A Surfer in Vermont A Fish on Dry Land? Maybe Not!

There are surfers here. It's a spring and summer and early fall ordeal but it's here (not here, this state is landlocked but next state over) and there is winter surfing as well if your really looking for empty waves. Most of them are on snow boards right now and really bummed from the lack of snow this winter. They and the snow plow drivers. Everyone else is happy for the lack of snow. And I'm bummed because I haven't been in snow country since I was a boy and I still have a child's excitement when it does snow and I wanted to see it piled everywhere like I was told it was last year. It's not that it hasn't been cold here. It's been freezing, even by Vermont standards, but there just hasn't been much precipitation coming our way. But the ski lifts are grooming and I guess it's good. The Snowmobile owners are bummed too.
I always will be a surfer. It's something that a surfer is for the rest of his life. Even though I started late in my life, I always had an affinity for the sea and it really expressed itself in my surfing. It was one of the few things in my life where I totally fit in. A few months after I first stood up on a board I was nose walking and cutting back. Then it all went south.
Something happened. I don't know what exactly...pardon...I do know what happened. It all became so romantic and I almost forgot that I was living in the 21st century and started to wonder why all these yuppies were out on expensive equipment giving attitude and dropping in on me and my circle of friends. Everyone under 40 was a friend of Andy Irons and Kelly Slater and everyone over 40 had known Mikki Dora and Phil Edwards back when the Bu was the Bu when on a crowded day there were only 10 guys out when men were men and bla bla bla.
I always preferred country surfing, That's surfing in rural areas with empty windswept beaches and empty waves with maybe 4 or 5 people out who shared waves. Generous people, excellent surfers with gracious egos who really knew the meaning of aloha.
In Southern California this is really a tall order. But I did find this utopia occasionally when I arose at four AM and paddled out in the dark. There were freak days at Malibu when there were waves but for some reason not very many people were out and the ones that were, were smiling and sharing waves and having a good time. But this was not the norm. Most of the breaks where crowded and full of angry men of all ages who seem to have an ax to grind with the environment around them. I imagine they are the same people who road rage on Southern California's freeways. With the ever increasing population of women in the lineup I figured that it would mellow things out a bit and it does on some occasions but it does not address the overcrowding of surf spots.
There is no denying that the sport of kings is very in style and the likes of Justin Timberlake, Prince William, Adam Sandler and Ashton Kutcher on the pages of people show just how chic the whole sport has become. But there are two types...People who surf and there are surfers. Not that people who surf have no right to surf or anything but it really clogs up the lineup when people see these celebs in the mags. But it didn't matter anyway. I was getting tired of drop ins and no place to park. I lived in Hollywood because it's just too damn expensive to live at the beach now. Hollywood was ten miles from the beach and ten miles through Los Angeles traffic and all the other driving I did to find surf up and down the coast was taking it's toll not to mention sky rocketing price of gas. That and physical issues that overcame me and I found that I was unable to surf. In a mournful decision I decided to leave Southern California and move to a simpler environment.
One day last summer I was driving across a bridge over the Connecticut River that connects Walpol New Hampshire and Bellows Falls Vermont. I was heading for Vermont and a car heading for New Hampshire passed me on the bridge with a small quiver of Surfboards on the roof. A longboard and a few thrusters. I had just made the move from Southern California to Westminster Vermont about five miles south of Bellows Falls, still in my 1966 beetle with a surf rack and Calif. plates, we shakaed in the middle of the bridge and at first I didn't think anything of it but then it occurred to me suddenly how far the sea was from me, about one hundred miles (that's one hundred miles of two lane highway), and I realized that New England really does have surfers.
I have met surfers here. But it is still an obscure curiosity. I am sure that the Maine Coast has it's share of surfers and from what I have gotten to know about Mainers (people from Maine)...They probably be apt protect their breaks quite diligently. The water is cold even in summer but that never stopped me before. There is also Rode Island, Cap Cod, Long Island, New Jersey and the whole Atlantic coast to the south. My Arthritis is being treated, it seems to be better than it was.
Careful what you wish for...for you just might get it. Finding a lost coast somewhere on the rocky coast of Maine perhaps. Spending large amounts of money for surfing equipment, dealing with New England locals and once again chasing that stoke!