Qlear Quadsword

Thursdays are the best. First, my employer provides lunch on the condition I sit through an hour-long meeting without any lewd or unseemly outbursts. Done!
Second, it’s not Wednesday, which is the worst.
Finally, I take a moment for myself on Thursdays to post a recent board and fling wide the doors to the HHG inbox to see what’s on the minds of my comrades in the surf-bathing community. Here’s Paul's Quadsword 8'7 and a letter:

Dear HHG, When did you know you were getting old?

Sincerely,
Sleepy in Sebastopol
Good question, SiS. I first realized I was old one morning while suiting up in the parking lot with the stereo cranked. First, I was cranking it because I could barely hear it. Second, I realized that my get-stoked-for-a-session selection was Morning Edition on NPR. It was pretty hard to continue with my denial after that point.
We’ve been dialing in Paul's quiver for a while now, and this midlength really fills a critical niche in our unforgiving waters. Nice to have a little foam under your chest to paddle, nice to have a bit shorter board under your feet to throw around like it’s play money and your Boardwalk property is swathed in tiny plastic hotels.

Dear HHG, is my board ready yet?
Your Friend, Mr _______________ (note to readers: this is not the same Mr. ______________that appears in Alice Walker’s excellent novel The Color Purple. That guy was a total dick)

Dear Mr. ____________,
Yes!
Just kidding, it’s not.
Clear glass job by the stoked folks out at Northern Light Surf Shop in Bodega. Glass fins by Rainbow Fin Co. in La Selva.

Dear HHG, I’ve noticed that when my three-year-old puts on her pants, she leads with the right foot. Does this mean she’ll be a goofy? I love my three-year-old, but the rest of us in the family are regular foots, and I don’t want to have to consider a trip to Raglan when the rest of us are stoked about Scorps.
All Right in Guerneville

Dear ARiG, as parents, our job is to support our children no matter their stance predilections. That said, goofyfoots are an abomination of nature. Has there ever been a goofyfoot in the Whitehouse? I rest my case (I know what you’re thinking: Martin Van Buren, eighth President of the United States, was a goofyfoot, which is incorrect—he was actually the first switchtance surfer to reach the presidency). What’s of greater concern, though, is the probability of two regularfoots giving birth to a goofyfoot: one in sixteen hundred. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but you might want to ask yourself this: was your significant other ‘just friends’ with any Kiwi surfers/yoga instructors/massage therapists about four years ago? Remember, the accent might not always be a reliable indicator. Dreadlocks, unkempt beards, and juggling with devil sticks are dead giveaways. Good luck.

And with that, I once again close up the inbox and retire to my afternoon meeting. I hope there are cookies.

Tomorrow the Green Grass

7'2 BatTail Egg.
For Spencer.
A student.
The future is bright.

Preparation Stoke

True: you can tell a lot about a person by watching them surf.
Possibly Truer: you can tell more about them by how they get ready to surf.

--Trust me, the presence of this 7'10 egg will eventually make sense--

A local at my local drives to the break wearing his wetsuit, board strapped to the bare roof with a single piece of rope. He springs out of his car, pulls off the board in one motion, smiles at us suckers with exposed skin in 30 knot wind and sub-45 temps, then jogs down to the water.

My buddy Reynaud has three jugs of water, all of differing temperatures that he pours over himself sequentially, starting with the coolest, as he suits up. His cigarette stays lit as he does this.

The Guy With The Blue-ish Dog has his gear packed in individual crates. Each of his three wetsuits are as soft, pliable, and fresh-smelling as the day he bought them. He has a Semper Fi tattoo on his arm.

My lovely wife begins her preparations in full modesty, then, after a prolonged struggle with neoprene, ditches ditches towel entirely. Casual passersby are enthused.

Some guys never paddle out, opting instead to drink coffee and wear oversized flannel. Some spew to The Boys on their cell phones. Some sit quietly in their cars, watching the ocean. Some lack wax, some have extra. Sometimes there's a dude all suited up, tending to a fire on the beach.

There isn't as much variance with post-surf rituals. For the lifers, there's usually a little friendly banter, a remark or two about the conditions, then the drive home.

It's the getting ready that's interesting. The preparation. The window into someone's soul as they contemplate the cold, or the power, or the wind, or the sun, or the bliss.

The board order process is a similar window. Last week there was a cryptic, gravely voicemail:"Name's Don. Need a replacement step up for M___ _h__. Nineteen inches wide. No f@#$&ng color!" This message terrified my two year old daughter.

Sometimes the entire order is taken care of in the water. "Make me one of those," someone will say in a parking lot or during a paddle out, pointing to my ride. "I'll call when I'm ready to pick it up."

Sometimes, like with Santa Cruz D and the above 7'10" Quad-Plus-One egg, the process is entirely electronic (we exchanged 34 emails before a planer ever touched foam), though no less indicative of character. Through the course of our preparations for his new ride, we discovered in common: babies, birthdays, occupations, and a love of blood oranges. Speaking of which, this one's getting some color work, so stay tuned for the post-Fatty pics...