The beginning of the summer, before my Sophomore year, was spent riding my bicycle to anywhere the waves were good between the Huntington Cliffs and the Newport Beach pier. Sometimes I'd spend the night with Ethel so her mom could drive us to the surf spot of our choice for a dawn patrol session before the winds came up. Ethel's mom would read a book while we'd surf for hours. I loved Ethel's mom for doing that. It kept us from freezing on the ride home in our wet wetsuits for one thing. Half way through the summer my brother got a car, and my whole life changed.
My brother had a group of friends that were avid surfers and skateboarders. They were already surfing up and down the So. Cal. coast and skateboarding like pirates wherever there was concrete. I wanted to hang with them so, more and more I begged my brother to let me tag along.
"Let me go with you guys to Trestles, please?" I asked at the party we were at. We were talking about the waves and how good they would be down south in the morning.
"We're leaving a 5am." my brother replied. The drive took about a hour or so, and the walk to the surf spots was long due to the restrictions of Camp Pendleton and Nixon's house.
"Come on dud, let your Sis come." my future boyfriend, Ray, chimed in.
"Only if I don't have to pay for gas." my brother said, "you gonna pay my share?" he asked me.
"What ever." I had some babysitting money.
"I got you covered." said Ray. It was settled.
To this day I can't figure out how we got up so early after the many drug blasting parties we went to, but the surf was always calling, and we got there somehow.
Ray and I started dating and I fell madly in love. He had graduated in '75 so he was much older then I was. He was very good looking and had a free spirit. His best friend was David Peterson, brother of Craig Peterson. Craig Peterson and Kevin Naughton were the duo who traveled the world finding unexplored surf spots in 1972 (and beyond) for Surfer Magazine. Craig was a Kneeboarder too. Both David and Ray worked for Robert August. David was his surfboard air brusher. Air brushing on a surfboard was ground breaking at this time. Before the color would come from opaque paints added to the resins. This made boards heavy and time consuming to glass and sand. David was one of the first guys to popularize air brushing on a fully shaped blank surfboard. This allowed surfboards to become bright, lighter, and have personal art-work put on them. Ray did Robert's glassing and sanding.
Rob, Ethel, Ray, and me. Idyllwild Ca.
By the end of the summer I was living the young surfer's dream. I was surfing all over the California coast. I was skateboarding places that only later became popular (like Dwyer Middle School and drainage pipes in Corona Del Mar), I was hanging out with Robert August, Herbie Fletcher, Greg Wade owner of Victory Wetsuits, and other well known surfers of the time, and, I was in love.
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