back in the day … 1
The sixties. Halcyon days. Kind of, but there were a few problems for the surfer from time to time …
Like stacking too many boards on the car roof.
All we had to tie them down was rope, old rope, and being hellacious young surfers wherever we were driving to it was considered necessary to get there fairly bloody pronto but of course every now and then the driver had to use his brakes and with everybody in the car on full perv alert for babes while going through the city or hanging out of the car windows hoping to spot waves as we travelled up and down the coast sometimes the brakes had to be applied a little smartly to avoid smacking into the vehicle in front.
And when that happened sometimes the windscreen went dark.
Reason being a stack of six boards tied down with old rope wasn’t able to withstand the sudden cessation of forward vehicular momentum and preferred to continue their journey onward. In other words: p (momentum) =m (mass) * v (velocity), and me knowing this should prove to you that not all sixties surfers are dimwits.
The vehicular event described above was known to happen more than once on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and was held responsible for equipping us with a fine vocabulary of oaths and epithets all hurled our way by our fellow motorists who not only envied our objectives – like going surfing on a fine and sunny working day – they had an intense dislike of our broad shoulders, flat stomachs, muscular thighs, deep suntans and long blonde hair.
Then there was …
Losing the boardshorts.
Surfers didn’t have any money in the sixties, this remains an established fact. They bludged wax, towels, food, beer and girlfriends off their mates, drugs too but they were yet to be invented, but nobody ever lent his boardshorts, they were an intensely personal item and it was said that most surfers when searching for their shorts in a random pile of same could do it successfully with their eyes shut. This particular skill is closely identified with the surfers ability to know which one of his five or six fellow passengers in a car heading north dropped a slider* after a feed of meat pies and chips at the Oaks turn-off to Newcastle.
*surreptitious fart.
Taking a girl surfing.
Never happened. Couldn’t happen. Almost illegal. We were obnoxious and they were beautiful. We smelt of old towels, unwashed clothing, grubby T shirts, tinea, bad breath and they exuded a fragrance of an indescribably exotic nature. Our conversation generally consisted of waves, points, waves, reefs, waves, river mouths, waves, sandbars, waves, piers, waves and beach breaks. Girls liked to talk of worldly matters. We would rather discuss what might be the right combination of resin and hardener in a ding fix. Girls didn’t like beer, didn’t read surfing magazines, didn’t try to smash down the doors of Anzac House when Severson was showing one of his movies, didn’t bung on a blue with blokes from other beaches, didn’t pinch racks, wax, and regrettably in our case, didn’t steal surfboards. They also didn’t know which turn-off led to Newcastle and were in no position to request a toilet break half way to Crescent at two o’clock in the morning.
… to be continued
![only surfers [think] they know the feeling](https://i0.wp.com/petebowes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/laird.jpg?resize=40%2C40&ssl=1){kind=small}
petebowes.com 
Pete, at the other end of the surfing spectrum, in both ability and perseverance, I had a mate who lived Wakefield St, at the bottom of the hill, opposite District Park (Nolan Reserve) on Pittwater Road, I lived at the top of the steep hill.
He had acquired an old balsa, single fin , single stringer board, with more dings than we could count. We would carry it across to the park, to the creek that ran through to Queenscliffe beach, and paddle it down under the road bridges to the surf.
He favoured riding the board at North Steyne, I quickly identified the heavy, and lethally pointed, board as a danger to life and limb every time I fell off, and became a body-boarder at Queenscliffe.
Our frugal lunch was half a loaf of white bread and a pint of milk. After exhausting ourselves, we would paddle the now-waterlogged, “sinker” balsa board back to North Manly, carry it across the park, and hang it under his house, where it would have to stay for a week before it was sufficiently dried out to be viable again.
Similar thoughts on girls, they were out of out league, and the charms of bread and milk as sustenance were lost on them.
I left Manly Boys High School in ‘65, our hero was Midget, who was a couple of years ahead of my class, and was more notable by his absence than attendance, dictated by the swell.
Lovely stuff Gav … thanks