speak. And listen to metal.
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