Well, I had a completely different topic I was going to ramble on about today, but my brother side tracked me from that. Nostalgia is a helluva drug.
About a week ago, I was looking at some old photos from the late 80s when we'd beach camp just south of Santa Cruz. A very toe headed me was sitting in an aluminum beach chair (with multi-colored webbing) reading a surf magazine. You can make out the two page spread and that got me jonesing to figure out what exact issue that was. Do I have a copy of it already?
That, naturally, led to me finally cataloging all the surf magazines I have (97 issues with a handful of repeats because I know you're going to ask). The bulk of them came via a friend of a friend, so I have an amazing amount of late 70s and early 80s issues when I'd much rather have a complete set of, say, Jan 87 to Dec 91, but whatevs.
Anyway, allllll of that got me wondering what year we started beach camping (we used to always go to Yosemite) and I had a decent idea, but needed confirmation. Well, in again swoops my brother the archivist who dropped me a handful of scans this afternoon. Including this little ditty...
Isn't that a classic hammock? Anyway, that's my dad, Summer of 88 reading the September 88 issue of Surfing magazine. Based on what I'm wearing in other pictures from that same trip, I can say with confidence that I'm reading that issue in the picture I mentioned at the start of this post!
And, no, I don't currently have that issue. But I want it. I need it. Like I said, nostalgia is a helluva drug! And would you believe the only example I can find right now is on ebay for $30?! Sorry, no surf mag is worth $30. Half that? Okay, I'm game. For now, I'll keep hunting.
And if you happen to have issues of Surfing and Surfer magazine between 1987 and, say, 1992 and you want to give them to a loving home, reach out to me!