MELLOW OUT

By Corky Carroll

I had a very bad experience this past week and I feel that sharing it with you might shed some light on why we all need to really mellow out in the water and cut way back on all the aggression and heavy vibes in our crowded conditions.  I was happily enjoying a nice surf session the other day.  The waves were good and it was a beautiful morning.  All of a sudden two guys that know started some sort of verbal warfare between the two of them.  I heard one of them tell the other to shut his mouth and then paddle away. 

“Humph!” I thought, wondering what that was all about.

A short while later there was some more loud words and then they got into a little skirmish right there in the lineup.  I was sitting about twenty feet away and saw and heard the whole thing.  I was thinkin that this was really a bad situation as I am good friends with one of the guys father and also good friends with the other guys girlfriend.  Normally when guys go at it in the water I look at it as entertainment.  But I guess when its people you know it’s not so funny.  I didn’t think this was funny at all, sad was more like it.  The whole issue was pretty stupid all the way around.  But nobody got hurt and they went their separate ways and I thought that was the end of it.

But later in the day I found out that one of the guys had called the police and was pushing for charges to be filed and it was pretty serious.  The other guy had been arrested and taken to jail.  And on top of all that I was being told that as an eye witness that I was required to go in and make a statement of what I saw.  This was NOT what I wanted to do.  So I went over and tried to talk the guy who was pressing the charges into mellowing out and letting it drop.  He wouldn’t do it.  On top of it the guys girlfriend was also friends with the other guys father.  I reminded her that we were all friends and the last thing the father needed was any kind of trouble, he has had his share already.  But no dice, they were pushing ahead.

I went in as asked and told what I saw and tried to calm the situation down by putting it into perspective as “just one of those dumb things that happen,” hoping it would not come to anything more than what it already had.  The truth was that both of them were at fault in my eyes.  One should have shut up when the other guy told him too and the other guy didn’t really need to call the cops.  But that is just my opinion.  I did my best to calm it all down.

Then I get an email from the father of the guy who got arrested blaming it all on me and telling me how he is never going to forgive me for “telling the cops it was my sons fault when he didn’t do a thing.”  

Argh.  His son was not innocent, neither was the other guy.  It was like they both were intent on confrontation.  And I did not blame his son, nor the other guy.  I just told what I saw and heard.  My best explanation I could give was to compare it to twenty hungry guys looking at one chicken.  They all want the chicken and the two strongest would up fighting over it.  Words were said, blows where thrown, bla bla bla.  In the middle of the whole thing while everyone was watching the two dude paddle away a great wave came along and I grabbed it while nobody else was looking.  None the less, it was a real lose-lose situation.