I first Surfed on over 10 foot Longboards around 1962

Of course I had grown up in southern California in San Diego and Los Angeles County from 1952 when I was 4 years old. So, I had spent a lot of time at the beaches of San Diego and Los Angeles County especially the Beach at Santa Monica which was the closest to Glendale where I lived. My Aunt liked the Santa Monica Beach but there was always about 50,000 people there it seemed during the summers when we went there starting around 1954 when we moved from Tujunga up against the Angeles Crest Mountains which go up to around 8000 to 9000 feet right next to the Los Angeles area. They are the dividing line between the more temperate climate and the much hotter in summer and colder in winter desert climates on the other side of the mountains there.

So, I became interested in surfing around 1960 and got into it around 1962 when I was about 14 with my best friend from High School Mike who liked to buy and rebuild car engines and race cars on the street.

So, this is what I would say to more easily survive surfing.

1. don't get too far up on the nose of the board while starting to surf down a wave because this can be really dangerous for your well being if the board nose dives and hits you in the back of the head. Later when you are good AFTER you are well seated in the wave if you are really good you might go forward on the board and hang 5 or hand 10. It just means you are putting your toes over the edge of the front o the board on a Long Board. Though you can be more maneuverable on a shorter board with a pointed front they are much harder to learn to surf on and you need to be really careful where that point is at all times. In fact, getting hit in the head with your board (even once) can be fatal. So, remember this when you embark on surfing so you don't get knocked out and drown from your board.

Another thing is that leashes (the rubber cord that attaches your ankle to the board) are both good and bad.

The good thing about leashes is you aren't left out to sea drowning while your board washes to shore without you. This happened a lot in the 1960s before people used the leashes. Also, a leash isn't very useful really on a long board in some ways because they are so heavy and they likely are more dangerous with a leash than a smaller board from my personal point of view.

However, I never learned to surf on the smaller more manueverable boards because I got out of surfing when my best friend was run over by some other surfer and he got the Fin or Skeg across his back and had to get well a month or two from that. Some surfers are sort of like Gangsters and dangerous to you staying alive if they think that break is there personal Turf.

So, at that point I became more interesting in Skiing after 1969 when this happened. Also, my friend after this got his jet engine certification and joined the Air Force to repair jet engines in Thailand for the Viet Nam War in Viet Nam. So, I didn't see him again until I was in my 40 because my parents moved to San Diego from Glendale and his mother moved to Santa Barbara from Glendale and we lost touch with each other because of the moving and the Viet Nam war.