How to be an Old Surfer
Saturday. Half past noon. Locally popular San Diego reef. The future just looked me in the eye.
The future was there, sitting 20 feet farther out than right now. He wore a wetsuit that was half black and half torn. Beneath it was a gut that jutted out as if a Budweiser Clydesdale had a camel’s hump. The skin of his face looked like broiled ham marinated with gooey white sunscreen, and beneath that there was a coffee-breath scowl. The future sat so far out so that he could catch the next set or at least paddle for and miss the next set and splash water. In the rare instance that his paddling efforts were met with success, there was a certain apathy about the way the future rode waves. It was as if his rail was set on train tracks…
Well, maybe he wasn’t the future. But he might be my future.
I’ve come to the realization that …. More