The Day Hobie Made Nixon a Surfboard
surfer.com
surfer.com
Cottons is the break directly in front of Casa Pacifica. It's a long, easy peeling left-hander (meaning: looking at it from the beach, the wave curl moves from left to right as the wave breaks). I've surfed there several times. It's so amusing to imagine President Nixon pacing around in the house atop the cliff with a bunch of dirty hippies riding the waves below.
The history of surfing in this area is fascinating and drastically different from today. In 1960, when this story takes place, surfing was deeply counterculture. You could live in a beach shack in Southern California on bum's income — many people did. Although surfing originated in Hawaii, Southern California modernized it. "The Endless Summer" perfectly captures the flavor of this era of surfing and is well worth watching even for non-surfers.
Orange County birthed the modern surfboard, constructed with a stiff fiberglass and resin outer shell (the "glass") and foam interior (the "blank"). This construction technique was adapted from methods used by OC's aerospace defense contractors. It's perfect symmetry: the crew-cut engineers working on missiles and fighter jets, trading construction techniques with beatnik hippies trying to find a better waveriding vehicle. Nixon was hilariously in the geographic center of this intersection.
In the decades since then, the sport of surfing has moved monotonically upmarket. Today, if you're surfing in the U.S.A, you're wealthy. A lot of white collar desk workers started surfing in 2020, easier to get in the water if you work an email job. It's similar to living in an old warehouse in Tribeca NYC -- in the good old days it was the cheapest lifestyle you could live; today you pay for the privilege.
1) I think it's partially a time thing. You read economists vision of the future back 50-75 years ago and they imagined automation would give us more leisure time.
In practice there's a bifurcation with the K shaped economy where a lot of white collar jobs have become more time demanding (nights/weekends) such that we have a lot more money but even less time. So more than ever before, we try to by shortcuts to time/happiness with money. I find I have a lot of trouble finding long blocks of time to spend uninterrupted on my hobbies.
2) Along with this society has become ever more consumeristic. I note that across my friends and acquaintances, it doesn't strike me that many even.. have hobbies. Hobbies are almost an oddity now.
1&2 conflate to make for a lot of hobbyist GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) such that people spend more time reading/watching reviews/shopping/trading gear than they do actually doing their hobbies. Its a lot easier to spend 30min during my lunch break shopping for some accessories than it is to get away from my desk and actually do my hobby.
That's a huge problem for photographers and bikers. Much easier and less time and effort consuming to buy nice gear than to actually use it.
I have 20+ years of metadata on my photo catalog and it's funny how seasonal it is for me living in the northeast. For years I would try dabbling in things like macro and birding just to do SOMETHING in the long cold season, but it's always been a waste of money for me.
Meanwhile I've started dabbling in music and the fact I can just spin my chair over to my other desk, regardless of time/light/temprature and get on with it is very freeing.
I think each riding maintenence have their own four quadrents.
I buy a motorcycle. I talk about the motorcycle. I ride the motorcycle. Riding motorcycles is a hobby now.
The motorcycle needs maintenance. I talk about the maintenance. I do the maintenance. Motorcycle maintenance is a hobby mow.
A part is unavailable. I talk about making the part. I buy a welder. I make the part. Welding is a hobby now.
I can text my friend in the same hobby randomly throughout the day, listen to gear reviews while I do some rote work, and shop for accessories on my lunch break.
But depending on the hobby, I might need a solid 1-2 hour block of time to really get into actually doing anything. Some are even worse if setup/cleanup or any travel is involved. And for some hobbies daylight & weather must cooperate.
Photography for example, bodies/lenses didn't change much for 10-20 years, and didn't cost that much. There was recurring expense for film/dev/prints that scaled with your usage, and arguably you could GAS out on those smaller purchases.
In the film era for reference, you had Nikon F 1959, F2 1971, F3 1980, F4 1988, F5 1996, F6 2004. The entire film era Nikon had 6 flagships in 45 years! You could use the same camera for 20 years and only be maybe 1~2 generations behind at the end! There just wasn't much to upgrade to.
With digital bodies cost a ton, and even as we've slowed advancement.. you still get a new flagship body every 3-4 years (down from as little as 2 years in the early Sony A7 days). Some is tech advancement but a lot of it is parcelling out improvements sparingly cycle by cycle to try to drive sales in our modern higher consumption era.
The only time I ever had a water bottle as a child was when I was playing soccer. We got one water break after our endurance run at the beginning and one halfway through practice. Didn't have one when I was playing baseball. Didn't have one when I was on the golf team, unless it was blistering hot out. Never brought one for day-hikes. Just showed up and did whatever and maybe stopped at a public water fountain on the way out.
I don't want them to be uncomfortable, this isn't a "back in my day, we suffered, and we liked it" sort of post. I should have had water for more of those activities (well, not baseball, it's not a real sport sorrynotsorryyouknowit'strue). I just wish they had a little more perspective on when we really need to stock up on provisions for an excursion and would not add a 10 minute delay to a trip that should take 30 minutes.
Surfing and warehouse lofts both depend on access to specific chunks of land that are in high demand. The thought of "bumming it" on a beach is hilarious to me. Beaches are all owned by rich folks.
Actually, considering how fucked up the US housing market is, most people can't get into woodworking because they live in little apartments with no garages... you'd have to belong to a makerspace or something. Ironically I once belonged to a makerspace in a warehouse-turned-bohemian-arts building
Thread-relevantly: Not in California! All beaches are public, although some self-important transplants like to argue a right to restrict access. Vinod Khosla is one such transplant.
My definition is pretty vague, usually requiring a bit of trashiness in the finished product.
Collecting beanie babies?
- Reading (libraries)
- Exercising (e.g., running, hiking, swimming - depending on pool / beach access -, joining a group of friends who play basketball, etc...)
- Playing video games (e.g., buy Factorio and play if for years)
- Working on personal projects (e.g., writing, coding, etc...)
There are more expensive hobbies, but even then they can often be done cheaply, e.g., though climbing is generally pricey, some gyms are surprisingly cheap, etc...
The used board market is terrible for resell. $900+ sell for 2-300 used. I was able to hagle an album down to 600.
I bummed around and surfed all day for recently. It's a lot of ppl with roommates, restaurant workers, construction.
Corky Carroll played concerts at my elementary school auditorium and we'd buy lobster from the shop across from Hobie's and have birthday parties on the beach at Dana Point harbor and camp at Doheny State Beach for summer vacation, going to grunion runs, and driving down to San Onofre to body surf at Trestles.
We never saw Nixon near the fence, but we looked a lot and imagined he might be there watching us play.