Bestowing the highest praise upon a surfer.<\/p>\n \t\t
It might have been dad who pushed me into my first wave, but truth be told my formative surfing years probably owe more to my mother. Indeed, had my mum not surfed I might never have come to be.
The story goes that it was the late 60s when a young carpentry apprentice headed to Maroubra to see a man about a job. Of course when he arrived early for the meet-ing he realised the waves were pumping. Crisp lines wrapping into the long, scal-loped beach that was bookended by a forest of unit blocks at one end and the green expanse of a rifle range at the other. With work on the mind dad had neglected to bring his board, so he tried his luck with a girl who\u2019d just left the water and was clutch-ing a Mal. Few girls braved the surf and the macho Maroubra scene back then, but the way the long-limbed brunette carried the board seemed to suggest she could handle the crowd and the waves. Dad wasn\u2019t after her number, just a go of the board. The outgoing Maroubra girl must have seen something trustworthy in the handsome, young apprentice and happily lent him her log. He had a surf, got the job, and then a few weeks later he was at a dance-hall and bumped into the good-natured girl who\u2019d loaned him a board. And so it was that mum met dad, and some seven or eight years later I came along.
Growing up, I remember other stories being told around the dinner table. Like the time there was a women\u2019s contest at Maroubra and mum was out in the water. She hadn\u2019t officially entered, but when the siren signified the end of the heat, mum had been nominated as the winner. \u2018Go ...<\/p><\/div>\r\n\t\t