TURN IT UP, MOM

I had to get this down while it was still in my head. Sorry to report, there's not much in the way of a pay-off either, because there's just one Nat King Cole song down there. And this is not to necessarily inflict second hand significance. This is just why the song holds significance for me, and that's second hand as it is. When my Dad was a teenager, he was friends with Pat. This Pat was one of the first guys, outside of his brothers, that my Dad would roughhouse with, which landed him in a little trouble when he was in school. Nothing major, but memorable enough for him to use as an example about not succumbing to peer pressure when I was in junior high. (I'd been in a little trouble.) It wasn't until high school that my Dad's friend Pat would be anything but an old story. But, when I was 14, I bought my first surfboard and started started surfing, my Dad would tell me that his old friend Pat rode some big waves in his day, and said something along the lines of "if you ever hear of Pat Curren, that's the guy I hung around with." Curren, I would soon learn, was a prominent big wave surfer in the fifties. Yet, the more his name popped up in surfing books, or an odd oldie clip in a surf movie, the more I started to doubt that my Dad had actually been that good of pals with him. They just seemed so different. Curren was known for riding massive Waimea Bay fearlessly, at the same time my Dad was an ordinary suburban guy starting a family. Nevertheless, the former friend Pat stories kind of faded out, so the incongruity was never discussed.

Fast forward to the nineties. My Dad was visiting Mexico quite a bit. Long since divorced, he'd go down with his girlfriend, Mickey. Even after they broke up, they remained best buds, and continued to travel together. On one trip, I think it was in Cabo San Lucas, they became separated while in town. Tired of looking for my Dad, Mikey went into a bar to have a beer. There was an American there in the bar, and small talk was initiated. It turns out that the guy, roughly my Dad's age, had spent some of his teen years in Mission Beach. He gave Mickey a note to give to my Dad. She read it, and put it away to give to him later. When she eventually found him, she gave him the note. Unsigned, it read, (slightly paraphrasing) "I'll never forgive you for punching me in [teacher]'s class." My Dad, ten types of worked up, said "Curren's here?!?!" The note was from Pat Curren. I'm not sure, but think I remember that they met later that night to reminisce. Regardless, it just reminded me to keep stories, like my Dad's, open ended.

On a totally unrelated day, roughly around 2004, I was in a store somewhere that had cheap cassette tapes. They had a Nat King Cole tape that was about three of four bucks. My Mom kind of liked Nat King Cole, and I was on my way to her house, so I bought it. When I gave it to her she seemed delighted, reading the cover while we're talking. She put it on, and after several minutes, as one song started, she stood up, walked over to the stereo, and turned it up. It was unlike her. It was as if she was being transported. She got a smile on her face, and started quietly singing along. After the song ended she said that it reminded her of the first boy who ever kissed her. He'd been kicked out of another high school, and was way more experienced, but it was memorable to her. She said that the song reminded her of him, because he had unruly hair, and was often barefoot. That particular song was was a hit for Nat King Cole a few years earlier, and the boy seemed to fit her interpretation of it. Then, she said "It was Pat Curren." At this point, I'm half blown away, and half questioning whether or not she's pulling my leg. But, as she went into more detail, I could see her sincerity. "Did you ever tell Dad?" I asked. She said that she hadn't, because it never came up. It was then I realized that she hadn't heard the stories that my Dad had told, because it was driveway talk. Dad and son type shit. And she really didn't have a clue how respected Curren was in the annals of surfing; not at all. To her, he was just Nature Boy.

Notes: What prompted this whole thing was a video on Aquarium Drunkard (tonight's chance visit). It was a band called Dirty Gold, and the song (nice, a little soft for my tastes), was "California Sunrise". The video uses a lot of old surf footage, and Curren is seen a couple times (at 1:48, dark hair and beard, and again at 2:45, face down, asleep.) The three photos, that are not of Nat King Cole, are Curren; two from back in the day and the bottom one more current.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Nat King Cole - Nature Boy mp3 at Los Sueños de la Razón
Nature Boy, song entry at Wikipedia
Dirty Gold - California Sunrise video and blurb at Aquarium Drunkard
Dirty Gold - California Sunrise video at YouTube
Pat Curren, #45 of 50 Greatest Surfers of All Time at Surfer Magazine
Pat Curren Page at Legendary Surfers