Big Saturday…the Story

Back when cable first arrived in the neighbourhood where I grew up I remember watching a movie called, “Big Wednesday” every time it came up on the HBO rotation. Friends and surfing. Gary Busey before the head traumas. The great Gerry Lopez surfing some incredible waves. From that moment on “surfing” went on my list of things I had to do some day along with hot air balloon, bungee jumping and skydiving. So far I’ve been 0 for 4 despite two attempts at skydiving, including the full lesson that were thwarted by weather. This past Saturday I finally gave surfing a try.

I was sick the night before and my original plans for a ride didn’t work out but eventually I ended up, mostly thanks to my brilliant wife, at Lawrencetown beach in Nova Scotia. Waves were crashing in and people were out in the water all along the beach paddling out on their boards. I pulled in to the parking lot and found Andrew and the crew who had camped out overnight and had already been surfing since early that morning. Andrew took me over to the rental shop and got me hooked up with a wet suit. Water’s pretty cold here and the suit helps. I took the one-piece into the dressing room, stripped down and suited up. I fought to get the thing on. I twisted, turned and eventually fought the knee pads into place but couldn’t get the zipper to work right. I’d already told everyone the bravest thing I’d do that day was walk out of the dressing room in the tight wetsuit.

I stepped out of the dressing room and started over towards the group to get some zipper help. Andrew saw me coming and got this big grin on his face and came jogging over to me. He kindly herded me back to the dressing room as he said, “You’ve got it on backwards…”

I thought to myself, “It can only get better from here…”

to be continued…

p.s. that’s a picture of the actual beach. actual pictures of me at the actual beach have been taken but my lawyers are working over time to block their publication…