When You Know You're an Aged Surfer

There comes a time in every surfer's career, when something signals or reflects back that you are no longer the immortal, eternally youthful, bulletproof, hellbent shredder you might think you still are. This day came for me while surfing the north side of Rodanthe Pier on a growing hurricane swell. Don't ask me which storm. There've been so many. I remember this one because our timing and prediction of the swell's size and the expectation of it getting larger while we were there, was precisely what happened. It doesn't always work out that way so you tend to remember whenever it does.

It was around 1995. The boys were on it. There were even rumors that locals (non-surfers)were slashing people's tires if you were parked in front of their homes. I never saw any of that though.

There were mostly good sized rights with light offshore wind. And as I said before, the swell continued to grow as the day wore on.

I took off on an overhead right kind of behind the peak, made the drop, turned down the line backside and the wave face just collapsed on me. I surfaced, grabbed my board and paddled quickly out of the impact zone. Then I heard someone yelling at another guy and glanced back over my shoulder as I see-sawed over the top of a peak close to breaking. "What are you doin'? Didn't you see that "old guy" you just dropped in on?" What's wrong with you, you freakin' idiot?"

First let me explain, I'm not really a surf combatant. Don't take myself that seriously in the water---never have. That's not why I'm out there. Oh yeah there's another whole blog post or more on surfers who I have been around who evidently do take themselves quite seriously. You've seen 'em huh? You know every session is their heat to win. Yeah, those guys.

Anyway, back to the story...I thought it was real nice of that guy to pull back on his buddy a little, apparently they knew each other. Then a few waves later, it hit me: "that old guy"...Did he mean me? He couldn't have meant me, could he? What I needed was somebody to tell my defender that I wasn't an old guy. Would that have helped?

I posted a blog entitled, "Big Waves, Part 1", December 8, 2007 which mentions contemplating the aging dilemma sitting on the beach at Croatan (Va. Beach) with my best friend. We were seventeen. I knew we wouldn't be able to surf after say, age thirty. I was sure. In fact at that age, I was sure about everything, (I'm sure). Weren't you?

Alright so now I'm 56 and still surfing. And I guess I've been an "old guy" since then, 13 years ago. Man, I've been an old guy a long time. Not like Dr. Dorian Paskowitz or Eve Fletcher, but pretty old I suppose. Are you an old guy yet? If you are already, I'd love to know how you came to your awakening.

But I kinda like my old guy-ness. It's very liberating. I don't have to keep up with fashions anymore (never did much of that anyway). I can keep listening to the same music all the time if that pleases me. I don't have to surf like the day's surf stars. I don't have to prove anything to anybody in the water. And above all, it doesn't take as much for me to get the stoke out of each session in the water. My day is here and now and here's my thanks to the young surfer who knighted me that day on Hatteras Island.

And oh yeah, the swell that day produced big, clean, way long rights with young shredders and a few old guys all over it. It was insane and a good day to remember.