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| Warren Miller, sliding right at Malibu, 1940. |
It was an unusually warm day for December. Knee-high waves
were snapping crisply across the point at Malibu, and I was the only person
there. IT was my third year of surfing in what has since become a long-ago time
frame; an era when if a second care of surfers showed up, I would think it was
crowded. I had spent the previous three hours paddling my 11-foot, 106-pound
solid redwood back out for yet another small wave. I was a 17-year old senior
in high school, and I had a lot of things on my mind: my morning paper route,
learning to ride my $7 surfboard, getting a date for the senior prom, and where
would I get $6 for a pair or racing tights to race in the next Herald Express
speed skating championship? Important things like that. I decided to go stag to
the prom so I could dance with all the other dates, and the eight bucks I would
save on the corsage and dinner for two would cover the racing tights plus
enough gas for a surf trip. Gas had already gone sky high, up to as much as 11
cents a gallon. I idly wondered when the wind would come up and the freeze me
out of the glassy, crystal-clear water (it was a decade before wetsuits came on
the scene). The wind never did blow, but when exhaustion set in about 1:00
p.m., I dragged my body and plank out of the water to a warm dune where I had
hidden my lunch. While watching a trio of brown pelicans do wing dips, I ate
the three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and finished a quart of milk,
after which I fell asleep in front of the Adamson’s.
I awoke with a start, shivering in the long shadows of the
late afternoon winter sun. A slight wind was gently moving the dune grass.
Standing rather stiffly, I stretched, brushed the sand off, then lifted the
plank onto my shoulder and trudged up to the point for a few more waves before
braving Sunday traffic. The slight winter sunburn I had felt great.
Half a dozen waves later I called it quits, pulling out near
shore and paddling on down to the same small hole in the fence that I had cut
to get it. I climbed up the beach to the hole, slid my board through, then
wiggled through myself, lugged the board over to my old convertible Buick, and
slid it down the through the back window. Then began the ritual of rinsing off
with the gallon jug of water I leave on the hood to heat up. I had already
realized I was one of the luckiest people in the world. I had discovered
surfing (in 1939), I had use of my sister’s car one day a week, enough money to
buy gas from my morning paper route, and I owned my own redwood board. What
else could a teenager want? The board sticking out the back window of my
sister’s car always looked like the world’s largest tongue depressor. I climbed
into the front seat and fired up the gas-guzzling eight-cylinder engine.
Glancing south, I couldn’t see a single car headed north on Coast Highway.
Glancing over my left shoulder, not a single southbound car was visible.
Switching on my car radio, I was listening to Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight
Serenade” when an announcer cut in, “We interrupt the music to bring you this
news bulletin. This morning at 8:05, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a
devastating attack on Pearl Harbor. Many ships have been sunk and casualties
are reported to be very high. We are standing by for further word from
President Roosevelt at the White House.”
What were you doing December 7, 1941? I was surfing the
point at Malibu all by myself.
Until next time, may your waves be head high and glassy.
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