Sorry, I know. Three posts in a row. But I just remembered something. In Athens, Georgia, there is an Italian restaurant (great food) called DaVinccis. Heck, I don’t know if I spelled that right, but who cares. Anyway, there is a board that looks just like the Jim Phillips shape (#610 in the archives). Single fin, retro deal. It has a fantastic airbrush and is a single fin. At one time I wanted to get a job there (using a fake name) so I could swipe it off the wall and take it home (and take it surfing). I had it in my head that I would pay for it (although I wasn’t going to give him a choice). I would leave the money in an envelope in his office. I would have given him about two hundred at the time. That isn’t too much, and if it wasn’t enough, hell, he shouldn’t have had it on the wall 300 miles from the ocean. Everytime we ate there, I sat so that I could watch it and think of a way to “buy” it without getting arrested. Alas, I chickened out and, to my knowledge, the board still hangs there. No bolts, just wall racks Also, in North Atlanta, there was a taco shop called, I think, Crazy Taco or Crazy Burrito or something, right by the Children’s Hospital, that had seventeen perfectly good surfboards. There were surf photos all over the walls as well. Maybe the store was called Surf Taco. I forget. The boards there are actually bolted to the ceiling, but are in great condition otherwise. I used to daydream of forming “The Board Rescuers Society,” a group committed to “rescuing” boards from walls, given to people who would actually ride them, all in the name of respect for the shaper, board, and sport. I can’t stand to see a board on the wall unless I know someone is occasionally taking it OFF the wall and using it. I don’t care if it was made for or by the great Duke himself. Yeah, hang it on the wall and show it off. But take the thing down, wax it up and surf it. When my grandma wasn’t looking, I used her antiques. They should be used. Just my opinion. One last note: There is a clothing store in Longboat Key, Florida (Sarasota) on St. Armand’s Circle (or St. Armand’s Square, it might be called) that has a perfect, yellow, Gerry Lopez Lightning Bolt from the seventies. I think the store was Banana Republic or something like that. Anyway, they said it wasn’t for sale, and again I thought of every way possible to take it without ending up in a Sarasota, Florida jail (like Pee Wee Herman did). I never had the guts, and I bet it’s still there collecting boogers from little kids. That thing needs to be rescued for two reasons: It’s a Pipe gun, which has no business being in Florida, and it’s stuck in a clothing store. But I guess it could be worse. The Chili’s restaurant in Encinitas, CA has about eight boards that have been neatly sawed in half and mounted to look as if they were impaled into the wall above the bar. Some of them are classics. Bill Caster and Al Merrick, and they are from the eighties. I’d like to slap the guy who cut them in half.