Raising A Soul Surfer (11 page)

Needless to say, sparks often flew.

Since the time when Captain James Cook first made contact in the late 1700s, Hawaii had become a melting pot of cultures as successive waves of immigrants came in; but by the second or third generation, they had become firmly rooted in closely interconnected relationships—people who had known each other since birth, the famous family, or
ohana
—where everyone was somehow related to everyone else. They even spoke a unique dialect: Pidgin English.

Throw a bunch of surfers and hippies into the mix, fresh from the craziest period of American cultural change, the sixties, and you had a recipe for conflict.

Tom was remarkably good at avoiding trouble. He understood that there was a pecking order in the surfing lineup, and that he would need to spend considerable time developing relationships with the locals in order to gain some kind of hesitant
acceptance. It didn’t matter how well he surfed, he had to make good with them on another level. Besides, Tom naturally has a laid-back, non-confrontational kind of personality.

That didn’t always keep him out of trouble.

As he had done in New Jersey, Tom would unleash the “Trickster” at a pool hall whenever he needed to scrape together some extra cash. He wasn’t a fool about it; he’d just win a couple of bucks here and there so no one would notice that the lucky young
haole
surfer was actually a pool hustler.

But one night, in Hanalei’s infamous Tahiti Nui Bar, Tom was naively cleaning out some of the local heavyweights using his skills with the cue ball. As these guys simmered they got quieter, so Tom didn’t see their anger escalating as they continued drinking. Suddenly, out of nowhere, one of them swung a cue stick at Tom’s head. His quick reflexes saved him as he brought up his own stick in the nick of time. It shattered from the blow, but better that than his skull. Tom wisely decided to give the “Trickster” a rest for a while and got a job harvesting taro.

On occasion, Tom’s red Kharmin Ghia (another uncanny coincidence?) broke down when he commuted to and from Kauai Community College. There weren’t many people with cars heading north at that time of the night, and even fewer were willing to stop for a longhaired hippie. Sometimes Tom would get stranded part of the way back with no prospect of getting home, and then the rain would kick in. Kauai is the wettest spot on earth, after all.

Resourceful, as well as gutsy, Tom figured out that many of the churches along the way were seldom locked. He spent a number of nights stretched out on a pew with the minister’s robe draped over him to stay warm. Of course, Tom was always gone before dawn, having carefully hung up his makeshift blanket where he had found it, all ready for the next Sunday morning.

It was as close to a church service as Tom had been for years.

After finishing junior college on the GI bill, Tom headed to Oahu in order to continue his education at the University of Hawaii. While living at Rocky Point on the North Shore, he became a polished surfer. With his genial ways, he became friends with many of the iconic figures of surfing at that time: Steve Cranston, Tom Parish, Jackie Dunn and Greg Lohr. Tom shadowed Jerry Lopez to determine his takeoff from the lineup at Pipeline. He often surfed Sunset when Barry Kanaiaupuni and Eddie Aikau were out. These legendary Hawaiian surfers represented the heart and soul of the surfing community.

Back in the ’70s, compared to Kauai, Oahu was a rat race. The surf spots were crowded and dog-eat-dog. Racial tensions were escalating, and episodes of intimidation were getting more frequent, culminating in the brutal beating of a group of famous Australian and South African surfers. There were even death threats serious enough to require police escorts to and from surf contests.

On top of these conflicts, there were the drugs and drug dealers, and the slow unraveling of the “Summer of Love” into a fractured, territorial hostility. Yet, among the hedonist and hippie surfers, something powerful was taking place.

Big-wave surfer Rick Irons was busy in his shaping room when Tom came in to have a custom surfboard made. Rick, uncle of the late world champion surfer Andy Irons and his accomplished brother Bruce, was a fascinating character who had been a U.S. champion in the sixties.

“Say, Rick,” Tom said, “what’s up with all the little fish you draw on the boards you shape?” Rick smiled and told him the fish was a sign that he was a follower of Jesus Christ. He then proceeded to share Christ and the forgiveness that was his because Christ died for his sins on the cross. Tom recalls that this
was the first time anyone had ever shared the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ with him.

It wasn’t just Rick Irons sharing this “good news.” Other young surfers around Tom were discovering a powerful relationship with God as well. North Shore surfers Mike Stangel and Bill Stonebraker also became Christians and, along with Rick, went on to become pastors.

Tom remembers hearing worship songs pouring out of the second story windows of Billy Barnfields’s place, another popular surfboard shaper. “I was curious and knew it was some kind of Bible study, but nobody had invited me, and I was too shy to ask,” Tom says, on reflection.

Up and down the seven-mile stretch of North Shore beaches, God was working in the lives of young, healthy and talented men and women within the surfing community. Some of them, like Tom, were hearing the good news of Jesus Christ for the first time—and not from some glossy evangelist or at a stuffy church service, but from someone they knew and respected—surfers and shapers. The relationship was the most effective way for the message to be spread—organically, and friend to friend, in this ocean-minded community.

While living at Rocky Point, Tom got to surf some of the most beautiful breaks on the North Shore. One day, he got a call from a friend back on Kauai telling him about a job as a banquet waiter at a resort there. The pay was great and the evening hours were perfect for a surfer. It was all the encouragement Tom needed to leave Oahu behind and catch a puddle jumper back to Kauai.

I know that a 21-year-old girl heading off to Hawaii with some guy she barely knows was not the average thing to do. But I left
for Hawaii with Chris, a surfing friend and traveling partner, who liked to do the same things I did.

It was also a very strange era, with folk rocker Stephen Stills singing, “Love the One You’re With.” We would end up being roommates with . . . privileges.

Once we were on Kauai, we stayed a couple of weeks with the friends that Chris knew well and grew up with. They let us stay in their attic. It was hot, dusty and full of spider webs. The only furnishing was a queen-sized mattress, but we were stoked because our only goal was to surf and hang out on the beach as much as we could.

It was a surprise to us when the hostess said, “Well, two weeks is long enough to have visitors. Aloha!” Being young and self-absorbed, I guess we thought we could live in their home and eat their food indefinitely, especially because she was such a great cook.

We decided to pool our money and eventually buy a van that we could live in, figuring that it would be a cheap and leak-proof way to surf all over the island. So we went out and camped on the beach until we were able to find a van. It didn’t take long to come up with the $500.

It was summertime, when the surf is normally flat on the North Shore; but there were lots of other things to do: diving, fishing or hiking the Hanakapi’ai trail along the face of the sheer Napali Cliffs to a magnificent valley and huge waterfall.

What we mostly did was pick up puka shells. These are small disk-shaped shells, actually the remains of a larger shell, with a hole (
puka
, in Hawaiian) in the center. They were strung together to make a puka shell necklace, which were, in the early seventies, all the rage. Islanders who had been walking over these shells all their lives suddenly realized that a can full of these fairly common little shells could net over $50—a significant sum at that time.

Our van was parked across from the huge cave and right in front of a surf spot appropriately enough called Tunnels. Living in our van near Haena Beach Park, we saw that some families had roped off entire areas of the beach to keep others from mining their “claim,” not unlike the gold rush in early California.

Chris and I decided that it would be simpler to find our puka shells underwater, so we spent much of the summer snorkeling around the shallows with an empty soda can in our hands, turning up the sand for the little shells. This activity kept us in shape and ready to surf when the waves returned.

Tunnels reef was the first place I ever surfed in Kauai. It was about the only place on the north side of the island that had waves during the summer. I never liked the wave all that much, because it dumped on a shallow reef, and I always came back in with cuts all over my feet. The wave runs along a deep drop-off channel, which was very spooky and a haven for sharks.

I couldn’t know then that this surf break would feature so largely in my life story; for it was at Tunnels that a shark attacked my daughter, Bethany, many years later.

You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you
would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that
whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you
.
JOHN 15:16,
NASB

I keep telling people
who hear about our past that Tom and I were
not
hippies.

The distinction to most people isn’t that great; but in my mind, even back then, it was important. What consumed me was the addiction of surfing, not dropping out, not political activism or communing with anything other than a nice glassy wave at an uncrowded beach or reef break.

Every waking moment I spent strategizing my daily plan to find and catch the best waves. I was the epitome of a
Soul Surfer
.

Hippies . . . well, hippies were the people living in Taylor Camp.

In the late 1960s, Howard Taylor, brother of actress Elizabeth Taylor, bought a chunk of land way out near the end of the road
on Kauai. He wanted to build a house, but the state wouldn’t grant him a permit to develop it; instead they wanted to condemn the empty land and then add it to nearby Ke’e Lagoon at the end of the road.