[HN Gopher] The Day Hobie Made Nixon a Surfboard
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The Day Hobie Made Nixon a Surfboard
Author : iancmceachern
Score : 36 points
Date : 2025-03-15 16:54 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.surfer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.surfer.com)
| mlsu wrote:
| This is a topic near and dear to my heart!
|
| 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.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| Are there any hobbies/activities that aren't constantly moving
| upmarket? I am having trouble thinking of any.
| cbsks wrote:
| Skateboarding?
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Yeah, I would say skateboarding or rollerblading. Probably
| slacklining as well.
| dendrite9 wrote:
| I figure BMX might count although I'm disconnected from
| that scene for some years. I think it had to survive
| getting big and commercial before money moved on to other
| (bigger) things.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I've thought about this a lot. Across a all of my hobbies
| I've seen shrinking markets, decreasing sales, fewer
| consumers, decreased companies in the space.. and offset by
| higher prices and longer product cycles.
|
| 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.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| "hobbyist GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) such that people
| spend more time reading/watching reviews/shopping/trading
| gear than they do actually doing their hobbies. "
|
| 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.
| pimlottc wrote:
| I read something once that said there's 4 main modes for
| interacting with any hobby: doing the thing, talking about
| doing the thing, collecting gear for doing the thing, and
| talking about gear for doing the thing
| mulmen wrote:
| This is brilliant and absolutely describes my personal
| experience. I think the "doing the thing" can also be
| broken down into subcategories of "doing the thing with
| the thing" and "keeping the thing working to do the
| thing". My hobbies are motorcycles and pinball machines.
| They both require significant maintenance time, to the
| point that alone could be a hobby.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| I want to say either woodworking or recreational drug use,
| but I don't know enough about either to be sure.
|
| 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
| decimalenough wrote:
| Beach bumming is still alive and well in Australia. There's
| thousands and thousands of miles of beach, all of it
| public, and while local councils try to clamp down on
| people living in vans, there's only so much they can do.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| How about beach bunning near good surf spots? A bum must
| entertain themselves after all.
| quesera wrote:
| > _Beaches are all owned by rich folks_
|
| 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.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Coastal_Commission
| dav wrote:
| Disc Golf holding steady I suspect.
| dmkolobov wrote:
| Freakbike building is one, although rather niche :)
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Yes, but they're the ones that are hard to talk about because
| they necessarily remained unpopular.
|
| Collecting beanie babies?
| nradov wrote:
| Maybe basketball? If you have access to a public court then
| it doesn't cost much. We still see some top NBA draft picks
| who grew up relatively poor, without access to expensive
| equipment or private coaching. The equipment makes less
| difference in basketball than almost any other sport.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Over time new knees amd such get expensive
| LeroyRaz wrote:
| I feel like most hobbies are cheap or free:
|
| - 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...
| tayo42 wrote:
| Surfing exploded in the 10 years becasue of the 100 dollar
| wavestorm. The hobby is too accessible imo.
|
| 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.
| xbar wrote:
| In the mid-70s we'd play soccer at a school overlooking the
| western White House.
|
| 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.
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