The Rest of Us - Robert Jennings

It has been close to twenty years since my last contest and I am still trying to figure out why I entered. I started surfing when my mom, who worked as a nurse at Hoag hospital in Newport Beach, California, would drop me off early in the morning at Blackie’s and pick me up close to dinnertime. When school was out I would surf all day, everyday. When winter came I would either beg her to take me down to the beach, or I would take the bus or find any other means I could think of to get me to the ocean. Finally, one day my mom sat my two brothers and I down for a talk, I thought to myself, I should have studied harder and I could have avoided this confrontation. But what I got instead was the most incredible news of my life. We were moving to the beach! My brothers and I had exhausted her from all the rides and pleads to get us to the beach.

Being the oldest I had influenced my brothers and they were both starting to get the itch. She explained to us how limited our funds were and that we would be renting a two-bedroom house, one room for my brothers and I, and the other for her. With our washer and dryer, a parrot and an enormous amount of other stuff, this made it look like we were living at the Salvation Army. I thought this was the coolest thing ever! We could surf everyday and we did. In retrospect I think one of the reasons she moved us down to the water was to keep us occupied. I believe she thought she could keep us out of trouble if we were in the water more than on dry land (turns out she was right.) It did not take long for our friends to start leaving boards and other items around our small house, which took up what little room we had left.

I never had to worry about waking up early for a surf, as we lived right behind the Bird Man of Newport. I would venture to say that anyone who has spent anytime in Newport in the eighties or nineties probably had the pleasure of meeting this gent. He was cut from a different cloth. He didn’t have a job and he would just ride around on his bike with this awesome bird, and let the tourists take pictures with him, have ‘em do a few tricks to pick up some easy cash. That was it, no job, no responsibilities; I thought it was the greatest scam ever.

During this time Tom Curren was the man in the surfing world. This guy to me was and is the epitome of what a styling soul surfer is. Other kids wanted to be fireman or a doctor. I wanted to be Tom Curren. I caught on to a team called Spindrift and was really ripping it up as an agro groom short boarder and it was during this time that I went to my first contest. When I got there I figured cool we’ll all have a great time, meet some new friends and hopefully impress a few of the betty’s that were hanging out. As I paddled out for my first heat with three other guys I figured I would do as I always had and say hello to everyone, learn their names and have a laugh or two. Turns out that no one was interested in what my name was or even better, into having a good time. There were fights in the water over the priority, buoy guys yelling at one another and that was just the shit that was going on in the water. On the beach it was an all out popularity contest with the winners not necessarily being the best surfers. I went to a few more contest after that and even surfed a short board till I was about 15 or 16, but I knew deep down this arena was not for me.

The apartment we lived in was about five houses down from the boardwalk on 22nd street so I have had many an epic session from Blackie’s all the way to River Jetties. It was during these times of wandering as a short boarder that I started to realize what soul was and that if you didn’t have any, it showed in your surfing. From all the time I spent at Blackie's I had meet many a great long boarder, mainly from getting cut off by them and earning my stripes in the line up. That stretch of beach from the pier to the 25th street jetty is no more than a mile long and on any epic day there would be a couple hundred surfers in the line up. The ages and ability levels varied so much on crowded days that it was like taking your life in your own hands every time you paddled out.

The crowds were fierce and because of this, I took to riding our 50lb balsa wood single fin. It was a Hansen from down south that my uncle rode growing up and it was given to us when he died. I remember the day we got it we all kind looked at it and then put it on the porch not to be touched for a year or two. My surfing was pretty good and I really didn’t need to go the extra mile and break the big wood out, but it just worked out that way. I have played that day over a few times in my head and a big part for riding the Hansen was to get those couple of extra waves that the older longboarders got, but the other reason a more personal one was I was over the shortboard crew. I never felt the need to dye my hair or wear safety pins or wear the deglo colors that were so popular at the time. I just wanted a change. I had mastered all the shortboard tricks and felt that I had nothing left to prove. I was looking for a style of surfing that could fit into my idea of what being a surfer was all about. It was on the ten footer that I found what I was looking for. I didn’t get any more waves because of the bolsa board or immediately walk to the nose, but I did find the grove that I was looking for. Something about taking off late with no leash with the chance of getting cleaned up by your own 50lb stick was the stoke I was looking for. Gliding down the face of a perfect Blackie’s wave using a drop knee to turn instead of pumping your legs was poetic as the wave stalled, instead of kicking out I walked to the nose gathered some more speed and sat there like one of the bird man’s parrots, styling on top of my slice of the world.

Sitting here almost twenty-five years later, the thought of that old board still makes me grin. I never entered another contest and I’m very proud of that fact. The only boards I ride are ten-foot single fins without a leash. Human nature always leads us to want to no who the best at anything is. We have the Olympics and many hundreds of pro sports teams and other competitions to verify our human need to compete. Please don’t get me wrong, I enjoy competition as much as the next guy, but something as spellbinding as riding a wave that comes from three thousand miles away to die on the shores of your favorite surf break, deserves more reverence than two humans trying to figure out who can carve the biggest S-turn on her. To me that is something the rest of us who live for the possibility of an un crowded day and the taste of salt water on our lips will always have over the other folks who are looking for fame and fortune. Our secret is we have already found our fortune every time we hit the water.