I’m the only surfer in this high school annual photo. Me, in front, my board, an Oceanside 9-foot-6 Nose Rider, orange, easy to spot after wipeout (no leashes then). I lead John, Tim, Richard, Elizabeth balanced on top, trusting four high school boys not to drop her in the Daytona dunes. Bob (also an “S”) shoots the photo. Just a group of Esses on the winter beach. We are featured in the annual’s “S” page, headshots predictable, all in Catholic School uniform, hijinks saved for the beach pic. We tried to be the Beach Boys, us guys, hoisting surfer girl who wasn’t a surfer but smart, nice, defying gravity. She’s now in the Colorado mountains, I hear. Tim owns a bookstore in Philadelphia, not sure about John, I was Richard’s best man at his wedding, before I abandoned beaches for the Rocky Mountains. Richard is out in the Florida bush. Bob died during Covid. We were friends, roommates in a broken-down house in Gainesville. Bob the arborist, trimmed trees, grew homegrown. We were 17 or 18 on this day, 1968, class of ’69. The world boiled around us. We were on the beach. Just us kids.
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