

California Street: Learning to surf in the sixties - Thevet
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/07/24/california-street/

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comrade1
To me surfing feels like running - you spend most of your time in that
meditative state you reach when running, sitting on your board going up and
down on the waves, watching the ocean and waiting for a good one.

The difference of course from running is that there's no feeling like when you
see a good wave coming and you start prepping, lay on your board, start
paddling, and then catch the wave. It's almost more like hunting.

I used to live in Ventura and surfed almost every day but now I live in a
landlocked country - Switzerland. I run almost every day and get that
meditative feeling, but I only get that excitement here of catching a wave
that I had in Ventura during the winter when I ski off-piste.

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gtani
i met a few people who've river surfed in Switzerland and Germany. Every time
i asked them which river and where, the answer was "Can't say".

Kind of like Palos Verdes or Mendocino, but there's some good footage e.g.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdEcIYwl_H8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdEcIYwl_H8)

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jimbloat
Oh, thanks for this. I will read any thing by William Finnegan, especially if
it has _surf_ anywhere in the title.

Playing Doc's Games ([http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1992/08/24/playing-
docs-ga...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1992/08/24/playing-docs-games-
part-one)) is an amazing article.

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Nicholas_C
My youth in rural Texas was punctuated by a two year stint in Florida during
middle school. This article really resonates with the memories of my time
spent there in the 00s learning to surf and skate with my buds. Great read.

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pbrb
this just makes me want to surf, and regret staying in Chicago for work

