“Surfing Into The Sunset”

We have been in Corpus Christi the past few days visiting my son and his family. I will be 72 on the 17th and figured that I owe myself a bucket list item; surf one more time.

Wes, my son, was accommodating and borrowed a new-fangled all foam board that he thought I could handle. My grandson has a much shorter board because he is 8. The beach at Padre Island was the most crowded mess I have ever witnessed. Granted, the last time I was on a Texas beach on Labor day was in the mid-90s, and that was at Port Aransas. This was beyond stupid. Thousands of people parking their cars near the water, getting stuck in the sand, hogging any sliver of a spot to reach the water. After searching for an hour, Wes found a small opening and squeezed his truck into the slot.

Beach chairs unloaded, cooler and surfboards ready, my grandson and I grab our boards and wade into the surf. As it turns out, the surf today was terrible. Slushy with no good form. We struggled to find a decent wave and did luck into a few.

I paddled through the shore break past the first sand bar and tried to sit on my board. Nope, that wasn’t happening. I took off on a wave and couldn’t stand up, nope, that neither. The head injury from two years ago is most likely the culprit. No balance and no equilibrium. Being 72 didn’t help my quest. I was a good surfer in the 60s and 70s and figured it was something that could not be forgotten. Wrong on my part. The defeat was at hand, and I took it willingly.

I came back to the beach, laid the board down, and told my wife that I can now scratch this one off of the bucket list. Sometimes your eyes are bigger than your brain.