My Endless Summer

With apologies to Bruce Brown, John Van Hamersveld and Bob, I mashed up my own Wordpress theme. Nothing fancy, but I wanted something that i could identify with.

Back in the the summer of 1990 after I got out of the Navy I lived in Pacific Beach in the 900 block of Tourmaline, two blocks away from the famed longboard haunt Tourmaline Surf Park. I had a 9′6″ Prodonovich longboard that I rode there and at Wilbur & Law streets. It was a summer of joblessness, surfing, sleeping in, getting drunk at Kahuna’s and general slackerness. Everyone should have at least one summer of complete irresponsibility I think. A lot of kids today are taking a gap year and I took a gap summer.

I had three friends as roommates in a one bedroom crash pad and there were at least three or four more guys who would come over on the weekend and sleep on the floor. In fact there was so little room in that apt that we had to strap our surfboards to teh ceiling. How my wife Samantha (only my girl friend for 6 months) stood it I’ll never know.

We all obsessed over the movie Endless Summer and think that we wore out two VHS tapes of it. Every once in a while someone would have a joint and we would just melt into the couch while we watched it and the sea breeze cooled the evening air. It is a great movie, complete with the Hang Ten clothing and 60’s haircuts. Some of the antics were corny, but those two guys Mike Hynson and Robert August (as well as Bruce) sure must have enjoyed living that adventure as much as we loved watching them do it.

Michael hung out in PB and I remember reading an article in the Reader about him. He didn’t fair so well in life. Kinda like my friend Dan I guess.

Mike Hynson is still alive, still shaping great surfboards. He was the one that went way druggie and spent time in jail. He has a reputation for being a jerk.

Robert August went the other direction and is highly regarded as a decent fellow.

Both are still surfing.

*Snaps to my friend JWL for that tidbit

No matter. Times like that only need the positive reflections and that summer of mine did seem endless.

Posted in Dan Haywood, Samantha, San Diego, Surfing | No Comments »

We’re a two Saturn house!

I never thought I would be one of those people. Being as environmentally conscience as I am, I never thought I would ever buy an SUV. But I did, kinda.

I found myself looking for a new car for my wife and I really didn’t want another minivan. I liked the Saturn Vue and they even have a hybrid version, but Samantha only had one requirement – seven seat belts – and that didn’t fit the bill. So I looked at the Chrysler Town & Country, the Pacifica, a Honda Odyssey and Saturn’s new cross-over, the Outlook. All of them were about the same price and all had the same gas mileage (avg. 16/28). But none were as comfortable to drive (or be a passenger in) as the Outlook.

I was worried that it is the 1st year for this model, but I looked it up on Consumer Reports with actually profiled it in several tests against comparable models. I am not 100% sure why they did this, btu they compared it in two categories – Midsized SUV’s and Large SUV’s – probably because it is acrossover. It came in 3rd place in the Midsized category and second place in the Large category only getting beat by one point by a $70K Mercedes!

So, I bit the bullet and bought the most expensive “car” I have ever owned. And I have to add it is the nicest car I have ever owned. It’s got leather interior, sunroof, XM radio, OnStar, tow package and get this – the DVD player has WIRELESS HEADSETS! So now that the kids can watch a movie and we don’t have to listen to it six times in a row, we can listen to what ever we want at the same time. How cool is that? The engineer that built that in must have had to listen to Thomas the Train from Detriot to Miami last summer!

The last thing that I will add is that Steve Coomer, the same guy that I bought my Ion from two years ago is a great salesman and I love Saturn because the price on the stick is the price you pay. None of the bullshit or haggling, that’s the price.

And to paraphrase Walter Cronkite, that’s the way it should be.

Posted in Saturn | 1 Comment »

My dumbass best-friend, Dan

In my youthful Navy days there was a guy that I had the greatest time with, Dan Haywood. He and I were roommates, drinking buddies, motorcycle companions – best friends. He made my laugh, and sometimes cringe. He was the best man at my wedding, and the reason I met my wife Samantha.

And he always seemingly had a lot of bad luck, though mostly he made bad decisions.

We all make bad decisions. I should have bought a house in San Diego in the 90’s instead of living on the beach for eight years. I should’ve studied Calculus and Physics harder. I should have left home to go to school in the 80’s. I shouldn’t have done a lot of things, but most of them were kind of “big picture” mistakes and the kind that you learn from. Whatever, possesses Dan into doing some of the things that he still does eludes me.

He is a drunk. Now, that’s not really a bad thing for some people. I know plenty of drunks that are doing fine. My Uncle George who lives in Victoria Canada and makes his own wine said to me one visit “I’m just a old drunk”. Of course we were both pissed at the time and I have no idea why he said it (maybe just to be funny in a “old guy set in my ways” way), but I never though of him as a alcoholic. And maybe that’s the point, he isn’t one.

Dan is. He’s had multiple DUI’s and even spent time in jail for them. The last time he confessed that he went to jail for a DUI I told him that I was glad that happened. At that time I had a daughter who was only 3 or so and I said that I didn’t want her on the road with someone like him. I don’t want to sound prudish, we all have at one time or another had too much to drink and still drove home, but how many times do you have to do that before you get caught two or three time? Answer in case you thick – too damn many.

Dan also doesn’t like authority. I am not really sure why. Maybe he got caught too many times doing something stupid, or maybe his Mom of Dad were too harsh on him when he was little (they are divorced and I know that was hard on him). I guess no one really likes a policeman until you need one.

And so comes his latest foray into stupidity. He lives on his 25′ Catalina sailboat somewhere in Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis (he claims the cove he stays is in Scooter Libby’s backyard, somehow appropriate). Well, forever getting drunk with some other dumbass this time he thought that he would try to swim away and hide from a rent-a-cop. you can read the article that made the front page of the Annapolis Chronicle here.

If it weren’t for the fact that I know Dan, if I had read this in my local paper I would have thought “what in the world is this guy thinking?” But, that is the answer – he wasn’t/doesn’t.

I talk with him on occasion (when he’s not in jail), and I do love him. I just wish that he would move up into the mountains in a cabin that would withstand winters, and he wouldn’t have any people around him to set him off.

More later, I guess (hope).

Posted in Dan Haywood, Samantha, Wine | No Comments »