Who are the people who inspired me to surf? These are some of them. People who kept getting me out there, even when events seemed to conspire against me. I was young(er) and (more)irresponsible at the time I met some of them, but these people shaped a big part of my life. Why? Because I still surf.

So, I present in chronological order:

C.

He was a "cheesehead" from Wisconsin. After he'd been living in San Francisco for eight years, surfing mostly Ocean Beach and the Santa Barbara area where his buddies lived, he happened to move into a Victorian flat on the Panhandle in San Francisco, Calif. As fate would have it, that's where I had moved a few months before, coming from Massachusetts, where if you know when and where to find them there are waves. Despite this well-kept secret, I had never surfed. C. had learned to handle the heaviness of Ocean Beach, S.F. pretty well over his years there. Although he had a ingenious way with words and a sharp wit, he made his money by throwing cinder blocks and railroad ties around. He came home with 100 dollars in his pocket every night, and we'd smoke a portion of his earnings almost daily. He had a big, sturdy retriever named Calvin who would jump through the breaking waves at Baker Beach, fearless, after a soggy tennis ball, scaring the ducks out of the water. Within a month, C. had me paddling out in very small (waist-high) Ocean Beach whitewater. He taught me how to paddle and to ride my first wave. He has since moved back to Wisconsin, where he began working on an organic bean sprout farm, and I am now in Rhode Island. We've lost contact but I still have the small shark's tooth he gave me when we parted company.

D.

He was also from Massachusetts. He worked in the seedy little board shop at the end of Taraval Ave. If you lived in the area in the early 1990s you know the one. I met him by chance when I replied to his "for sale" sign, advertising a very hot mountainbike, pinned crudely to the wall of the Horseshoe Cafe on Lower Haight St., near my second apartment in S.F. He ended up letting me borrow the bike to see if I liked it, and it sure enough it ripped. I paid him in two installments and still own the old soulful bike. And it still rips. D. snowboarded with pros in his spare time and surfed OB, S.F. off Taraval Ave. during work breaks from the shop. He used to annoy his neighbors on Lower Haight St. by shooting fireworks off in his backyard at 2am, after drinking a 12 pack. So what? He hated S.F. and couldn't wait to get back to New England. When he left, since he never got his last paycheck from the shop at the end of Taraval Ave., he took his payment for his toils in the shop in the form of snowboards. He loaded up his lime-green 1972 Dodge charger, and made a beeline for Boston. Now that he's back there, I home he's happy because he wasn't when he was away. His impact on my surfing is embedded in all of this, and it includes wave-riding at OB SF, but I haven't the time to go into it here.

E.

Originally from Colorado, E. split his time between spinning records and mixing trance, trip-hop, and dub; working at the Rainbow Grocery, the uber organic healthfood store in the Mission District; and carving big glassy Ocean Beach waves on his 7'6" Spyder. He had life wired! He loaned me boards and gave me rides to the beach after I moved back to S.F. from temporary exile in NYC. He kept telling me about an old family friend who owned land in Costa Rica, and he said I could come down any time and stay as long as I want. He is a true water brother. He called me after I'd moved back to Massachusetts, and invited me down to CR, but I was in a bind at the time and couldn't make it. I hope I find him again, not just because I have a free place to stay in CR, but because he helped me out in a time of need. I needed to get in the water.

M.

He drove a brown 1968 Dodge Dart Swinger. He grew up in Carmel, Calif. and was about my age, and when I met him he lived at Pacheco and Great Highway, right on Ocean Beach. I saw his ad seeking a roommate in his little shack-like apartment down in the fog. I ended up moving to a Victorian flat on Page St., in the Lower Haight, but we kept in touch. At one point, I was temporarily without a car and he drove me down to RXXXXXXY in PXXXXXXA a few times. I remember once after we pulled up to the spot and got out of the car to change, he opened the trunk of the old beater Dart, and pulled out the sandiest, smelliest, dirtiest wetsuit I'd ever seen. With that he said, "I'm not big on hygiene." He was a far better surfer than I was (I was still learning), and he pushed me out into waves a little beyond my ability, and for that I thank him. He moved to Czechoslavakia, drank lots of good cheap beer, and got a job as a salesman for an English tutorial company aimed at international businessmen. I got a note from him once a few years ago, but we've since lost contact.

S.

She became my girlfriend when I lived on Page St. in the Lower Haight District of S.F. She'd paint in the wink of an eye abstact designs on almost anything in sight, and I'd be amazed. Just before she moved to Germany, she painted one of her mini-masterpieces, about 6-inches square, on the bottom of my surfboard. Embedded in the yellow and green squiggles and patterns was the word "Tschuss," German for goodbye. She's back in SF, and we're still in sporadic contact, thankfully.

R.

He's a life-long waterman. He has worked on boats on Georges Bank, and surfs big, way overhead Monies when most people won't even think about paddling out. When I moved back to New England, he told me about the breaks and instilled respect for the local spots. I was a clueless kook, and he taught me ding repair and told me the history of surfing in Rhode Island. One of the many things I remember him saying, and I remember a lot of things, after I asked if he ever goes up to Cape Cod or Gloucester or Maine to surf, is: "No. I just let the waves come to me." And it was said without a hint of arrogance because that's the kind of person he is. He stays put (when not in CR or CA) and surfs what Rhode Island provides.

K.

He lived in his ultra-modified truck, which is much more refined than it might sound. He did contracting work when he wasn't in the water. I was amazed the first time I looked inside the back of the truck. The sides were carpeted in close-cropped industrial gray, and the floor was that rubber material with raised circles. Storage compartments lined the walls, and he even had a makeshift shower, a sprinkling nozzle fed by a water tank on the roof. This wasn't a mini-van, mind you, it was a Dodge Ram 4x4 converted into the ultimate surf-mobile. K. built and welded a cast iron rack to the side of the cap to carry his trials mountain bike, which he rode in Arcadia and "Viet Nam," two of the premier local mountain bike spots. He led the life and further imbued me with what surfing in Rhode Island year-round is all about.

A.

I met him through a local surfing email list, and even though we only see each other a couple of times per year now that I moved away from Mass., I consider him one of my best friends. He has surfed Cape Hatteras, NoCal, SoCal, Hawaii, New Jersey, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Block Island, and the Carribean. He calls New England home because he likes it better than anywhere else. His house overlooks a fickle but at times very good point break on the North Shore. He encourages people to get into the water any chance they get, and he created a group with the intention of providing a positive congregating place for New England surfers. He rips on a skateboard, snowboard and, in the water, on a shortboard, fish or longboard.

These are the people who originally got me to surf, or who kept me surfing. Now there are others and I'm equally grateful and inspired by them all. Surfing is not just the waves you ride and the places you go, it's the people you meet and who become your friends and help you get and stay in the water.

I'm still learning, and I'll always remember them with gratitude.