Tom and God’s Plus Sign at Ventura’s Surfer’s Knoll

From The Long Board To
The Long Cross

Surfing hit the Texas Gulf Coast in 1960, when I was thirteen. My sister’s boyfriend knew some California surfers, who visited Galveston Island that summer and brought the long board to the Lone Star state.  From what I can recall, I was the fifth or sixth Texan to take up the long board and ride the two to three foot swells of Galveston Bay.

When I caught my first wave, I was hooked.

That summer I gave up the girls for the surf board. Riding waves was both exhilarating and unbelievable. Every morning my friend Louie and I would hitchhike the nine miles from my home in Texas City to the island city. Sometimes we’d actually spend the night on Galveston Beach just to wake up to and ride the “glass,” the pristine and gently-breaking waves.

Nothing smelled better than the sun tan oil, the wax, and the surf. Read the rest of this entry »