DOWNTOWN SURF CITY

BY CORKY CARROLL

I am writing today’s column on Inauguration Day.  It is a beautiful day here in our beautiful Surf City.  At first I was watching all the hoopla on television and then I got antsy, as it is such a nice day, and decided to take a stroll down Main Street and out on the pier to check the surf.  It seemed like a good idea even though the water temps have been making me reluctant to go anywhere near the surf zone lately unless the waves are totally epic.  It’s better to be warm than cold.  Many years ago a wise surf sage named Mickey Munoz coined that phrase and I have stuck with it ever since. 

They were working on the alley behind Huntington Beach Realty, whose parking area is my normal car resting spot.  So I was forced to park in the front.  Geeze, I guess it has been awhile since I parked in a spot with a parking meter in Huntington Beach.  I only had like five quarters and that gets about five minutes or so.  Pretty soon the parking meters are going to be like airplanes and only take plastic.  Discount lots will spring up near the freeways for only a couple hundred dollars a day.  But they will offer a free shuttle to a drop off zone only ten blocks from the pier.  Does anybody actually carry bags of quarters in their cars so that they can park long enough for a short stroll on the pier and maybe a cup of coffee or something? 

Anyway, after begging about six places to give me change I loaded the meter up with an hour and thirty minutes and set off on my morning stroll.  

So many memories for me on Main Street.  Right off the bat I stuck my head into HB Realty and there was George “Mayor of Main Street” Lambert and Bob “the Greek” Bolen.  They were having artificial limb wars.  Knee replacements, hip replacements, male enhancement procedures and botox lips.  Or maybe it was botox hips, I don’t know.  All I know is the place is an ambulatory zone and I had to bail outta there before an arm fell off or something. 

I was thinking that I didn’t really remember anything special about any other Inauguration Days but I did remember the day J.F.K. was shot.  I was in third period typing class in High School.  Seems like just the other day.  (O.K. I am lying, it seems like a hundred years ago….argh!)

There used to be the Greyhound Station and Terry’s Café, Tovatts Hardware, the old Chuck Dent shop where it was a better than even bet Chuck would be in some tirade belittling somebody so badly that they would be on the verge of shooting themselves before they could get out of the doors.  And that was the customers.  You did NOT want to be a homely looking girl innocently walking down the street in those days.  That was Chuck’s favorite verbal fodder.  

I was thinking of stopping in at the sugar shack for a little breakfast but the wait was about six days for a table so I passed on by.  Where was Poor Richards when I needed it?  As I got down by Jack’s Surf Shop I couldn’t help but think of old Jack Hoganson standing out in front of the original shop, which was on the other side of the street, wondering how his beloved drug store had turned into a surf shop.  This was before Arron Pai, the owner of Huntington Surf n Sport, was even born.  I tried to get Jack to turn me on to a free skateboard one time when I was about 13 but he didn’t go for it.   As I was right in front of the shop I noticed a few Japanese dudes taking a photo of my square on the Surfing Walk of Fame.  Still knowing a nice photo op when I see one I asked them if they would like me to stand by the square so they could get a photo with me in it.  They looked at me like I was crazy and said “No.”  

“No you don’t understand,” I said.  “That’s me.” 

They looked at me for a few seconds and then laughed, shook their heads and walked off.   Humph!

Walking on the pier was nice.  The waves were actually looking kinda good.  The Katin Contest was all set up on the North Side and there were some long lines coming in.  I was thinking that it might be really good down the coast a little bit at a reef break that took a solid Northwest swell. 

As I was standing there looking down the coast the thought popped into my heard about the time I heard Tommy Leonard yelling from that very same spot at Chuck Linnen, who was in the water.  He was screaming, “Hey Linnen, don’t even think your tires are not gonna be flat when you get to your car.  And say goodbye to your headlights too.”  At that he took off in a dead run towards the lot next to the old Vardamen Surf Shop just south of the pier on P.C.H.   That is where we all used to park.  I guess there was some sort of problem going on between Leo the Lip and Chuck at the time.  We all laughed but we all knew that the car was indeed doomed to damage. 

I grabbed a coffee at Java Point and just beat the mean looking parking dude to my car before I got a ticket.  Life is hard on these mean streets these days.

Well, it’s the dead of winter here in our lovely Orange County.  And its cold.  Very cold as a matter of fact.  I have been getting a lot of questions about different health problems that seem to always pop up at this time of year.

Mostly infections.  So I thought it time to write another little message about surfing health care and hazards to look for.

In the summer there are certain hazards related to the sun and heat.  Sunburn obviously is the biggie.  Also burning the bottom of your feet in midday and afternoon from the sand getting too hot to walk on.  You are usually too far into it before you notice it to save yourself on that one.  Just about the time you realize that your feet are frying it is already happening, your feet really are frying.  Not the best beach barbeque item.  Fried Feet are not as good as hamburgers or hot dogs, ask anybody. 

Winter has its own little problems and hazards to deal with.  First off it’s cold so you have to deal with how to keep as warm as possible when you are at the beach and in the water.  The new wetsuits are amazing.  That is if you can get into and out of one on your own.  Not long ago I got stuck in one while trying it on in the dressing room of Huntington Beach Surf ‘n Sport.  I had to be rescued and it was very embarrassing.  They need to give a lesson in how to put them on and take them off before you try to do it on your own.  It could be really disastrous if you got hung up in one in public. 

Another aspect of the cold weather is the temperature of the sand in the early mornings.  Like the heat in the afternoons in summer the cold works just the opposite.  The sand can get so cold that it feels like a zillion needles going into your feet if you are walking down the beach early on a cold winter morning.  You need to have something on your feet getting to the water if you are gonna dawn patrol it at this time of year. 

Then there are the ear problems.  Cold water and winter winds are the key factors in surfers getting what is called, naturally, “surfers ear.”  It’s not a fun thing to deal with.  What happens is your body does not want that cold in the ears so it tries to protect itself by growing these boney bumps in the ear canals just outside of the eardrums.  If you let them go too long they will actually completely close off your ear canals.  There is a surgery to remove them when they start getting bad.  Symptoms are your ears getting plugged up for extended periods of time.  Also them doing this hideous popping open and closed that drives you nuts.  If any of you are suffering from that I suggest you go see Dr. Carol Jackson in Newport Beach.  She is the best that I know of at ear stuff and hearing problems. 

Probably by far the biggest problem pertaining to surfing in the winter are infections that come from surfing in water that is not clean.  When it rains all of the crud that is in the storm drains everywhere inland of us works its way into the ocean.  Who knows what’s in that?  A lot of bad stuff I am sure.  I do my best to not surf during or right after a big rainstorm.  A little rainy day is no big deal.  But when it dumps hard and the rivers are flowing I try to stay out of the ocean for at least three days to let it clean itself up.  Especially near river mouths or storm drains.  I remember one year a great sandbar built up at Doheny State Park during one huge winter storm.  The waves were fantastic and many of the locals were out there even while the water was chocolate brown and full of who knows what.  There were some really sick dudes after that.  Sore throats, ear infections, staph infections and even some cases of Hepatitus.  It was not a good thing.   Good waves are one thing but staying healthy, or even alive for that matter, is probably more important in the long run.  Maybe not if you are trying to be the hardest of hard core.  Me, I wanna live and not be sick.  So take my advice and use common sense when deciding when and where you go surfing after a storm.

Last week I was going through my emails and came across one from my long time friend Steve Rowe.  Steve grew up near me in Surfside Colony back in the 1950’s and early 60’s.  He and I pretty much learned to surf together and have been pals for well over 50 years but we don’t stay in touch very much anymore.  We have emailed a few times over the years.   He still lives in Surfside almost right across the street from where my house was before it burned down in 1965, the week after I graduated from Huntington Beach High School.

Steve is the guy that I always told my mom that I was going surfing with when I really didn’t have anybody to go surfing with.  She didn’t like me to surf alone.  I always wanted to surf no matter what the conditions were.  So if there was nobody to surf with me I would tell her I was going to go up by Steve’s house and surf with him.  She could not see me from our house as Steve lived on the far north end of the colony near the jetty.  Naturally Steve hardly ever was really going surfing with me.

Steve had found an old plaque that he had made when we were kids.  All the guys that lived in Surfside and surfed had gotten together one time and started a club called the “Surfside Surfers.”  We had really cool sweatshirts made at a custom shop up in Belmont Shores.  They were white and had Surfside Surfers in Old English lettering on back and our names on the front.  We never had any meetings or anything like that.  Just the sweatshirts.  Steve had carved a wooden surfboard and used his wood burning set to write Surfside Surfers and all of our names on it.  It had a little sketch of a surfer on a wave that seems to look more like “Snoopy” than it does a real surfer.  In his email he said he had found that plaque and sent me a photo of it. 

The names on it are Wally W., Joe J., Ron R., Corky C., Steve R.  Jerry M. and Larry C.   That was the crew back then.  It was summer of 1959. 

Wally W. was Wally Wheeler.  I don’t remember all that much about Wally or know what has become of him.  He was older than me and I didn’t really hang out with him at all back then. 

Joe J. was Joe Johnson.  Joe was a cool dude who had a cute little sister named Betty.  Betty was my age.  I remember that Joe was in a band in High School that was pretty good.  I heard from her a few years ago when she had read one of my columns.

Ron R. was Steve’s older brother Ron.  Ron was really a hot surfer too.  My first trip to Rincon was with Ron in his old Ford Woody.  He was shredding the place that day and I always have remembered thinking how cool it would be to be the hottest guy in the water at a place like that.  On that day it was Ron Rowe.  He became a fireman in Laguna Beach. 

 Corky C. was me

Steve R. was of course Steve Rowe.  The first time my name ever appeared in SURFER magazine was when I took a photo of Steve from the Huntington Beach Pier and sent it into the “Photos from the Readers” section and they used it.  One time poor Steve had a bad ear infection and he could not surf unless he wore one of those ladies bathing caps.  He had a white one and it looked pretty funny on him.  He got so tired of answering questions about it that he wrote in big black letters “EAR INFECTION” on it.  I understand that he still surfs there in front of his house.

Jerry M. was Jerry Motes.  He had two blonde sisters that were a load of fun but for the life of me I can’t remember their names right now.  Jerry was a good surfer too but got way carried away with soul arches and hood ornament poses way before soul arches and hood ornament poses were in style.  He could have out Owl Chapmaned Owl Chapman in that category.

Last on the list is Larry C.   That would be the infamous Larry Conroy.  Larry was our best surfer.  His board was the first one I ever rode.  Unfortunately it was without his knowledge or permission.  And even more unfortunately I put a big ding in it.  But fortunately that led to me getting my own board for Christmas not long after that.  The older dudes got tired of me sneaking their boards out and damaging them and they went to my dad and told him that either he get me my own board or they were going to drown me.  My dad said it was a hard decision and he struggled with it for weeks before making the choice to get me my board.