MyPaipoBoards Forums

Here are the latest paipo interviews:

• Donny Roth, "North Shore paipo rider, posted on May 12, 2018

https://mypaipoboards.org/interviews/Do ... 0210.shtml

• Robert Hosking, "He didn't have the body of a surfer … or the ability "

https://mypaipoboards.org/interviews/Ro ... 0706.shtml

• Jack Coberly, From riding big waves to marine encounters

https://mypaipoboards.org/interviews/Ja ... 1202.shtml

We're always interested to hear from someone with a paipo story.

Inspiring as always. Once again thank you Bob and Rod for the interviews.

Not that you guys need any more work, but the thought crossed my mind the other day that it might be interesting to revisit or solicit updates from people. Time passes and things change. Always interesting to see pathways...

Nels

Nels,

Thanks. Are you volunteering to be a candidate for an update?

Some get small updates - Larry Goddard sent me a copy of the only known photo of him surfing. Robert Moynier even has 2 interviews.

There are also about 5 or so people we interviewed who have since died. I will soon send Rod an interview for a guy who died during the interview process - it took a couple of years to get it all together.

Rod had alos been considering adding a section where people could comment on the interviews.

Bob

I suppose I should, but at this point it would be less of an "update" and more of an "observation". I'm coming off a confounding extended period of health issues and a variety of other more outside influences that, taken together, remind me of the old Warren Zevon line "put me through some changes, Lord, sort of like a Waring blender". We're going into North American Summer as this is being written, my personal skies are clearing...we'll see what the near-future brings. I really, truly, have no idea the surfing direction I'm going to take next.

Watched on broadcast television the WSL team contest at Slater's "surf ranch" wave pool this afternoon, and had my mind blown...and not by the surfing. I've always been a wave pool supporter, going back to riding Big Surf n Arizona back around 1969. But this wave...it looked like the best wave in the world. It looked like the same as a left or a right. It looked like they could reproduce it 24/7. It looked to me, all things considered, like there is nothing in nature that could compete with it as a consistent wave resource. And all that is now churning around in my head...the ocean is literally irrelevant to surfing now, as long as one has the cash or connections. Surfing is no longer kind of like skiing or snowboarding; it's like golf. And I hate golf...

Nels

Very much agree w/ Nels both about thoroughly enjoying the interviews and also about hating golf (played 9 holes once in high school about 1967 and that was it forever). Slater's wave pool is an amazing creation. Flawless, perfect waves one after another forever. And almost completely divorced from nature. It's a simulation of nature. So if all you care about is personal performance i.e. putting on a show, it's pretty cool. If you have any interest in "connecting with" or being embedded in the natural world and all that old hippy stuff, kinda sucks. Golf is the perfect analogy. If my understanding is correct, golf started as totally "in the rough" in Scotland (Loverly weather for a round today. Only a little sleet and the wind isn't more than about 20 knots...) and is now in totally manicured to perfection, controlled in almost every way, man made parks.

My golfing career probably consists of being with my kids playing mini-golf somewhere.

The Slater wave is impressive, when seen as a wave & surfer alone. Putting a wider lens on I see the machine generating the wave, a pool and people lounging around and other stuff. Surfing is a bit like fishing - if you are a shark they are the same thing. Some people never catch fish and just enjoy sitting there with a line in the water. For me surfing is a bigger experience than just catching a wave. I have been experimenting lately with using a Go-Pro. It's interesting watching back the bobbing around and seeing waves come and go and the view of both land and sea.

Nels,

Is your e-mail address likely to be the same one as I had from 2010? If not send me a PM.

Same email, Bob. Jeez...was it that long ago I sent the dvd and photos?

Nels,

7 years in a flash. No wonder Rod is wearing out, he probably thought the interviews would last a couple of years. They have dried up a bit but there are still stories to be told.

I'll drop you a line.

Bob

LOL, I told you, Bob, that the interviews would keep coming! And some days and months I do feel old and worn out. But it is more other world events that Nels touched upon above that mix things up... aging parents and other fact-of-life events. Also had a laptop stolen last year and getting adjusted to Windows 10 (and adjusting it) took some time. Guess was I wasn't prepared for was how the 16:9 orientation of laptop screens has removed so much vertical space on the screen making it more difficult to work on html interview layouts and other things with a word processor and spreadsheet, so my 14" new laptop is very different than my old 14" laptop.

Some fun projects, too, like porting over Nels's old surfing website to mypaipoboards.org.

None of us are getting younger. The project to preserve and unearth the past continues. Once the books flatten out the old photos I was sent and I turn them into digital images, another one will be on the way.