Monte

I was pretty young, but not too young. i remember sometimes dad would take the kids individually surfing with him when they were young but not too young. on one of these occasions dad chose me to go surfing with him. he told me about this guy we were going surfing with, his name was monte and he was a firefighter.

i was young enough and old enough to know that firefighters were the manliest man people out there. they fought fires and scored chicks or something. they saved kids and cats from fires and trees and then went home and punched a bear in the face without even caring. they were it. and i got to go and meet one for reals with dad.

i remember he lived in santa cruz, or at least somewhere around there. we drove down a road that had a freeway on one side and a bunch of eucalyptus trees on the other. dad and i probably listened to dire straights which was the norm for trips to santa cruz in those days. i learned that you could get chips for free and that dire straights were sultans, just like babe ruth. monte's house was perched precariously on a hill. i remember i thought it kind of looked like a tree house but built for a hill instead of a tree.

i dont remember the exact moment that we met, but i definitely remember that monte's mustache was awesome. he had a thick handlebar mustache. most mustaches are handlebars to bicycles or pogo sticks, monte had a harley, like two caterpillars hiking up his chin and kissing just under his nose-- radical caterpillars. i remember him talking to dad. we were sitting at a table and i think we were drinking something, but i don't remember much more than watching his mustache move up and down. im sure monte had a nose, a mouth, ears, eyes, etc. i just didn't care, i had never met a mustache like that before and it mystified me.

i remember him saying we were going to surf at a place called sharks. i must have visibly shown the concern in my childish heart at the thought of surfing at a place called sharks cause monte's mustache turned to me. it started to move and words came out from underneath it, "dont worry kid. its called sharks because there arent any sharks there." I WAS YOUNG! of course i believed him. so, we went surfing at sharks where there werent any sharks.

i remember the ocean floor at sharks was rocky and there almost wasn't a single patch of sand to walk on as i made my way out to where the waves were breaking. once i got about 30 feet out into the water the rocks had been replaced with thick sea weed that grew out of the ground like grass, grass that grew too tall for the green house and was curving at the ceiling and creating a thick canopy of vegetable spagetti. i could catch spiders, i like catching frogs, playing in the dirt was a part of my daily routine, but for some reason this thick sea grass gave me the creeps. i remember my hands barely touching the water as i paddled out to monte and dad.

i was scared to try and catch the waves. the water was shallow and i knew that beneath the sea weed soup there were jagged rocks. monte must have used the same ESP as before when he saw that "sharks" scared me. he turned to me (what a glorious mustache) and said, "when you fall just make sure to go butt first. tuck your feet in and let your butt do the work. God made our buts soft for a reason." that reassured me. i probably surfed that day and, knowing that i have never been great at surfing, probably spent a lot of time jumping butt first into the sea weed forest.

we went home after that. my dad and i took highway 17 and probably listened to the free chips and babe ruth rockers while monte drove home in his red truck where he promptly punched a robot assassin in the face, roasted hot dogs over a forest fire, and put medieval turkey leg meats under his masculine rainbow and into his mouth and probably never realized he had changed me. the handlebar mustache was off limits. he never said it but i knew it, he knew it, and my dad knew it. monte owned the handlebar and to grow one would be like stealing the crown jewels of england, only worse cause he was a firefighter and could eat 14 lbs of bufalo meat without dying. you dont mess with that.

its sad that i saw the pinnacle of facial hair power at such a young age, now i have nothing to look forward to.