Dawn Patrol - Don Winslow [60]
It was the antithesis of mainstream America at the time, and there came into existence little surfing communities—call them “colonies” or even “communes” if you have to—up and down Highway 101.
And a lot of these surfers were beat, man; they were the West Coast beatniks, Southern California Division, who, instead of hitting the streets of San Francisco—North Beach coffeehouses and poetry readings—took their bongos to the real beach and found their dharma in a wave. These guys had seen “civilization” on the battlefields and in the bombed-out cities of Europe and Asia and didn’t like it, and they came to Pacific Beach, San Onofre, Doheny, and Malibu to create their own culture. They camped on the beaches, collected cans to buy food for the cookouts, played guitars and ukuleles, drank beer and wine, screwed beach bunnies, and surfed.
The little surf towns that sat on the 101 like knots on a string grew up around them. Fast-food stands sold quick, cheap burgers and tacos to surfers with didn’t have a lot of jangle in their pockets and were in a hurry to get back and catch the next set. Beachside bars served guys in huaraches and damp board trunks, and it was no shirt, no shoes, no problem in those joints. Movie theaters in those little towns on the 101 started to show the first, primitive surfing movies to packed houses, party to follow.
The surf bums were so far out of mainstream America and yet so very American at the same time in their belief in technology, because some of these boys were your Tom Edison, Wright brothers, gee-whiz, can-do Americans, who just couldn’t help but try to build a better surfboard. They took all that technology that came out of World War II—aerodynamics, hydraulics, and especially the new materials that had emerged and revolutionized the sport. Bob Simmons in La Jolla and Hobie Alter in Dana Point invented the first practical, lightweight board out of a new material—polyurethane. With the advent of the foam board, anyone could surf. You didn’t need to be a Greek god like George Freeth. Anyone could now carry a board down the beach and into the water.
And these lightweight boards could do maneuvers that the heavy old wood boards just couldn’t do. Instead of riding straight down the face of the wave, now the surfer could cut across its face, change directions, cut back.…
It was the golden age of surfing, the 1950s, there along the 101.
So many goddamn legends were out there challenging the waves, testing the limits, cruising that highway with their classic woodies, looking for the next great break, the sweet new ride, the secret spot that the newcomers hadn’t found. Miki Dora—aka “Da Cat”—and Greg Noll—aka “Da Bull”—and Phil Edwards—aka “the Guayule Kid”—they rode waves nobody had ridden and in ways nobody had ridden them. Edwards was fifteen, fifteen freaking years old, when he paddled out into the wave known as Killer Dana and rode it. Then he stayed on the beach all summer with his girlfriend, cooking potatoes over an open fire.
Living to surf, surfing to live.
Along the 101.
It must have been heaven then, Boone thinks as the road plunges down toward the ocean like some kind of water slide, like it’s going to dump you right into the water, but then at the last second it veers right and hugs the coastline. Paradise, Boone thinks—long, lonely stretches of beach with legends walking on water. He knows his surf history; he knows all the stories, knows about Da Cat, Da Bull, the Guayule Kid, and dozens of others. You can’t not know them and be a real surfer; you can’t not see their stories every time you drive this road, because that history is all around you.
You drive right past