being a kook, there must be thousands of them out there
There was a group of mild-mannered oafs who used lean about the upper deck of the Mona Vale surf club on weekend afternoons watching the day’s trade. Social visitors only because these men still held the view that to join a surf club was nothing other than a wilful, and personal degradation of values.
This was the view held in 1963. Still considered relevant by some.
These were the wholesome years for boardriders – the few that they were – and we knew the skills, like how to get changed on the beach, and that was one-handed with a towel and the other-hand for the sluggos, on or off, and in front of as many lithesome womanhood as we could find. They basked about on the beach looking at men from behind their shaded eyes. One fellow of the time, a devotee of Andy Cochran, could flick his wet speedos at the woman of his choice.
She looks up, at him, and he’s drying himself off _under the towel_ and smiling into her eyes.
1963.
We had the moves.
^ These oafs, getting back to it, liked to appraise and comment on the passing of people by – Like that Englishman over there with both his trousers and underpants around his heels, a kingsize scarlet beach towel wound around his waist, loosely, and he’s dragging everything door to door as he shuffles his way about the car looking for his sluggos. They could be in the front seat, the back seat, the boot. Or he might have forgotten them, so now he’s committed to evening jock-itch and a surprise testicle slap if he flukes a wave big enough to fall off of face down.
We see all this, just by looking down at the carpark and forecourt, the beach, busy down there.
Not busy up here.
Over there a Kombi, blown down from Byron Bay; how easy it must be to be a cop and watch an old Vdub wheel into a beach carpark, on a good day, with the sun shining and everything – and nobody gets out for a while. Busy in there smoking something down. Blatant.
So those guys are kooks too, but a better class of kook, unless that are Americans. Over there!
A greasy haired little man in a two-door Datsun getting changed in the front seat while he’s parked in the 5 minute spot with the best view of the waves which means every second person walking past his window checks his site out for anything of value. This guy could be a kook, or he could be a conundrum. Special day seeing that.
Maybe the cop will book him.
petebowes.com 
dick togs and mini buses….back in the day, here on the top side of the jord, the boards we rode pretty much guaranteed that everyone was a kook… and didn’t know it.
but at least we didn’t wear those tiny sacks on our sacks.