In the early 1960s, surfing formed a bridge between beatniks and hippies. While equally significant culturally as the aforementioned groups, surfing continues to be viewed by most merely as a sport, suspended like a second shoe that never drops.
Yet surfing, as anyone who has been at it a while knows, is more than a sport. “Lifestyle” comes closer but still falls flat. The surf brand Billabong probably came closest to nailing it with its tagline, “Only a surfer knows the feeling.”
I wish I’d had those words in my arsenal in 1962 while attempting to explain riding my first waves to my mother. She looked at me sympathetically, like when I came home with a black eye. I know you tried Mom, but you did not and could not know the feeling.
However, you, or anyone, could have comprehended the beat that moved me and many other surfers, simply by cranking up Dick Dale’s rock instrumental classic “Miserlou” all the way on an ancient hi-fi.
In the 1950s, surfers benefited from their association with beatniks. While some visiting Hawaiians had already jump-started the process, the Beats pushed California surfers the rest of the way to nonmaterialism while contributing to a language born of carnal knowledge between Beat poetry and pidgin English.
Surfers, as participants in an American youth movement, and their evil twin, hodads (think “Grease,” the movie), exited the womb nearly simultaneously. Like hodads, surfers were first presented to the general public cinematically. For this, we can thank or blame the movie, “Gidget.”
While both films explore and exploit the shallow ends of youth culture, surfing was eventually redeemed through Bruce Brown’s masterpiece, “The Endless Summer.” In it, Brown hints that surfing in its purest form has nothing to do with points assigned for waves ridden.
Being an avid surfer, he knew that surfers grooved to their own soundtrack, dress code and language, including repurposed words like “stoked” and “bitchin’.” These and other cryptic verbiage were required to explain the unexplainable feeling while doubling as a code to keep parents, teachers and law enforcement off the scent.
I can’t pinpoint the exact date, but sometime around the advent of “Gidget” and The Beach Boys, surfing became something more than riding waves. It then helped move youth culture to new heights (or depths) with music, dress and a way of living not seen since beatniks were the scourge of polite society.
Although some surfers would adapt an Ivy League style a year or so later, initially it was all about clothing picked from the Army surplus bin and a currency paid in waves ridden that netted a peaceful, easy feeling.
Surfing is not a sport, and as strange as it sounds, you don’t have to ride waves to be a surfer. Being a surfer is a state of mind that can be enjoyed on a skateboard, by standing on a sidewalk, or anywhere you happen to be.
You can be a surfer by sitting in your car and watching the sun set over the ocean or by swaying wavelike to a favorite song. Everything from air currents to brain waves moves in waves and riding them can be extremely rewarding. Only a surfer knows the feeling. You know what I mean?
