The Fifth (capitalized for me), is always a great day for me. Birthday and surfing
anniversary combined. Most years I get pretty lucky with having waves on this day,
but no matter what, I always paddle out and get in the water and try to catch the minimum
of three waves to celebrate. This year was pretty damn rewarding with a decent, uncrowded
groundswell in the water. It's interesting to find out how/when/where a person started surfing
for the first time, right? I was pretty athletic in high school at the time I started surfing
on January 5, 1980. Baseball. Soccer. Running. Summer baseball. Tennis. Lettered in all that
stuff. Our family moved to Galveston, Texas, in 1976. And for four years leading up to
me first getting on a surfboard, we all saw surfers in the water, but basically laughed
at it because the waves sucked so bad it was almost comical. It's embarassing, really,
to admit where this all went down. I had friends who surfed and none of them really
said much about it or suggested that I start surfing because I was basically just a high school
jock involved in a lot of sports, and I admittedly told them it didn't look all that great.
Right. Then on January 5, 1980, my friend Tom Hosey, a surfer, came over to my house basically
in the rain, outside temperature 40 degrees, water temperature 40 degrees, and grabbed my
ass, threw me in his Texas pickup truck, drove us to Sunrise Surf Shop on 61st Street,
rented me a Beavertail top (which is all they had at the time, but how would I know?),
and he had the most abhorrid looking, browned out, dinged out board for me in the back
of that pickup truck. "This is your birthday present," he said, as we headed out to the east
side of the 61st Street Fishing Pier, where there were actually some decent three foot
waves coming in, groomed by like 100mph offshore winds that smelled like the Dow Chemical
Plant in Texas City. We stood on the freezing ass beach, him with a Beavertail over a long
john, and me just in the Beave. I was like, "this is fucking crazy." He said, "The best way
to learn how to surf is to just get on the board and start paddling around." And at that,
he paddled out, leaving me and that board standing on the freezing sand (this is where my
foot sensitivity comes from, I'm sure of it). The board had hodge-podge dings fixed, and fiberglass
strands were sticking into my frozen hands, rubbing against my legs, etc., trying
to paddle out, with nose stuck skyward. Finally, I was near him and tried to sit up. Which I could not
do, I kept falling off the side of the board. Tom kept laughing at me - I can still hear him -
every time I fell off the board, which was once about every 60 seconds - in the 40 degree
water. "You're Mr. Big Athlete, you can do it!" he said, laughing at my expense. This went on for
at least an hour or two, at which time I was suffering from the most severe case of
hypothermia of my life, to this day. Good thing I was 15 years old. He hauled my freezing ass
back to my house, still laughing, thinking he had gotten the best of the jock who couldn't
even sit on the board or catch a wave. I immediately went into the hottest shower one could
want - at which time it felt like 100,000 needles were hitting my body coming out of the
top of the shower head, and I was freaking out about how that feels, and I can still feel it
31 years later. The experience - and his laughter at my incompetence - sparked a flame inside
of me, that of revenge and competition. I soon had my first surfboard - a 6-8 Bobby Challenger,
and my first very own Beavertail and Long John (if I remember correctly it was a Primo brand),
and in short order was "surfing" in Galveston, becoming a local at 53rd Street, the 61st Street Fishing Pier,
39th Street in front of Guido's Seafood Restaurant, and the Flagship Hotel (my favorite).
Later, this would turn into trips to the "West End" and further south to Surfside Pier,
and yet further south to South Padre Island as life and my involvement in surfing started
to overtake everything else in life. I was still the jock, but now had added surfing
to the resume, so to speak. The photo was taken with a waterproof camera called a Minolta
"Weathermatica" one of the first of it's kind, on my first trip down to Padre Island. If you
compare one of the more recent photos taken in Hawaii this last November - well,
I guess you can say I've come a long way from that first day. Maybe some would say "No!" And this is why January 5th is
always a very special day. Blame it all on Tom Hosey. He's the one who put me in the water
in the first place. I wonder where that dude is now? And further proof of surfing
analysis - the style and stinkbug stance and arm positioning really hasn't changed
much since that photo was taken of me, has it? Kind of amazing. Who woulda thunk. Ah,
to be 15 again...and have my hair back.
- Cliff
