THE UPS and DOWNS of GROMMETTHOOD
In the 70’s & 80’s at Burleigh
Still alive to tell the story……….!
You know, grommets these days get it so easy, back in my day it wasn’t such a cakewalk, no free boards, well sometimes, if you were one of the best, no free clothes, no free wetties,no free sunnies,no free shoes, no free anything. Until you had been surfing for at least 8-10 years and had also done well in heaps of contests.
Now ,the kiddies get everything, just for winning their local club championship, maybe there is more money now to spread around, but is that a good thing or a bad thing to give the kiddies so much money. You know we had to surf our arses off for free gear, which made you surf a lot better. Now the kiddies get it for being just an average surfer, they don’t progress as fast as someone who isn’t sponsored and is trying harder to get there, the main reason is that they think because they are sponsored they are already there, and don’t have to try as hard, as they did before they were sponsored.
Well anyway enough of sponsorship crap, lets get down to why it’s really so different now compared to then. In those days there was a thing called RESPECT. Which really meant if you were cheeky you were punished, oh so many memories of swimming out to the sharknets to retrieve your surfboard, climbing up the Norfolk pines 100 feet or more to get your board down while being pelted with anything your tormentors could find. One other favorite of the Burleigh boys was the old board up the stormwater drain trick, what they would do was take your board right up the smelly drain near the shed at the point.
Now this drain went right up under the caravan park across the road, and was usually full of sludge. So when you finally made your way up the pipe, under the road, looking out for rats, you would grab your board and bolt back towards the light, but the problem was at the end of that light was a horde of old bastards armed to the teeth with rocks and anything else they could find, ready to launch those missiles into the sludge, thus covering you with a vile green bacterium infected slime. After negotiating the mad mob of fossils you would head straight for the water to disinfect yourself of the E-coli bacteria hopefully able to surf again.
Another great punishment that still exists today is the old mud pit. Only thing is the groms these days, throw themselves in ,because they don’t want to be pounded, which has really taken all the fun out of it. Sadly that tradition is dying as are all forms of grom abuse due to new liability laws which really sucks as that is the reason most groms these days are cheeky, shit even their parents can’t hit them. One particularly large mud rumble comes to mind, it was an arvo after a quiet Burleigh club contest, we started having a few quiet ales. Well, as things progressed we started up the mud call, upon hearing this the groms scattered and bolted for their collected lives. The ones that ran far enough away, but close enough to see were treated to a debauched mud fest.We had no one else to get so we started on each other,10 drunk 20 to30 yr. olds, all got the same thought at once, lets get Coney so I was the first to go but not without a fight, nevertheless I was unceremoniously mudded,some fought harder than others
Ash took 5 of us to get him in, dodging thigh kicks and fly kicks and all manner of defense we got the big bastard in. After teaming up and getting a few more victims we set our sights on Frankie,now those of you who know Frankie will understand why it took 10 of us to get him in the mud, those of you who don’t, just sit back and enjoy the tale. When we finally nabbed him over near the cars we pounced,5 of us getting a grip tight enough to stop him for a minute.
As we dragged him away from the cars he latched onto a car mirror, that just so happened to be Ronnie milk’s, a few other cars also lost their mirrors in the struggle to get Frankie in the mud. After 15 minutes of headlocks and death grips, we finally dragged the awkward big behemoth into the mud. As he was lurching out of the mud he dragged 3 of us back down into it again. Finally getting out of his muddy grasp we went for our next victim, being in a mud frenzy we were relentless, Norm was next, he and Dooley were the only 2 left after Ern,Grommet,Ronnie and all of us were aggressively dumped in the mud.
Well norm headed for the hills, straight up the point heading for the track but we cut him off and started the long wrestle back down to the pit. Halfway down the hill he breaks loose and with a wild howl he races off down the hill towards the pit with us in hot pursuit 10 ft from the mudhole he launches himself into a perfect flying bellyflop,sraight smack bang in the middle of the already fouled mudhole with all of us piling in on top of him.
When we finally untangled ourselves from the quagmire, there was Pete standing there looking all spic and span without a drop of mud on him, partly because he turned up halfway through our carnage and partly because he was hiding. Well, he saw us all staring at him and did the Harold Holt,being his younger brother I have never seen his chook legs move any faster. It certainly wasn’t poetry in motion but it was something in motion, I don’t know what, it looked like a Cassowary on acid.
Well, let me tell you, to this day he was the only one that escaped the carnage and the slaughter that happened on that hot summer’s day a long time ago, but dont worry patch we will get you one day. Sadly now most old traditions are dying and that is one change in surfing in the last 40 years that I don’t like. Well, that’s the end of this story, but stay tuned there is more to come in Dwayne’s World.
a djharris original 5/9/00 new copy 26/4/02.