I have a 24 year old car with a whole trunkful of fun just waiting for a future yet unwritten...</blockquote></div>wise words Nels… just today I took my my 9’3" hobie out in 3’ wind mush, and had a fustrating time, along with everyone else, apart from a guy I know who was on a home built mandala quad. I dumped my l/board and joined him on my neumatic. The two of us had the biggest grins on the beach. I then fetched a 5’7" kneelo dish I bought cheap off ebay and loaned the mat to his g/f. Then there were 3 people with grins. a bit of swopping around and another guy had a grin.
In the car park afterwards we were surrounded [literaly] by kids who wanted to know about what we had. we showed, we explained… and their parents went away looking puzzled, they’d never come across mats, kneelos or fish. The kids looked like they wanted one of each. Which made me smile. maybe there’s hope yet
There is something about the kneeboard community traditionally and alternative surfcraft people in general that is just plain warmer than anything you get in regular standup surfing. Things are still wild and exciting and fun in this territory, not judged, divided, branded, herded, bought and sold the way “surfing” is. I walked past a current or recent issue of Surfer yesterday and saw a cover photo of a kid on a wave…I don’t know the kid or know of him but the look on his face was sullen and joyless…emblematic of where that world is at. His sponsors probably bought him a new car for the cover shot publicity but you know what? I have a 24 year old car with a whole trunkful of fun just waiting for a future yet unwritten…
In reverse order…
I am, Sir, the happy owner of a 24 year-old 1981 Chevy Stepside - lovely old machine that was gonna get junked when it was given to me. Whole truck bed full of fun to come, of course… and I have a brandy-new or close to it Rapidograph pen for doodling the future.
Those in the mainstream tend to wash away. Those who drift up into those little rills, estuaries and plain odd spots seem to have a helluva sight more fun.
And you’re not bought or sold, ya don’t have to wear ‘surf fashion’, you can be who you are, for good or ill. Pushing the envelope, wandering outside where it’s clear and no billboards to ruin the scenery.
Ever talk to a kneelo? Or, worse still, overhear two of 'em discussing something? Sounds like a thesis defense, it does, with ‘and then, this, but therefore that’ which is rebutted by ‘but then that and that, so this happens’. I’m more than a little strange, so I enjoy it.
And why I am still involved with something that’s, frankly, a little silly. Heresy though it is, surfing, riding waves, is awfully peripheral. But fun.
doc…sonofagun, somebody has worse knees than I do? …
Wait a minute…
liquid=Rex Huffman?
No, Iam not Rex.