John Lewis (1940-2020)

Yesterday I watered the flowers

Tears washed my ruddy cheeks

Dripped downward

Toward Earth

The soil we grow

Sprout, spread and

Invigorate

What is it that touches

The soul but a feeling of

belonging, to a higher

Greater brother- and sisterhood

Memories renewed

Cued by a simple 

Word or tune or thought

John Lewis's body in a casket

Still moving, forever determined

To reach the other side of

The bridge 

Another crossing, more

Good trouble

Greater days 

Win today, struggle again

Not Tomorrow, now

Turn an ideal into

An act

Move on

Justice never waits 

Or lingers too long

Three presidents plus one

Testify for John, his courageous

Self-sacrificing nonviolence

The immutable arc

Martin Luther King

Sharecropper's son

River of love

The voice, the piano

Notes resonate toward

Heaven, where is Heaven

Water the soil from

The soul through the eyes

Hold up your hands

Reach out

A cleansing, a baptism 

Reborn again and again

And again, again

Always a crossing

Look for a sign

The way is the path, now

Hold head high

Reduced to a teardrop

A vote

A sign

An intention

To be righteous

To be inclusive

To live and die, repeat

 

The Hat Trick

“Incognito Look”

Well I see you got your
Brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat...
Well, you must tell me, baby how your
Head feels underneath somethin' like that

                                                          -- Bob Dylan

It was bound to happen. What with all the options for men's headwear. I realized by coincidence that I had finally made it, finally graduated without noticing. There he was: an old fart in a dated white Volvo sitting in the car next to me, his window down, waiting for the traffic light to turn green.

He was wearing a duffer's bucket hat just like I was.

We were experiencing a rite of old-man-passage together.

I was about to wave, "Hey bro," before his foot hit the gas pedal and he turned to dust, a mirage in my mind's eye of a man in a floppy-brimmed hat who had succumbed, without shame or pride, to the inevitable.

The bucket hat is certainly a sign that appearance no longer matters. Style is out the window. You're not a young man. Do as you please. You're free, old fella. Enjoy being a geezer, cause you look like one.

For the middle years, the baseball cap is the go-to head-cover for the American male. A well-known President even turned it into a bright red campaign banner with political slogan. Witnessing that, I should have changed chapeaus four years ago!

But you really can't go wrong with a baseball cap. It's a symbol of our national pastime. It's sporty and manly, the preferred hat for contractors, surfers, fishermen and hip-hop artists. Wear it backwards or tilted and you're looking sick, dude. I've worn them for years, but not without a funny feeling of, shall we say, normality, lack of creativity. Not that there's anything wrong with being one of the guys, a good Joe, Pete or Sam.

As a man's hair begins to thin on top, he searches for something to cover exposed skin on his pate. If you reside in certain parts of the country, say Montana, Arizona, Nevada for example, you've got the cowboy-hat option, another iconic American symbol of virility and the Wild West. I love cowboy hats, but it's an extreme statement, even in places like Santa Cruz where you can put a trash can on your head and not receive a second glance.

Seeking an alternative to the ubiquitous baseball cap, over the years I've donned a sports cap, fedora, Panama, pork pie and even a beret. Let me tell you, wear a beret and you're going to invite comments and a raised eyebrow. Anything that men perceive to be French is suspect. You're up to something. You're not one of us. You s'ppose t' be an artist or somethin?

"No, I'm just expressing my feminine side." Don't say that.

Women tend to love berets on men. Just sayin. Take it or leave it. It's your head.

Beanies, formerly known as stocking caps, are big for men: very masculine, evoking an aura of untamed wilderness and warmth, of cold, foggy mornings at the beach. If you can't find your baseball cap, grab your beanie. You're instantly one of the guys.

During my final years of employment I worked at the beach. I organized and emceed beach parties. I spent time outside in the sun and covered my sun-shy noggin with a lifeguard hat, a large, wide-brimmed straw thing. One of my clients referred to me as "The Hat." I needed to stand out.

Those were the days: When hundreds of people would gather to eat, laugh and play. I received lots of swag at these beach parties, including bags, towels, hats and caps.

Recently I was going through a box of head-coverings that I'd saved over the years, a treasure chest of heady memories.

I reached in and pulled out the green baseball-cap with the word Humboldt in bright yellow letters, a gift from my daughter Vanessa when she was attending Humboldt State University. This seemingly innocent cap always brought a wink and a nod. In a single word, it apparently referenced a brand of Emerald-Triangle marijuana. "Behind the Redwood Curtain" was the school's unofficial slogan.

There was my straw sports cap from Uruguay that I purchased on a trip to South America to visit our daughter Bryna who had given birth there to a granddaughter, Viva.

There was the well-faded maroon-colored baseball cap that Johnny Rice gave me, with his cool Native American-inspired logo in blue and yellow.

Here was the grey baseball cap with the Burning Uke VII art on the front, purchased at that event held at Plaskett Creek Campground near Big Sur, evoking memories of singing and strumming ukuleles around the campfire with friends.

And, what was this? A khaki-colored, floppy brimmed hat seemed to be starring at me from inside the box. Hardly worn, I picked it up and placed it on my head. It came to me as swag at a beach party. Although I had never worn the hat, I kept it.

It fit my head like a good shoe. It offered sun protection. It felt like a disguise, a utilitarian cover that I might float under without fanfare, a subtle statement of acceptance, a perspective from which to observe without notice the comings and goings of the human comedy.

A voice whispered in my ear, "It's time. Wear me."

At that moment Barbara walked into the room, her eyes directed toward mine, her lips parting with naked laughter.

"You remind me of old man Bracegirdle," she said.

I had a vague picture in my mind of whom she spoke. It wasn't pretty.

Following a moment's reflection, I thought, if I could wear a beret, I could wear a duffer's bucket hat.

"It's the new me," I said.

The Early Years

Skilled body surfer shows how it's done

Take away, Take Away

Take away this ball and chain

Cause I'm sick and I'm tired

I can't take anymore pain

Take away, Take Away

Never to return again

Take Away, Take Away

Take away... This ball and chain

                                          -- Mike Ness, Social Distortion, released 1987

Before I knew it, the wave had sucked me up like an angry sea monster, swallowed me with its maw of churning foam, tossed me around so that I did not know up from down. I was totally at its mercy. How did I know to hold my breath? Instinctive reaction. I had no sea-going experience. 

Time stopped while I tumbled and flipped and flopped like a marionette cut loose. I saw newspaper headlines of drownings. I was a casualty, a goner.  I could not hold my breath one second longer, not one second longer, not one second more. I inhaled, expecting volumes of water to fill my lungs. I had committed the final act, only to breathe in... air. Precious air. 

I was alive. My face had emerged from the chaos of seawater at the precise second I had inhaled. A miracle? Stupid luck? Suddenly, I became aware that I was breathing. Then, just as suddenly, I was thrown down again. Another wave. Another period of holding my breath. But not as long. Never as long as that first wave.

Finally, my feet touched sand and I stood. 

I stumbled onto the beach where Conahan was sitting. He had seen the whole thing. He was smiling that wide, fish-eating grin, his bluish-yellow eyes creased and the ends of his sun-streaked hair flipping in the breeze. Was he smiling because I was still alive and glad to see me? Or was he smiling because he found my situation insanely comical? Maybe that's just how I remember him: always smiling.

"How long was I down?" I asked.

"About three minutes," he said, seemingly unfazed.

"Three minutes?!" I replied. "That was only three minutes!"

I figured that if I hadn't come up, at least he would be able to tell where I had been last seen. 

I was 15-years-old. It was my introduction to the shore-break waves at Newport Beach, a popular destination for high school kids from greater Orange County and beyond. We came from eastern-most Los Angeles County. Newport was the closest beach. I had, unknowingly, broken rule number-one of water safety: Never turn your back on the ocean.

Unlike most of the kids with whom I made the trek to the beach, I had not grown up going to the sandy shores of Southern California. My parents were old-school prairie folk more accustomed to farms and horses than beach-going. We rarely went to the beach. I never saw either of my parents in a bathing suit. 

Surfing was an inescapable attraction for my generation who were growing up in the land of milk and honey during the 1950s-60s.

One way or another -- with friends who had cars, by hitch-hiking, and for one marathon weekend by bicycle -- I found a way to get to the beach, some 40-60 miles through semirural Orange County.

The day before my near-death experience at Newport, Andy Conahan, Joe Voss and I had spent the night at the Fotheringham's beach house on Balboa Island. We had been invited as guests by Joe Fotheringham. Andy and Joe were freshman classmates of mine at Pomona Catholic Boy High School. Joe Voss was a year older. He had a driver's license and a car.

The next morning as Joe Voss tooled his old Chevy coupe along the empty Newport Beach streets on our way to the beach the AM radio station KFWB broke from its rock 'n roll format with a news flash: Movie actress Marilyn Monroe had died in her Brentwood home at age 36. Cause of death was presumed to be an overdose of sleeping pills.

The public announcement of a celebrity's death, especially someone as well known as the voluptuous blonde Marilyn Monroe, leaves a lasting impression.  My hearing the news on the way to the beach that morning and my subsequent near-drowning became tied together in my memory like a tight knot. I can mark that exact day, August 4, 1962.

As my high school years unfolded, I would spend more time with friends at Newport Beach -- primarily 15th Street where I learned to body surf -- as well as Laguna Beach and Doheny State Beach farther south where I learned to ride a surfboard. I never had my own board. I borrowed one from a schoolmate,  Bill Ciora, who generously offered his.  My ability to surf was self-taught, instinctive athleticism. I played football, basketball and ran track, so, I surmised, why couldn't I surf as well.

Our trips to Doheny (or Do-ho, as we called it) were more than sport: They were coated with adventure, from the road trip to get there, the subtle beauty of morning breaking at the beach, meeting girls and hanging out, feeling the natural warmth lying under the sun following a session in the water, then going to Henry's, a tiny market on Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) where we purchased a can of refried beans and a package of tortillas that were heated for us in a small oven. 

After a day of sun and salt, paddling and riding waves with friends, those simple, self-rolled burritos  tasted as good as any food I have ever eaten. Nick DeLorenzo, Pat Kady, Corky Dominic and Vince Dominic are names I remember from those days, my surfing buddies.

Although I became more familiar with riding waves, I never felt completely comfortable in the water, not nearly so much as the confidence I felt with my feet grounded on land. That would come later, many years later, when I lived at the beach and learned to study the tides and currents and how to judge waves, the essential elements of surfing.

Perhaps that August day at Newport in 1962 when I came face-to-face with mortality stayed with me, at least until I had a deeper understanding of the ocean and my relationship with it. Still, I have never approached the ocean since then without at least a twinge of anxiety. At the same time, due to many years of experience in the water, I have never felt the tension in my body disappear so easily and completely as when I am out there on a surfboard, floating free, feeling the ever changing rhythm of the ocean beneath me.

Last Wave:

Andy Conahan became a number-one rated tandem surfer with his girl friend, Candy. They competed in the world championships at Huntington Beach, Calif. circa 1966 which was featured on ABC TV's Wide World of Sports. After living the life of a free-and-easy surfer for several years, Andy quit surfing, became a police investigator and started a family.  He died of ALS at age 61.

Joe Fotheringham's younger brother, Mark, married my sister Mary. They have two children, my niece Lisa and nephew Peter, who are both married with children of their own.

The above lyrics by Mike Ness of Social Distortion are from the song, Ball and Chain. This song was covered in the beautifully lyrical body-surfing documentary film, "Come Hell or High Water" -- the plight of the torpedo people -- (released in 2012) directed by Keith Malloy.

Couple 'a Characters

Mac Reed, Wes Reed, Al Fox and Johnny Rice at "the office" (Cowell Beach circa 1985). Photo by  Rosemari Reimers-Rice

There is a photograph taken by the late actor Dennis Hopper of a local Malibu character sitting on Surfrider Beach, dressed like a flea market mavin in an outfit that could be described as Charlie Chaplin meets the Great Lebowski. As a shutterbug, Hopper had an artistic eye for capturing the soul of a person, or in this case, the curious juxtaposition of character to his environment.

Hopper's Malibu subject in this case, according to legend, was the original Moondoggie, whose name was popularized in the book-cum-movie, "Gidget."

If Hopper had been hanging out at Cowell Beach in Santa Cruz 40 or as late as 20 years ago, he would have found a wealth of photography subjects to rival his Malibu catalogue.

One such character from that era was a guy known as Longboard Tim. Rarely seen wearing anything but board shorts and a cap, Tim's sartorial creativity when he did clothe himself made Moondoggie's getup appear amateurish.

Riding his bicycle to work, Tim could be seen from three blocks away with his black top-hat towering above his head, with a Levi vest over his chiseled chest, wearing shorts and unlaced high boots. He had a job? He was the nighttime janitor for a well-known health food store, the Staff of Life.

For my money, Tim was the most artful and unique longboard surfer in a town of exceptional longboarders. He was the only one in the water in midwinter not wearing a wetsuit. Since he knee-paddled on his board, keeping his muscular body above the water line, he never got wet. He rarely if ever wiped out.

He would catch ten waves in the time most surfers caught one. He would line up removed from the crowd with an uncanny knowledge of an inside wave that no one else seemed to know about. He moved like a cat on his board, cross-stepping and hanging ten toes over the nose with the ease and subtle aplomb of a theatrical dancer.

"He was an exceptional guitar player and born-again Christian," said his neighbor-friend Mac Reed, another idiosyncratic Cowells character. "He knew more about guitar and the Bible than anyone. You didn't want to get into a conversation with him about those topics."

Reed lived in his own house across the street from Tim, who lived in a backyard "studio," to describe his quarters kindly. Reed had converted his two-car garage into a meticulously designed surf shack that could have served as a movie set. He also was fond of local dive bars. 

Mac liked to drink and rumor was he was also a barroom pugilist. He was not shy about his enjoyment of spirits, as he attested to me during a Cowells' surf session. He mentioned that he had just come from a well-known westside watering hole.

Both Tim and Mac were cool guys, as far as I knew them, which was as neighbors. Tim eventually developed health issues. Word was he had a bad hip from sleeping on a concrete floor. He relocated to the Bay Area where he had grown up. His disappearance from our westside hood above Cowells, about 20 years ago, marked the end of a simpler and more non-conformist era.

Mac claimed he was writing a book about surfing. He made his announcement in 1999 at a beach party at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. I can only imagine the tales he could tell. About 10 years ago he sold his house and moved to Montana. Story was, he liked the rough-and-tumble cowboy bars up that way.

In 2015, Mac's name resurfaced in Santa Cruz. During pilgrimage he made to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu -- the premier emporium of Hawaii and surfing history -- he found the connection between Santa Cruz and three redwood surfboards on display there. They were the original boards ridden by three Hawaiian princes who introduced surfing to the mainland at the San Lorenzo River Mouth in Santa Cruz in 1885.

Thanks to Mac, in 2015, two of those original boards, hewn from local redwood, were transported back to Santa Cruz for a special exhibit at the Museum of Art and History. It was a big deal. The 17-foot, 100-pound boards had been specially wrapped and shipped to Santa Cruz. They were handled and displayed with a reverence befitting the Holy Grail.

Original redwood boards of Hawaiian Princes' who introduced surfing to California

Although Mac was not present for the showing, his mission to the Bishop had resulted in a most spiritual affair in Santa Cruz. The mana (Hawaiian for soul) present in the room, emanating from the two hand-hewn boards that connected ancient Polynesia to the continent through our little town, was palpable. The planks made of natural wood from local redwood had survived more than a century, crossed the Pacific and back to the place of their origin. 

As for the photograph by Dennis Hopper of the original Moondoggie, I have not been able to locate it for this blog. I did see this particular black-and-white photo at an exhibit (circa 2005) of surfing lore at the San Jose Museum of Art. Hopper was an artist with a camera and most of his Malibu subjects, found online, are celebrities, well-known figures. I am more interested in the characters -- such as Moondoggie, Tim and Mac -- who with minor fanfare have added color and creativity to our lives and our culture.

Cowells

Cowells sandbar 2016

                                                                                            

    

3/11/08 Cowells, 7am before work, even tide, nw & south swells, slight offshore wind, water and air temp mid-50s, waves 2-4' good shape on south sets, sand bar working, glassy, steamier than expected, small group of locals and two eastsiders. Stoked. (from KS surf log)

"Cowells is a gutless wave."

So declared my friend Steve when I told him I was surfing Cowells. He had surf-cred to make such a definitive statement. He made lots of statements. Just like he rode lots of fast, firing waves. He was dialed in to all the breaks between Ventura and Santa Cruz. At one time he worked for a shaper in Santa Barbara and test-rode new boards at Rincon, C-Street and other known and unknown spots along that section of the southern California coast.

Cowells is a beginner wave. The vibe is overall friendly. It is the final break of a wave that has wrapped around the outside point and combed through the peaks of Steamer Lane, then Indicators and finally, its energy dissipated and guts disemboweled, humps into a mellow cove with the ferociousness of a playful kitten. 

Cowells is a family wave. It is where kids of Santa Cruz learn to surf. It's where westsiders meet their neighbors. It's where you can ride a wide-breaking wave with a friend, or friends, making what is mostly a solitary thrill into a shared experience. At times the slow rollers seem to break forever, affording a ride from outside of Cypress Point all the way to the beach in front of the Dream Inn. It can be a love-fest of hoots and smiles. 

Cowells is where the original Santa Cruz Surfing Club was founded in 1936.

"An excellent beginner's wave," says Bank Wright about Cowells in his seminal 1973 guidebook, "Surfing California." "Slow, easy right slides, usually glassy, takes a 2-6-foot north or west swell."

Cowells is all of that and more. When conditions are right, it can also be one of the best nose-riding waves around, drawing the best long-boarders in the area to ride perfectly shaped, fast-reeling waves across its sandy bottom.

In the year 2000, to celebrate Cowells and the new millennium, Santa Cruz surf legend-turned-film maker Pat Farley debuted his prize-winning documentary about Cowells that paid homage to the unique surf break and many of its measures and characters.

Farley called Cowells one of world's "premier longboard waves." He interviewed a cast of local longboarders who explained the art of nose-riding, likening the classic standing position on the front tip of the board to "walking on water."

The film pays tribute to local female surfers, including Michele Scott and Miranda Pitts, excellent longboarders who grew up with saltwater in their veins and reside in the westside neighborhood above Cowells. In one segment, Farley focuses on the grace and fluidity of Pitts, noting how high-quality surfing can be accomplished on small waves. 

In a nod to California's surfing origin, the documentary points out that the three Hawaiian princes who introduced surfing to the mainland in 1887 did so at the "far east end of Cowells known as the Rivermouth," at the mouth of the San Lorenzo River.

Making Waves

Waves are created by wind from storms thousands of miles away in the northern and southern hemispheres. Typically the northern groundswells come to California in winter and the southern swells in spring and early summer. The winter swells are stronger and more consistent coming from the north. The waves arrive in sets.

During powerful winter swells, pounding sea water and run-off rain from the mountains pull tons of sand offshore, moving it southerly with the currents. Stormy winters create beaches, sand bars and spits along the coast, filling the coves. A natural cove, Cowells has a sandy bottom and depends on that granular ingredient to make it shallow enough to make waves. Low tides help as well.

Still, no swell, no waves. Summer doldrums are common.

My first ride at Cowells was in summer of 1979 on a postcard golden morning. No fog. Sun rising in reds and orange over the Santa Cruz Mountains. I rode a beat-up board of splintering fiberglass given to me, or, more aptly, that I was willing to accept. I wasn't about to buy a board. Surfing in those days was the last thing on my mind.

I was concentrating on keeping a job and family going while living in my adopted dream hometown of Santa Cruz. I was on a tight budget and paying for a surfboard seemed akin to throwing money at gambling, especially since I had no commitment to the sport. I found my exercise by running and using a bicycle for transportation to work.

That's where I met Ramon Espanol, at my office in Soquel the home of Santa Cruz Publishing Company where I was editor of several local periodicals. Ramon was a journalism intern from San Jose State. His specialties were photography and surfing. 

I liked Ramon right off. He was an opportunistic intern, ready to learn, eager to play, handsomely dark-skinned. I put him to work, helping me fill editorial content in our publications -- a weekly newspaper called The News and a bi-weekly Visitors Guide for the summer. I was an editorial staff of one and relied on a stable of talented freelancers who were easy to find during those halcyon days in Santa Cruz.

"Do you surf?" Ramon asked me one day between assignments.

"I used to."

"I have an extra board you can have. Let's go out sometime!" he said with earnest, youthful enthusiasm. His summer in Santa Cruz was obviously going to include shooting curls as well as photographs.

Our first session was at Manresa, a south county beach break. Before deciding on Manresa, we had driven around and checked a few other spots, a mandatory ritual that I remembered from my high school days. Being summertime, the pickings were slim.

At Manresa, I caught a couple of waves. Small summer peaks. It felt good. I took the board home, stashed it in my garage on Walk Circle, kept it there until that early morning I decided to take it out to Cowells.

I slipped the 8-foot, banged-up board into my well-kept 1967 Volkswagen bus, my means of motor travel during that period, drove a mile or so to the bluff above Cowells. Tiny 2-footers were rolling in. It seemed a perfect time to be in the water: not crowded, stellar sunrise, plenty of time before work.

As I prepared to enter the water, I strapped a leash cord attached to the board around my ankle. The leash was a new feature of surfing unfamiliar to me. The chord was made of stretchy rubber.

When the first little roller came my way, I turned, took a few quick paddles, sprang to my feet and found myself cruising on a wave that was so slow there was no way I could hold my balance. I fell off the board into 2-feet of water, looked up and saw the tail of my gnarly, splintered board, pulled by my leash, heading toward my face. It banged into my upper lip with force of what felt like a pipe wrench.

Still conscious, standing in the knee-deep soup, my first thought was that I had most likely knocked out my two front teeth. With my hand, I felt that my teeth were still attached to my upper gum, although that part of my mouth was completely numb. I was unsure if they were loose and wouldn't fall out later that morning.

My first experience of surfing Cowells had been a minor disaster. Yet I can still smile about it with my front teeth intact. They didn't fall out.

A hard rule of surfing: Just because a wave doesn't have a lot of guts doesn't mean you cannot get hurt. It also doesn't mean you cannot have a lot of fun.

Next Wave: Meet some of the local characters of  Cowells.