Nexus - 0105 - New Times Magazine-pages

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of the Ancient Surfer Rime ack to my youth. How my friends and | used to aste the days away lying on the golden sands, swimming and surfing In the cool embracing ocean.: When we were bored It was a good hour's entertain- ment to build a castle and wall of sand, and sit back and watch the waves gradually attack and finally destroy what took hours of sweat to build. Sitting on the pathway, I often let my mind wander back to when | watched council workers rebuild the sea wall after yet another one-in-a-hundred year storm. It wasn’t hard to Imagine that the ocean had crept a little bit further up the stormwater pipe, emptying into the middle of the beach after a rainstorm - when swimming was to be avoided at all costs. | could swear the seaweed and algae on that pipe were progressively creeping forward, too. There was no time to serl- ously ponder this, as most of the time | was dodging the magples that nested In the Norfolk Pines, descending from the heavens fo Inflict severe headwounds on the unwary. Those maggies had only stunted branches to obstruct thelr bombing tuns. Some sald the lbranches were Ilke thal because of gas pipes In the nearby ground that leaked their poisons Into the trees’ roots. Trees, pipes and magpies would all be forgotten as we surveyed the latest In wornen's summer swimwear. ° IT seems so long ago now, when | remember ~ Back home, looking In the mirror, | was proud of my bronzed Aussie suntan, acquired while wagging schoo! to calch that once-In-a-lifetime wave. My mother would tease and make Jokes about the freckles that covered my nose and cheeks and spread all over my back and shoulders. How she’d laugh the Monday after the first summer weekend when the skin would be peeling off in layers, “Why don’t you put on some suntan lotion next time?” “What! and look like one of those Westies?" | was a surfie, a weed, a waxhead, a Sydney sewerage surfer and proud of it. | never gave much thought to the times I'd feel a bit crook at work after another heavy weekend carving apart the face at Curlie. After all, work was sickening and if was better to recall the monumental wave | caught-before being uncere- monlously dumped, half drowned, to ingest gallons of seawater. Crawling up the beach, shaking my head and collecting my board, I'd paddle back out to join my brother - who'd be laughing his head off. Some days | noticed the smell. “Hey, go downwind next time, you little bugger”. Funny, he never smelled like tha! at home. Riding the waves, surfing the oceans, | came to know the pattern of the weather and how |! would affect the centre of my life, the ocean. But lately {i's become harder and harder to predict the shifts. It's becoming more erratic. For a while I'd tell myself | was growing older and just didn't know the weather like | thought. It was a hard feeling to shake - waiting for that change, the swell that would never come - and when It did, catching you completely unaware. Ah, the camaraderie of sitting astride your board, lying to your mates, feeling the sun beating down on your back, re- flecting off the water. Ozone? What's that? Some new designer drug | suppose. Back then I'd try anything once; most usually twice. Vil never, ever forget the day | cut my foot open on a broken bit of glass, left by some moron from a long-forgotten beach party. Or Ihe really weird colour my leg turned before I dragged myself up to the hospital and was told It was badly Infected from the effluent dumped a few thousand metres from my favourite soulh-south easter breaking point. After a few weeks in bed being treated wilh massive doses of antibiotics, my doctor pointed out that my “freckles” should be looked at by a specialist. “Melon what, Doc?” Skin cancer - cancer! Shit | thought, | don't smoke that many cigarettes. After weeks of very painful surgery to have the malignant littie blemishes removed, the doctor told me the sad condition of my organs after swallow- ing large amounts of polluted seawater...| was not Impressed. +) Now the highlight of many days Is to sit, sweating In the humidity where the trees used to provide shade, and watch the waves smash against the sea wall, looking through my dark glasses - a necessity now in this bright sun. | try to Imagine what the sand under the water looks like now. Funny, 1 miss that old stormwater pipe, but it, like the beach, Is submerged under the rising ocean. In the distance comes the faint rumbling of a heavy truck, probably loaded with cement and rubble for the council workers - repairing the seawall after another one-in-a-hundred year storm. Taking my hat off to scratch my bald, scarred head, | chuckle and recall the rumours of a ghost surfer seen carving up the faces of good waves on moonlit nights. Walking back home, | think about the 5 foot 10 inch thruster lying in my cupboard, kept company by a virginal white environment suit. 7 Some things people will do to the day they die. nN NEXUS New Times Five - Winter 1988 25 SE Snort Story sy CraiG T. Busu