The Surf Rat

I stopped in the Ohana Surf Shop in Stuart the other day looking for a t-shirt from the company whose surfboard I currently ride – Robert August. They don’t carry Robert August products but I ended up making a new friend. T-shirts come and go from their life in my drawers but you can never have enough friends. His name is Jordan and he and his wife Tara own the shop so he’s there most of the time (when he’s not surfing). While at this stage, renewing my supply of surf wax is pretty much the extent of my purchasing, I’ve been back to the shop several times just to talk with Jordan about surfing and politics, two of our favorite subjects. I mentioned to him I would love to get a vintage surfboard to put on the wall at my house. Especially if it could be something that I used to ride, a “da Cat”, a “Nuuhiwa Noserider”, or one of several other boards I rode when I first started surfing. Vintage boards are big business now and with one daughter draining my bank account while attending college and another planning on soon doing the same I could have some issues. One idea is that I spend thousands on a “da Cat” that’ll hang on the wall but can’t finance my daughters thru college. Then they both come back and live at home. Hmm, maybe I’ll just ask Jordan if he could find something that would be compatible with the family finances. It might be tough, but it never hurts to ask. Jordan checked around for me but couldn’t find anything in my price range until last week when I dropped by for a chat. He had a friend that had an old Keoki that was just lying around, was in good shape and would probably be available very cheap. My first comment was somewhat derisive, “it’s a pop-out”. Pop-outs were boards mass produced by machines in the sixties and not hand shaped like the more popular (and more expensive) boards. They were not held in very high esteem but they were cheap. He said he’d bring the board into the shop for me to check out, I told him if the price was in the range I thought it should be, I’d buy it.

Upon returning home, I informed my wife of my possible future purchase and also explained what a pop-out was. She told me that permission for me to hang a board on any wall other than in the garage (where my 2 current boards hang) was far from being assured and why would I want a cheap board like a Keoki. She is very familiar with names like Greg Noll, Bing Copeland and of course Miki Dora, but who or what was a Keoki.

Valid question….

When I was 12, I was attending Nova, which was a combined junior high and high school. Students from 7th grade through 12th all went to school together. I worshipped the older classmen who were surfers, a very small group in Florida in 1964. I was their gopher during lunch (hey kid, get me another milk), their gopher around school (hey kid, I left my math book in my locker, go get it for me), and even though I was much younger I sometimes would do their homework (they all weren’t Rhodes scholars). But it got me 2 things I wanted very dearly. One, was the chance to sit with them and listen to them talk about surfing. The other, which was infinitely more valuable, they would take me to the beach when they went surfing. Of course my duties at the beach were pretty much along the lines of my duties in the cafeteria or hallways of the school – that of being a gopher. The older guys would paddle out to surf and I would sit on shore and watch. If they wiped out and lost their board I would retrieve it and paddle it back out to them. This is the whole reason for my actions though, when they’d come in for a break I was allowed to take their board out to surf, well worth it for a 12 year old gremmie. One of the guys, Rick (sorry, 45 years ago and I can’t remember his last name), was particularly sympathetic to me and always made sure I got a decent amount of use on his board. The older guys liked having a personal assistant and in return, I was learning to surf.

Eventually, Rick moved on to a name surfboard and sold me his, a blue Keoki, for $25. Of course I still couldn’t drive so I remained in the servitude of my older companions for transportation to the waves, but at least now I could be out in the water the whole time alongside them. Like Rick, I moved on from my Keoki to a Greg Noll bought at the Little Hawaii Surf Shop in Hollywood (Florida!!) and my blue Keoki made it’s way to parts unknown.

It’s been decades since I felt wax rubbed across the Keoki label underneath my feet. While my current board is the same size, it’s a quarter of the weight, has a 3 fin removable system, a concave nose, a 60\40 rail design and so on. My original Keoki, was a big hunk of cheap fiberglass covered foam with no design to it. But, it was the first thing that allowed me to walk on water and I’ve never forgotten those afternoons with Rick along with my other upperclass masters. The board Jordan found is red, not blue, but it’s a Keoki, my first board. Since none of my friends surf, I’ve been thinking, would anyone know the difference between a David Nuuhiwa or a Keoki, probably not. I would, but suddenly it seems ok.