Surfboard Tales: Of Aussies And August

Or, rather, Of Aussies and the august August in August:

No one could get anything to eat because the Australians were there. They were blond, blue-eyed, and thought to be wealthy as they were sponsored by one of the major surfboard manufacturers. All of the waitresses were hovering around them at the small combination sandwich shop/bar/surf wax dispensary, hoping to catch their eye; making sure they had refills of their iced tea, that their tofu burgers were to their liking, and, in one case, making sure that they didn’t have to cut their own food.  It was as if the waitresses were dreaming of being swept away to some Aussie future in exotic places like Bondi Beach, the Gold Coast, or Surfer’s Paradise.

We had gotten to the shop before the Australians, but were still waiting for our “fish taco supremes” forty-five minutes into what had now become a spontaneous autograph party organized by the wait staff.  Since I had been in the water for nine or so hours and had eaten nothing all day other than a Pop Tart, my blood sugar was around .0001 and I was genuinely considering mayhem. Dangerously, I was hearing the voice of my former drill instructor echoing in my head with his litany of the seven quickest unarmed methods to take out an enemy.

 My companions saw that I had almost reached the point of no return and made a helpful suggestion.  "Why don't you take a walk? Charlie Manson used to play guitar at the place on the corner.  Check it out.  Take half an hour; we won’t get anything before then, anyway."

 It was a weeknight in the late summer, which meant the streets in the main commercial section were crowded with shoppers, tourists and partiers.  I wandered a little bit past the restaurants and sidewalk cafes, tempted to snag someone’s half eaten meal.  I stopped at the place that had once hosted Charlie Manson as its folk music artist; now it had a different name and much, much different clientele.  I walked along the sidewalk decorated with the names of those who had been inducted into the Surfing Hall of Fame, nodded to the statue of Duke Kahanamoku, the father of surfing, and steadily moved east, getting a little turned around on some of the side streets, where I found myself in the middle of a crowd of motionless young men and women who were silently, and rather eerily, staring off into the distance like seagulls pointing into the wind. 

I joined them, looking into the distance, not wanting to ask any questions to disturb what I thought might be some form of southern Californian spiritual experience.  As it turned out, I wasn’t far off.  They were watching a figure across the street, who was covered in stray bits of the Styrofoam-like material found in the center of surfboards, quietly working a sander as he patiently, quarter inch by quarter inch, shaped a new board before it was to be sheathed with fiberglass.  He was tall and well-muscled; somewhere between 40 and 50-years-old and completely absorbed in his work. 

One of the young men turned to me and said, “This is really something.  I never thought I’d ever….”  His observation was interrupted when the surfboard shaper, this obscure figure of adoration, noticed his audience, smiled and waved to them, and then turned off the lights to his workshop and closed the garage door.  The idolaters were ecstatic, saying the only thing to do now was to get back in the water and surf some evening glass.  I agreed, although to what I still wasn’t sure.

When I returned to the café, and blissfully to my fish taco supreme, I related the story to my companions, one of whom was a local.

“You know who that was, don’t you?  That was Robert August.”

“No.”

“Yep.  His shop is just down the street.  He still shapes his own boards.  The kids like to gather there; they think it’s lucky to be seen by him.  That it means good surf.”

I should have recognized him, of course.  The whole reason I was in Surf City was because of him; because of a generation-old documentary film that followed August and his surfing companion around the world looking for the perfect wave; the film that I saw with my dad, on a rainy day in Ocean City, in the summer of 1966. 

My fish taco was gone in two minutes.

“I’ve got to get going.  I think I need to surf some evening glass.”  And, sure and behold, after such a “blessing”, the moonlight surf was terribly good.

[Excerpt from Reading Water, all rights reserved ©2011]