Are you grouchy? Step inside!
If you visit our little corner semi-regularly, you’ll know that we try to be anti-depressive. Oh sometimes we fail and fail miserably but the goal is almost always for smiles. Our world is serious enough and surfing is so not! So let’s dance, let’s play, let’s smile and let’s have us some fun!
But even when all of our joy cylinders are pumping at max speed our anti-depressive doesn’t even come close to surf legend Corky Carroll’s. And are you aware of him? Do you know? Let us turn to the good doctor Matt Warshaw, who writes in his Encyclopedia of Surfing:
Flamboyant goofyfooter from Surfside, California; winner of the United States Surfing Championships in 1966, 1967, and 1969, and the sport’s chirruping master of media in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. “He’s been cheered and booed,” surf journalist Jim Kempton wrote in 1998, “reviled, honored, laughed at, accused and credited with everything from defiling the name of surfing to inventing the career of ‘pro surfer.'”
Today, Mr. Carroll writes a column for the Orange County Register and if you’re ever feeling down just take a quick read! Like, today he sends the entire time discussing who he is so thankful for since it is, in fact, Thanksgiving week in America.
Simple, yes, but also so wonderful and so… so… ebullient!
After marching through his list, including kids, wife, doctors, neighbors etc. he ends on this note.:
I might not be the freakishly handsome road warrior athlete god that I once was (shut up, it’s my story) but the good news is that I can still paddle out and surf every day at my tender old age, and THAT is something I never forget to be thankful for. It might not be pretty, but it sure is fun.
Ain’t it ever!
Are you going to be Thankful this Thanksgiving or will you be a grumpy gus?
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Hey runs a lil operation down in Mexico. A hotel/retaurant in Manzanilla Bay by Troncones. Sick, albeit burgery left point…but awesome for someone who surfs backside 90% of the year. He’s kinda a big deal down there. He seemed like a very nice person.
HBHS alumnus.
Corky for president…
Corky–he always seemed to walk the line between ‘self-promoter’—and somewhat cool surf cat. Glad to hear he’s doing well.–We all have a lot to be thankful for..
What kind of stupid question is that? LAAAAAAAME
Grumpy gus it is
One of the best and funniest men in surfing for sure. He used to take it apart at cloudbreak and restaurants and hold comic court at a dining table morning, noon, and night…but never, ever, ever did he take a razor blade to Johnny Boy’s leash.