JD's Journal : People : Surf Bar Stories : : Keith is in his forties, a good-looking guy
from California and long-timer surfer. We're sitting around the bar at a surf
camp in Mexico, and he's telling stories about surfing in the 70's. "Came down
to South America in a VW bus", he says. "Picked up the lead guitarist for Wishbone
Ash and his girlfriend, and drove on up into the Andes. Ended up at Lake Titicaca.
I sat by the side of the lake for a day and meditated. Got sunburn on the top
of my eyelids. We dropped acid and played Frisbee at Matchu Pitchu, right there
in the ruins - spent the afternoon with these Norwegian chicks in the hot-springs
down the mountain". He's the same age as me. I spent that time working in a computer company in
England, sitting in pubs in the evening, and then listening to reggae while
smoking horrible brown hash in a large water-pipe and watching black and white
horror movies on TV. Keith may have made the better choice. a. He's traveling the world indefinitely, having sold a business on Maui. Right
now he's into his third year on the road. By this time, my opinion of Bob is pretty different than when we started talking,
and I'm wondering who Natalia is. Just then, a gorgeous woman with dark, black
hair gets up from a booth where she's been writing and wanders by, and touches
Bob on the shoulder. She's got to be about 25 years younger than him and I don't
think she's his daughter.. She makes a fine entrance to the tiny hotel bar - wearing an Indiana Jones
hat, sloppy grey tee shirt, baggy army pants and black army boots. Oh, and a
long pigtail. After getting to know her a little bit, it seems clear that the
Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider look is very slightly an affectation - only slightly
- it's mostly practical, she would hasten to add, but the fact that it's a little
deliberate makes it more fun to watch. She's intense, and can talk with great
enthusiasm about rock walls, shell fishooks and population migration for several
hours, whilst remaining interesting - no mean feat. She has great stories about living with indigenous people for long periods
of time. Here's one: Her friend was going to live with the Bontok (I may not have this spelling
right) people in Northern Philippines. Her friend has sandy hair, a fair complexion,
and freckles. It took a while for the Bontok to figure out her coloring - she
might have been made of air, or not have any blood, for example, and they needed
to sort that out. Then they started asking about her freckles, and there is
no word in their language for "freckle", so they asked "are those your tattoos?"
"Sure", she said, "those are my tattoos". Now it turns out that the Bontok are
headhunters. They were supposed to stop in the 1970's, but, well, they haven't
gotten around to it yet. When a Bontok man takes a head (this is the kind of
phrase Felicia tosses around in casual conversation), the women in his family
are allowed to wear a tattoo. Felicia's friend has a lot of freckles... "Wow",
said the Bontok with some respect. "Niiiiiiice tattoos"....'
b. He has a love affair with Russia - spends half a year there sometimes
c. He does surf, on a 7'8" he shaped himself.
d. He shaped the board in Nias, having discovered a few blanks in the back of
a shop there.
e. He spent "several months" in Indonesia this year.
f. He also shaped a 6'10" for "Natalia"