These Friends

The swells will pass, the great rides, the drops, the turns, the wipeouts, will all be gone. Less than a memory, almost a forgotten dream. You won’t know they really happened at all. But you’ll never forget the friends you did it all with. Maybe they were the best you’ll ever have. When it’s all said and done perhaps the central experience in surfing is friendship.

¾Director, John Milius

It seems that the plaster on the monument to Gary Taylor that overlooks Swami’s had barely dried before we heard more sad news of our friends at Swami’s. Young Syrus King passed tragically much as legends Surf Eddy and Doug Erickson before him. Wally Blodgett, my ultimate surf hero, is gone and, although he was a kneeboarder, stands tall among those who have left skin and memories on the reef. 

            There had not been any paddle outs for quite a while when, last month, we were stunned to learn that one of Swami’s finest, Kenny Mann had passed while night surfing Swami’s. As memories flooded like tears, I was reminded of the times in the ‘70s when Kenny, Peter “Pinline” St Pierre and I Along with a few others would meet in the Swami’s parking lot around midnight to ride a few midnight waves together. Kenny was our friend— certainly gifted and seemingly immortal.  He was everyone’s friend, really.  A never aging eternal gremmie whose job and mission it was to sand surfboards since he was a teenager in the mid 1970s, and glide fast and smooth over Swami’s clean walls.  He rode inside Swami’s better and with more stoke than anyone.

           

While Kenny had been a local at Swami’ since the early ‘70s, Joy Froding didn’t show up there until decades later. Joy, who didn’t start surfing until late in life was introduced to wave riding and to Swami’s by the brilliant surfer, her boyfriend, Mark Donnellan. Mark, who is among the best surfers ever to ride Swami’s, worked at Moonlight Glassing with Kenny Mann for decades.

            Joy was all love, and she found the best in all of us while translating that emotion into her artwork and surfing.  While she will not be remembered among the best surfers to ride Swami’s, she will never be forgotten for the way she spread the fruit of the spirit she was named for to everyone in and out of the water. 

            Her gift of kindness was noteworthy to the end, as she called many of us to offer her condolences on the passing of our mutual friend, Kenny. I have the recording on my phone where she offers words of comfort before saying that she was going surfing. How would I know that would be the last day she would ride a wave, or drew a breath on earth.

            At a recent candlelight vigil for Joy, another Swami’s fixture, Chris Hill, approached me with tears in his eyes to inform me that his brother and my close friend, Dave Hill, had recently passed on. The well of my grief went all the way to the bottom as those of us who remained stood above the break we love, to celebrate the lives of our friends. Looking around I was reminded that this ride does have an end, and that one by one we will each face the ocean for the final time as our ashes become part of the Pacific.

            Seeing friends gather, I was also reminded that Swami’s is not holy because of the temple that stands on the cliff, but because of the love that forever binds us all together.