Surfing

I started surfing when I was around nine years old. I can remember skateboarding down bacon street in Ocean Beach and coming across a yard sale that had a very large (I was very small back then), seven foot, blue surfboard. It was a gun for big waves and it was thick and heavily glassed. I saw the sign which read $5! As a poor beach kid this was right up my alley.

I skated to my Pop's work a few blocks away and begged for $5 to buy the board. I had previously just got done begging the guy at the yard sale to hold it for me. After my father questioned me about why and if I would actually use it he finally forked over a five spot. This when we lived off penies, so five dollars was a big deal to him and I.

I got back to the yard sale and gave the guy the $5 bucks in exchange for a board that I could barely carry. Since it was too heavy to bring back to my house up the hill I brought, well dragged it through the sand along the beach, to my friends house a few blocks away. I then begged him and his parents to let me keep it in their laundry room. They reluctantly agreed and assumed zero liablity.

Awesome!!! I was SO stoked to have my board stored only half a block from avalanche. I didn't surf avalanche at first because I really had no idea how to surf. So, each day I would drag the heavy water logged piece of fiberglass to dog beach and proceed to get my but worked until I finally got it down.

One day the board was thrust up into my face causing a bloody nose. I threw the world's largest tantrum and cursed the board and walked away yelling how I hated the board. When I was done pitching a fit I waled back to where I left my board and it was gone. )= An older surfer I knew felt kinda bad for me and had planned to burn a nice board in bon fire that even and decided charity was in order. He gave me one of his boards which was lighter, shorter and much more practical for me.

My mother was and still is a professional photographer who always unloaded her old Pentax 35mm on me teach me how to use it. Here I am 23 years later surfing quite well and taking photos of surfing.