GOTTA SEE DA GAME 12/31/08
By Corky Carroll

I am not exactly what you would term a sports nut.  I am first and foremost a surfer to the core.  Or maybe to the cork, as the case may be.  But I do like to watch Basketball on television.  The Lakers.  I am a full tilt rabid purple and gold bleeding fan. 

Way back in the mid 1960’s I used to do ads for Jantzen swimwear.  They had a group of sports dudes from all over the map.  Football, baseball, golf, hockey and, of course, basketball.  One of the basketball dudes was Jerry West, who was an star for the Lakers at that time.  He and I did a lot of work together and got to be pals.  One day he called up and asked if I would like to come see a game.  I did.  And that began my life as a Lakers fan. 

I have stuck with those dudes all through the years.  Magic Johnson is my all time hero.  I absolutely loved to watch him play.  He’d come down the court with that big ol’ Cheshire cat smile on his face and all kinds of good things would happen.  That was an amazing team.  There were some real down years in there too.  Rooting for Vlade and that group even when you knew they had no chance.  Chick Hearn was wonderful at calling the games and always made you feel like you knew each team member personally.  I miss him.  

Then came the Kobe years and hope was restored.  The championships with Shaq were fantastic.  Then the agony of watching Karl Malone after he got hurt and the team slipping back to the far downs again.  But, like with Magic, as long as we kept Kobe good things were bound to happen sooner or later if management could just put it together.  And they did and the team is back.  I hate to miss seeing a game.

Which brought me to Christmas Day and the big game with Boston.  As some of you know I split my time between Orange County and Mainland Mexico.  In the winter I am in Mexico more because I hate cold water.  So I am at my casa in Mex and I can’t get the game on my T.V.  I don’t get ABC.  But I know that there must be a way without having to drive all the way to Ixtapa and finding it on a TV in some bar.  I am on a mission.

I figure that the Internet will tell me what to do.  You can learn just about anything you want by google these days.  So I do and yes, there is a solution.  Satellite T.V. available over the Internet.  It’s now 30 mins to gametime and I pull out the credit card and enroll.  Only $34.95.  What a great deal. 

By the time I get signed up its gametime.  So I turn on the ESPN sports news station to get the updates on the score while I am trying to get the Internet TV working.  There are a number of downloads you have to do.  Each one takes time.  As I am doing all of those the game is going on and its close.  Then there are plug ins and a whole world of stuff that you really need to be a computer geek to figure out.  By the time I get it up and running its halftime and the Lakers are clinging to a small lead.  I log onto the game and wait while it is buffering.  And I wait and wait and it buffers and buffers.  I realize its not gonna work.  Ahhhhh. 

So I hit the help/support link and try to get some help and support.  But it won’t let me send my message because there are only 4 topics to choose from and none of them are my problem.  And if you try to choose one of them it gives you a solution and still will not let you send a message.   Ahhhhhh.   The game is back on and its close all through the third quarter.  Hey, maybe it’s because I am on a MAC. 

So I switch to my wife’s PC and do all the downloads and plug ins and the whole thing all over again.  It’s late in the 4th quarter and the score is tied.  I log onto the game and wait while it buffers.  And wait while it still buffers.  Two minutes to go and I miss the update because my eyes are on the computer.   Ahhhhhhhhhh.

The game is over.  The Lakers win.  I watch the highlights on ESPN.  I am mentally exhausted.  The Internet TV never did work.  I realize that this was really a lot of effort just to watch a game on TV and I did miss a nice afternoon of surf.  But, I am a fan. 

ONE MORE YEAR LESS 12/24/08
By Corky Carroll

Gee whiz kids, it’s the end of yet another year.  They say that as you get older the years go by faster.  I think that’s true.  For me they seem to be flying by like leaves in a hot fall Santa Ana wind.  Whooosh!  It went from ’68 to ’08 in a flash.  The last decade seems like a blink of the eye to me.
I have a friend who, every time I see him, says, “One day less.” 

I kinda like to think of it as the other way around.  One day more.  I am just glad to still be here and still be vertical.  Leaning a little bit yes, but still basically vertical.  Every day I get more is just icing on the cake.  I could never complain about my life, I have been so lucky.  I don’t have much to speak of in the way of things and money in the bank and all of that.  But I live a wonderful life surfing everyday and living on the beach with a fantastic wife.  I choose lifestyle over possessions many years ago and would not change a thing even if I could.  So every day that I wake up and get to still be alive is just a bonus. 

2008 in the surfing world can pretty much be summed up with two words.  Kelly Slater.  The dude is so far beyond amazing that they need to invent a new word to describe him.  Maybe I’ll have to work on that.  It would be something like “kafabnifacatacious.”  O.k., I need to polish that up a bit, too long.  But anyway, Kelly Slater has proven himself again and again to be the greatest of the greats.  This year he won his ninth World Championship.  Nine!  Can he do ten?  Only if he wants too.  

The surfing industry, like most others, is not enjoying the best of times.  I sure hope things turn around soon.  For the surf industry as well as for the rest of the whole country.  Come on Obama, show us a hard bottom turn and some big air in 2009. 

We lost some great people this year.  Two guys that made it all the way to 96 years old, Woody Brown and Bud Browne.  Woody was a legend of legends.  He was an extremely fun dude to be around and was one of the great big wave surfers in the early years of big wave surfing.  He would be like an ultimate surfing pioneer.  Bud Browne was like the grandfather of surfing filmmakers.  He started in the 1950’s with such great films as “Cat on a Hot Foam Board,” “Spinning Boards” and “Gun Ho.”  Bud was known to always have the “goods.”  Other guys came along that made slicker movies, but nobody had better out and out raw surfing footage than Bud.  He was da Man in the surf movie business.

We also said goodbye to local Orange County surf legends Mike Haley and Bill Holden.  Mike was the United States Surfing Champion in 1960 and part of the famous Haley surfing family of Seal Beach.  Older brother Jack was champ in ’59 and his son, also a Jack, went on to become a star for the Los Angeles Lakers.  Bill Holden was a respected surfboard builder and one of the happiest dudes I ever met.  I loved to see him coming.  He was always stoked to the max.  I wish more surfers could be like that.  Too many of us get caught up in the “it’s too crowded and bla bla bla” vibe and loose sight of the fact that we are doing something amazingly free and wonderful.  Bill never did, he had a built on smile.

Also making pull outs in 2008 were famed Aussie surf adventurer Peter Troy, actor Sam Bottoms, who played the surfer Lance Johnson in the movie “Apocalypse Now,” respected Kauai waterman Keoni Lucas, the son of the great Jimmy Lucas, and historical San Onofre surf hero Jim “Burrhead” Drever.   Adios amigos, may your ride be as amazing as your lives here on Earth were.  

On the other side of the slate the good news is that there are still a lot of cool people that remain alive and surfing.   Unfortunately there are probably more “Buttheads” than “Burrheads.”  But still there is hope.  Heck, I just hope I am still here writing this column at the same time next year.  And that you are still here reading it and still shaking your head and wondering why in the world they are still letting me get away with it.  Happy New Year.

GLOBAL PAINING 12/17/08
By Corky Carroll

A few weeks ago I did a column discussing the trials and tribulations of senior surfing and the wonderful world of bad pain, face plants and gold teeth.  Well, I guess gold teeth are better than no teeth.  Maybe not, I don’t really know as I still have most of mine although I think just about all of them have patch jobs on them.  Many are gold.  Geeze, I could actually be worth more dead than alive.  That’s a scary thought knowing some of my friends.  Or most of them really.  Oh well.  Anyway, back to the story.  A few weeks ago I did a column talking about this kind of thing and how it takes me more and more time to get to my feet when I surf these days and how sometimes I don’t make it at all.  The response to the story has been overwhelming.  No, I really mean overwhelming…like hundreds of emails, some of them thousands and thousands of words long.

This one took me by surprise.  It seems that there are tons and tons of other surfing geezers out there that share my pain.  Especially lower back problems.  The email ranged from other people saying they related to the story to suggested remedies and solutions.  I got some great ideas and some that I am not so sure I am gonna try out. 

Some of the suggestions for relieving the back pain include yoga, pilates, walking, not walking, hanging from a bar, hanging upside down, hanging out at the gym, hanging myself, reading a number of books including “Getting rid of Back Pain,” not using a surf leash so that I have to swim more, swimming more, treading water, drinking water, salsa dancing, hot salsa on everything to make me eat less and poo poo more, the South Beach diet, the South Bay diet, the Grapefruit diet, the Grape Nuts diet, eating lemons with every meal, vitamins, medication, meditation, surgery, liposuction, chiropractic care, geriatric care, taking naps, sleeping positions, body pillows, a bowflex, a trampoline,  eating nothing but meat, eating everything but meat, eating rate Himalayan mountain beets, eating tons of onions, eating tons of garlic, eating only grapes, dinking a half a glass of oil and vinegar salad dressing before every meal, physical therapy, mental therapy, hypnosis, hip transplant, getting hip, skinny dipping, ice cube baths, salt baths, laxatives, creams, lotions, the egg ceremony cure, witchcraft, black magic, astrology, joining the Jehovah Witness’s, jumping jacks and crawling on my belling like a reptile.  Oh yeah, and eating Iguanas instead of having one for a pal.  There was more but these are all that I can remember right at this moment.  Another part of getting riper is not remembering stuff.  I like using the term getting ripe instead of old, it makes me feel better.  I told my wife that I was feeling nice and ripe the other day and she said, “Yeah you are, maybe it’s time for a bath.”  Geeze.  We have been having a contest to see who can forget the most stuff in one week.  I can’t remember who is in the lead.

Some of the other emails were kind offers of help.  A Chiropractor, a nutritionist and a physical therapist offered to save me.  I appreciate this more than you know.  Also I got one mail stating that I should, “Quit your whining and loose weight.”  This was sent by a dude who owns a gym and did offer to trade me personal training for a surf package.  All good stuff.  But my favorite email came from a dude who is 77 years old and just started surfing.  He said he looked to me to be an inspiration and that he has enough aches and pains of his own without hearing about somebody else’s that is decades younger than him.  The part I liked best was the “decades” comment. 

So what I am taking from all of this is that we, as surfers who are ripening, all seem to share some form of back problems.  We should form an association and have meetings.  BBA.  Bad Backs Anonymous.  “Hi, my name is Corky.  I’m a surfaholic.” 

Thanks to all of you who wrote in and I am going to use many of your suggestions.  Just this morning I fell out of bed and had to crawl on my belly like a reptile to get into the shower because I couldn’t get to my feet.  It’s a start.

THE UPSIDE AND DOWNSIDE OF THE HILL 12/10/08
BY CORKY CARROLL

This morning I was out surfing and, more or less, I was not having the best of days.  Last night I had a bad cramp in my back and today it is really sore.  The soreness was taking its toll on the quality of my surf session.  Even when I am feeling the best that I ever do anymore I have a hard time with my back.  I hurt it about eight years ago surfing on Kauai and it seems to never NOT hurt anymore.  It was a herniated L-5 disk.  It makes it hard for me to get from laying down to standing up when I surf.  On good days it is not real bad but I still struggle a bit with it.  On bad days I do a lot of face plants trying to get up and it is not only really embarrassing but also extremely frustrating.  Not good.   Once I get to my feet I am fine though.  It might take me a couple of extra seconds to get my feet organized, which sort of eliminates me from surfing spots like the Pipeline anymore, but after that I can still surf fairly well for a geezer. Today was a bad day and on a couple of waves I never even got up at all.  

When I got out of the water I was sitting in a little restaurant, that is on the beach at the spot where I was surfing, having a coffee and chit chatting with a few pals.  I think we were comparing aches, pains and surfing injuries.  When you get older things like that tend to dominate the conversation more and more.  The young dudes are talking about parties, hot chicks and getting big air while the older dudes are discussing hip transplants, swollen prostrates and heart medicine.  And trust me folks, I would much rather be in the talk about the parties, babes and big air than the other one.  But the only big air I ever get anymore is the kind that makes my wife hold her nose and smack me on the head.  It’s pretty sad really. 

Anyway, there was this young girl sitting there who was learning to surf.  She was telling us how much she loved surfing but how hard it is learning how.  One comment she made that really struck a chord with me was that she spends a third of the time frustrated, a third pissed off and the other third yelling “Wahooooooo!”  

Geeze, I can relate to that.  It’s kind of the same thing when you are on the downside of the learning curve.  No matter what all of you that are in your twenties and thirties think right now, there will come a time when your surfing skills start to diminish and you will not be able to pull off the moves that you can now.  I kind of figure that I can still pull off a good move or two once in awhile and even every now and then hold it together for one whole wave.  But more and more there are silly spastic looking mistakes and moments that you just hope your pals do not see.  I have always said, and right here a few times I think, that the only thing golden about the golden years is your teeth.  That is if you still have your own.  

We were looking at a newspaper the other day and there was a personals ad that some older lady had put in there.  It read something like. “87 years young, voluptuous and sexy lady with own teeth looking for a long term relationship.  Only good looking professional men need apply with photo please.”   Wow, I thought, how wonderfully optimistic that woman is.  Made me think of the little while lie that I keep telling myself.  “I will loose a ton of weight and get in good shape and be able to surf really good again when that happens.”  I am sure that could be at least a little true if I ever really would follow through and make it happen.  Less weight would for sure ease the back pain.  But years go by and I stay the same weight, which is way too much.  There is something to be said for being comfortable, but still it would be nice to be able to stand up at the take off point on a wave more times than not.  

HOLIDAY SURF GIFT IDEAS 2008 12/3/08
By Corky Carroll

Every year at this time I like to help out all of you out there who are asking yourself that age old question, “What do I get my SURFER husband, son, daughter, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, friend friend and/or whatever, for Christmas this year?”  This, being the beginning of the official shopping season, seemed like the perfect time to write this so you all can get a good jump on the list before all the good stuff is gone.  But first, as this is also Thanksgiving weekend, I want to send out a monster thanks to all of you who read me here each week.  I am in shock you don’t have something better to do but I am glad you don’t.  Please keep reading so I can keep writing.

The hard part about doing a gift idea list for surfers each year is that for the most part the great gifts for surfers do not change much from year to year.  It would be easy to just copy last years list or the year before.  But I will try to tweak it a bit this year to give you a little variety in your choices.

I will start with the most expensive gifts and work down.  As always it’s hard to beat a surf trip for the ultimate gift for that surfer in your life.  Normally this is where I blatantly plug my own surf adventure package in Mexico.  But this year I am going to suggest an alternative.  I have been hearing very good things about the Morro Negrita private surf island in Panama.  They offer a reasonably priced surf week with nice accommodations and a number of good surf breaks to choose from.  Information can be found at www.surferparadise.com.

Other great surf packages would be the Costa Azul Resort near Puerta Vallarta, www.CostaAzul.com, the Corky Carroll surf camp in Costa Rica, surfschool@hotmail.com, and of course coming to Mexico to hang with me for a week, corkysurf@aol.com.   These are all good choices plus way mellower and less expensive than the standard trip to Hawaii or the Caribbean.  

Then of course there is always a new surfboard.  Bla bla bla.  That one is too easy and I am sure that you already figured that one out.  But, just as a clue to help you pick out the right one, DON’T try to pick out the right one.  Let whom ever you are getting the board for pick it out.  Surfers are extremely personal about their choice of boards and its just a better idea to give them a gift certificate or surprise them with a visit to the surf shop of their choice and then spring the gift on them.  

After that the range opens up to include a whole world of clothing and surf accessories.  Board bags are good.  Surfing Videos and books.  Car racks.  Beach cruiser bicycles, Hawaiian shirts, surf trunks, skateboards, and just about anything else you can find in a surf shop works just fine.

There is also the great Clark Foam green long-sleeved Christmas shirt that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.  Any surfer would love one of those.  You can get one from WWW.CLASSICSURF.COM. 

Also this year I was thinking that for the slightly older and more refined surfer a nice thought would be a piece of “Surf Art.”  There are a number of great artists these days who offer amazing paintings, sculptures and other forms of surf related artwork that would make an amazing present.  Like the new John Severson “Surf Fever” edition acoustic/electric guitar from Fender Guitars. It’s a great instrument at a fairly low price and looks totally cool.  I just got one myself.  Of course an original painting would be a very special present too or a cool print from one of the great surf photographers.  Heck, I’d be stoked to get a coffee mug or a few bars of wax.   You never can go wrong with bars of surf wax as stocking stuffers.  Surf leashes work good for that too as well as sunblock and sunglasses.  Cheap rubber sandals are cool to get too.  Yeah, nice elegant ones are great but all surfers use the cheapies for going to the beach.   If your surfer is also a skateboarder a really good pair of skate shoes, like etnies or one of the other cool brands, would be perfect. 

And, as a last thought for those of you who have a surfer husband or wife, a packet of “surfing passes” would be cool.  That is where they can get out of some other planned event in the case the surf is good.  Surfing spouses would LOVE that. 

Good luck and have a wonderful holiday shopping season.

TAKE ALONG A FAT CORKY  11/26/08
By Corky Carroll

I just became aware of Flat Stanley.  In case you don’t know about this dude I will fill you in.  Flat Stanley is a cool little invention that was developed for kids to enhance their imagination and writing skills.  Physically Stanley is a small cutout of a dude that is laminated in plastic.  I think there is a Flat Sally too; I haven’t seen that one yet.  This little dude is introduced to kids somewhere around the third grade.  They take them home and give him whatever personality they desire.  He goes on trips with the family and sort of develops a life of his own.  The kids write about him and come up with adventures for him.  It’s a really cool little teaching aid.  

So I am currently at my casa in the southern part of mainland Mexico.   I am lucky to get to spend a lot of time down here during the winter when the water gets cold in the O.C.  It is the perfect getaway for me.  Having been a lifetime Orange County surf rat I love it here.  But as I have gotten older I don’t do so well in the cold winter water as I used too.  And I have a hard time getting in and out of the new wetsuits.  I have been known to get stuck trying to get mine off and had to call for help, sometimes even 911.  It is very embarrassing.  So the occasional winter get away to this tropical wonderland always makes me happy.  As most of you know I do surf adventure trips down here where people can come spend a week with my wife and I and surf with me at a great break right in front of the house.  This week I have friends down from Tustin.  Dale “the Bugmaster” Christian and his wife Suebaby.  Dale is a very cool dude and I love to surf with him because he is one of the rare ones who has fun every time he goes out.  I like that.  Whenever he visits we have a great time.   I am not into grouches who complain if there are more than three people in the water or if the wind comes up too early or if the guacamole is too spicy or something.  I am into my “geezers just want to have fun” stage of life.  Dale fits in perfectly.

Dale and Suebaby brought down a Flat Stanley.  This particular Stanley came down at the request of granddaughter Sarah and it belongs to her former third grade teacher at Oakridge School in Villa Park.  A Mrs. Alu.  I guess this was Sarah’s favorite teacher and the one who introduced her to Flat Stanley in the first place.  As Mrs. Alu doesn’t get to travel much Sarah asked Dale and Suebaby to take Mrs. Alus Flat Stanley down here for a vacation.  So they are taking photos of Flat Stanley on the beach and in the pool etc.  Tomorrow I am taking him surfing.  We are hoping to get a photo of him getting barreled or cranking a hard bottom turn.  Something good.  Maybe like a cover shot for SURFER magazine.  It’s kinda pushing it maybe, but what the heck.

So this gave me a great idea.  Heck, if there can be a Flat Stanley that people take along on cool vacations and trips to exotic spots, such as this one, then how about a real life size Flat Corky.  I like trips.  I wanna go.  The only problem is that I am not at all flat.  Not even close.  No big deal really, we can just change the name to one that fits me better.  FAT CORKY. Doesn’t hurt my feelings at all.  I have a lot of years and a big investment in gaining the current state of rotund that I am.  My wife calls me her “hot ball of love.”   So I am fine with the name.  Geeze, for that matter you can call me anything you want if you take me somewhere fun.  I’ll pose for photos with the relatives and the whole nine foot six.   How about Indonesia during the surf season?  I love Fiji.  Bula bula baby.  Love to see the north island in New Zealand too.  Just think about it.  What’s more fun?  A little cutout Flat Stanley or a real life Fat Corky?  Yeah, I eat more and you can’t fit me into the carry on bag.  But, much like the super advanced Barbie’s, I can laugh and cry and burp and all the other bodily functions.  And not only that I can help you make up the stories to submit to the teacher when you get home.   Amazing idea huh?   I thought so too.

THE GOLDEN YEARS OF FOAM 11/19/08
By Corky Carroll

In these days of amazing technological breakthroughs all over the place, which includes the surfboard industry, it is easy to forget some of the major innovations of the past that brought us to where we are today.  Kinda like the car.  One of those brought me to where I am today.  I am so glad that we have those because my old back could not deal with having to ride a horse around all the time.  Plus the shoveling of hay and cleaning up all the horse poo poos.  Yuck.  The car was a great idea.  Now the challenge is to come up with one that is better and safer and does not eat up the atmosphere.  Yet no matter how great a car they come up with there will still be the ’57 Chevy shining in infamy.

Surfboards are kinda the same thing.  At first they were big ol’ cut down tree trunks.  Then they figured out balsawood and fiberglass.  But the single most important breakthrough in the history of surfboards was the invention of the polyurethane foam and fiberglass board.  The lightweight foam board made the sport of surfing doable by just about anybody.  Before that you had to be Superman, Heman, Batman or the Incredible Hulk just to carry the things down to the water.  If one hit you it was lights out. 

There were a couple of main players in the invention and development of the foam boards which took place in the late 1950’s.  Hobie Alter and Gordon “Grubby” Clark.  Hobie was the owner of Hobie Surfboards in Dana Point and would go on to become the largest and most innovative surfboard builder on the planet during the 1960’s.   Grubby worked with Hobie and between them developed the first foam surfboards on the market.  Seeing that foam was going to become a huge market for surfboard builders Grubby went into business for himself and opened up CLARK FOAM. 

This company became the far and away main source of surfboard foam from the time they opened the doors to the time that they closed them a few years back.  Grubby was responsible for making and delivering almost all of the foam blanks in the United States, and also a majority of them overseas, for well over forty years.  It is safe to say that he had a virtual monopoly on the surfboard foam business.

Grubby was a surfer as well as a businessman.  That is why he continued to develop better molds to comply with the needs of the surfboard shapers as styles of boards changed.  Clark Foam not only had the stuff but they had the “good” stuff.  He always made sure that the product was top quality and always evolving with the sport. 

One of the great surf jobs was driving the delivery truck that went up and down the coast taking fresh blanks to all the hungry surfboard shapers.  A good friend of mine named Daryl “the Doggie” Diamond was the west coast delivery dude for years and years.  It was me that originally gave him the name “Doggie.”  He was the perfect surf dog.  And it fit well with the two D’s in his name.  Doggie used to stash his board in the delivery truck and hit all the good surf spots up and down the coast as he delivered the blanks.  He would hang with the different shapers and always time his delivery hours according to swell directions and wind conditions. 

What reminded me of this is my pal Allan Seymour.  Allan has the rights to make the classic green long-sleeved Clark Foam Christmas shirts.  The Christmas shirt was a yearly gift from Grubby to each of the surfboard shapers who used his foam.  Nobody else got them.  Not top surfers or magazine guys or anybody else.  They were not for sale.  It was really a cool and exclusive thing to have one of these puppies.  Doggie used to be the dude who got to give out the shirts.

When Grubby shut the doors that was the end of the Golden Years of Foam.  Today there are still foam boards but more and more new materials are being used and new technology is being developed everyday.  

The Christmas shirt is now available in a limited edition and makes a great gift for a surfer.  Contact Allan Seymour at allan@classicsurf.com for information. 

Now I am gonna toss my foam surfboard in the back of my car and head out to find some waves.  If I had to lug the tree trunk down to the beach on the back of a horse I would stay home and watch football instead.

OLE OLSEN LIVES 11/12/08
BY CORKY CARROLL

The other day I was walking down the beach to go surfing and ran into a dude that I know coming the other way.  I knew that he had just returned from a surf trip to the island of Maui so I stopped for a couple of minutes to ask him how his trip was.  He was stoked and had a great time and had a brand new board that he bought over there.  It was an OLE.  Wow, a genuine brand new board made by none other than the legendary Bob “Ole” Olsen. 

This took me back.  Way back.  O.K. shut up.  Way way way back.  Ole used to make surfboards in an old Quonset hut in Sunset Beach, just north of Huntington Beach, right here in the O.C.  And he made me my third board.  I’ll never forget that board.  One of the hot surfers of the time, Timmy Dorsey (a.k.a. the “Iguana) was working for Ole at the time and he is the one who wrote up my order.  He told me that Ole was impressed with my surfing and wanted to offer me any color job I wanted free of charge.  Wow, my first “deal.”  So we came up with a green, white and red layout that turned out to be exactly like a Mexican flag.  What is really weird is that 50 years later he winds up being my next-door neighbor at my casa in Mexico.  We laugh about that often. 

Ole later moved his business to a store over on Bay Blvd. in Seal Beach.  My pal Scott Hoxeng lived upstairs from the store and was in heaven when a real life surf shop came in downstairs.  Not long after that Ole sold the rights to build OLE Surfboards to Hobie Alter of HOBIE Surfboards.  Hobie hired Mickey Munoz to run the store and Mickey recruited me to be the surf team.  The combination of Mickey, who is an extremely funny dude, and Ole, who is another real character, made for a lot of laughs and a great basis to see the surfing world for a thirteen year old gremlin.  I loved hanging around those two.

Ole, along with being a great surfboard shaper, was a woodshop teacher at Garden Grove High School.  One afternoon he was teaching his class how NOT to use one of the power tools.  I think it was the lathe or something.  In the process he cut off one of his fingers.  That is what I call a great teacher.  If you are going to show them how NOT to do it then you might as well teach them how NOT to do it right.  Right? 

On the same day a year after the day he cut off the finger the kids in class gave him a “fallen finger” party.  As he was leaving school shortly afterwards he noticed that one of the pop windows on his new VW bus was open.  So he popped it close.  Unfortunately he had the exact same finger as he cut off, but on the other hand, stuck in the window.  And yep, he popped that puppy right off to make a perfectly matched set.  I guess being an expert surfboard shaper had made him a stickler for symmetry and balance.  He had not felt right since loosing that first finger and finally this made him centered again.

Ole liked to talk right in your face.  That was one part that sort of creeped me out.  He would put his arm around the back of my head and pull me right up close to him to talk.  Like his face would be only a few inches away from mine.  That in itself wasn’t so bad.  But what made it horrifying was that Ole used to love to eat pickled eggs.  That dude could have the smelliest breath on the planet.  It used to gag me.   He loved that and would laugh his butt off when I would try to wiggle out of his grip.   I thought that was cruel and unusual kinda behavior myself. 

Not too long after that Ole moved to the island of Maui.  Hobie didn’t build OLE boards for very long and eventually Ole got his name back and started making a few boards near Lahina.  And he is still there doing the same thing over forty years later. 

So I am looking over my pals brand new OLE and it is great to see that logo and his remarkable craftsmanship is still intact.  Ole Olsen is definitely one of the great ones.  I have not seen him in decades.  I just hope he has given up the pickled eggs.

SURFING THE UNFRIENDLY SKYS 11/5/08
By Corky Carroll

Have any of you gone on a long distance surfing trip lately?  One that requires you to fly somewhere and take along a surfboard or two?  If you have then you know that the once “friendly” skys have turned on us.  They are not surfer friendly at all anymore.  

When I was first flying places taking along a board was not such a big deal.  You just checked it in as baggage and they stuck a fragile sticker on it and a claim tag and that was that.  Of course this was in the days before board bags so the likelihood of your board getting there without a ding or two, a broken off skeg and at least a ton of scratches was very slim.  The good thing was that those boards also had a zillion layers of heavy fiberglass so they could take a thumping and keep on pumping. 

With the advent of lighter boards and surfboard travel bags it became safer on your board.  But as more and more surfers were taking surf trips  the airlines decided that a good new source of income would be to charge a fee for taking the board.  It kinda bummed everybody out but at the same time you can understand that a board bag takes extra handling and time and, as we all know, time is money.  So a small fee was not welcomed but was understood. Everybody whined about it but paid it. 

But in recent times many airlines have become extreme in their fees and policies.  Many airlines don’t take boards at all during peak travel times and some never.  More than a few surfers have been unpleasantly surprised at an airline check in counter with the cost of getting their board on a flight of being told that surfboards are not allowed.  I bet there are some great horror stories told among ticket agents working the counters about angry surfers going off on them.  Everybody seems to have a shallow vein of rage in them when traveling and having things go bad anyway.  A traveling surfer being told his board cannot go on the flight?  Argh.   

As some of you know I do surf adventure trips where people book a week to come stay with me at my casa near Zihautanejo in Mexico.  I have many people who come down often and have taken to just leaving a board there, as it is cheaper to buy a second board than taking it back and forth each time.  I have extra boards that I loan guests too to avoid them having to go through the airline hassle.  My partner Rick does the same thing at the surf school in Costa Rica.
 
A friend of mine operates a surf camp in Panama and has had to invest in a fleet of boards to use as rentals because it has become so expensive to take a board down there.  It’s gotten crazy.

If you are getting ready to take a surf adventure it’s a really good idea to research the different airlines flying to your destination before you buy a ticket.  Especially with connections using more than one airline. We have had guys coming down to Mexico from East Coast locations that had connections in Houston.  Continental is the carrier that flys from there to Zihautanejo and they do not take boards on that flight.   But they don’t tell you that when you check in at New York or where ever it is you take off from.  These are the kinds of problems you do not need.  

Here is one example of current fees for surfboards.  Other than the carriers that don’t take boards at all the worst seems to be Delta Airlines.  The fee is $175 per board each way for domestic flights and $300 per board on International flights.  That means if you wanna fly Delta to say Panama, and you have two boards, for the trip you are looking at a $1200 charge.  This is the same airline that recently offered me a “healthy snack” on a direct flight from Orlando to Los Angeles.  I was given a choice of potato chips, some sort of nuts or a box of raisins.  I like raisins so I choose that.  I was expecting the normal size box of raisins that is about the same size as a crayola box.  But nooooo.  They gave me a box the size of a postage stamp that might have had four raisins crammed into it. 

So if you’re gonna travel check out the fees first.  You can do that online.  Surfline.com has a good listing of most of the airlines that service surfers.  

EXTREME GOOFY 10/29/08
By Corky Carroll

A couple of weeks ago I did a column about the difference between “Goofy Foot” and “Regular Foot” stances in surfing and other board sports. There was a skateboard event at the etnies skatepark in Lake Forest that pitted the two stances against each other.  In the column I pointed out that the term Goofy Foot was often confusing to non-surfing peeps and that actually I had no idea how the term came about.  Having said that I guess I should have seen the mail truck coming to squish me into the mud without mercy.  If you admit to not knowing something in print you are just asking for back up from those who claim to know what it is that you don’t.  

Needless to say I got a lot of mail.  One of my favorites came from some fighter kinda dude who rudely claimed, “everyone (except you) knows that goofy foot is not a surf term as you say, but actually a well known boxing, fighting and martial arts term used when a competitor fights with the “wrong” foot forward.  And…there is nothing confusing about it!  

Then there was the one who wrote, “You of all people show know that being the most Goofy looking dude in the OC!”  

Not to be outdone by my favorite, “Man you ARE Goofy.  You are one and don’t even know why.”

It’s so refreshing when my loyal readers bring on the Love. My wife, the extremely kool Kika, even got into the act when she commented, “If one way is Goofy Foot why isn’t the other Pluto Foot?”  

And that sort of brings up the most enlightening email that came from Chris and Dave Ward who wrote that the term Goofy Foot actually came from an old Goofy cartoon from Walt Disney.  They used the website from the Goofy Foot Surfing School as their source:

“Goofy Foot” is one of the oldest terms still current in surfing jargon. It describes a right foot forward surfing stance and was coined from a Walt Disney film in the 1950’s in which Goofy surfed with his right foot forward. The phrase has made its way into use in all boarding sports distinguishing the stance from a regular or natural foot which has the left foot towards the front of the board.”

Upon further research we came up with the fact that the cartoon with Goofy surfing in it dates to 1937, not 1952 (September 24, 1937, to be exact).  It’s called “Hawaiian Holiday” and can be found online here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5Yuqo_p1Ek.

One little wrinkle, though: “Goofy” wasn’t named “Goofy” until around 1938-39, so he got his name after the cartoon that he surfs in.  He was originally called “Dippy Dawg” and then “Dippy the Goof.

Once “Goofy” got his name around 1938-39, and the cartoon continued to play in movie houses, it didn’t matter what he was called when the cartoon first came out—everyone who saw the cartoon after 1939 would have identified him as “Goofy” (the “Goofy” character is never identified by name in the “Hawaiian Holiday” cartoon).  And so when people saw him surf with his right foot forward, they would have identified it as surfing “Goofy-footed.”

But, there’s some conflicting evidence.  One source says the name change happened around 1938-39, but online (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goofy), it said that Goofy got his name as early as a 1934 cartoon, meaning that he would have been definitely known as Goofy by the 1937 cartoon.

Upon yet even deeper and more seriously extreme research, which as we all know is totally against my nature and work ethic, I also found out that there is a folk rock band from Lees Summit, Missouri that goes by the name Goofy Foot.  Missouri?  Humph.  And there is a travel by boat to secret surf spots, that they name, website called gOOfyFoot.  But to get there you have to sign on to www.guitarsurf.com.  I saw nothing there that had anything to do with surfing guitars though.  Seems kinda goofy to me.  Oh well.

Then there is also the term “Mongo Foot” which came up in the mix.  This is a skateboard term for mixed ways using your feet for pushing off.  I thought that was interesting because I have always felt that using your back foot to push off was the best way.  But then I see guys who are really good using their front foot.  THAT also seems a tad goofy but it seems to work for them and I certainly am not a good enough skater to goof on anybody for anything.