Want to know the Champ? Get to know his one-of-kind
mama…
How about we start at the beginning? Back in
1986, when Alex Florence, from Ocean Grove, a Christian seaside
community, in New Jersey (yeah, the not-so-glam part of New York)
and the sweetest of sixteens, told her parents she was going to the
North Shore and asked if they’d, like, mind, driving her to La
Guardia airport.
The surfing thing had been in her head ever since she was 12 and
she was soaking her brain every day in surf movies like Beyond
Blazing Boards and riding skateboards all over town and surfing in
oversized wetsuits.
One day Alex was sitting in the room of one of her pals watching
surf vids on the portable television set with the giant video
cassette recorder hooked up and said: “I’m going to be one of those
girls!”
With a backpack and a skateboard and a couple of c-notes in her
purse, the lil blonde teenager landed in Honolulu, walked out to
the Nitmiz and just stuck out her thumb. She stepped off in Haleiwa
where another gal, who was 19 but seemed so worldly, picked her up
and said,
“Say, girl, do you need a job?”
Uh, yeah.
Well, we’re filming this movie, North Shore and…”
Do what I did and download the movie and check out the Halloween
party scene 20 minutes in. Sure is a scene. Laird Hamilton is in
lycra pants and his bare torso is painted in purple and lime zinc.
A bearded Gerry Lopez is the Hui leader Vince, sullen, supping
beers and looking evilly serene in a red bomber jacket and yellow
tee. And, there, but don’t blink, is Mom John squeezing past the
female lead Kiani and the Arizona wave pool champ Rick Kane. Yep,
that shoulder length tangle of permed blond hair in the leopard
skin lycra is the same gal who, five years, later would birth the
first of three remarkable kids.
But, this is 1986, and, man alive, ain’t there some partying to
do! The set of North Shore, which also starred eighties surf star
Rob Page and perennial icon Mark Occhilupo, is a 21-day bender.
Three weeks ends too fast and Alex needs a place to crash and a
job. She scoops up a room at Velzyland, just south of Sunset, and
the most Hawaiian of the North Shore’s beachfront neighbourhoods.
Fifty bucks a month for her room and Alex becomes one of five gals
on the North Shore that actually surfs
And, yeah, V-Land is tough but the heavies take a liking to this
tiny blonde thing, this little sister from the mainland. Back then,
the gnarliest cat was a guy called Junior Boy Moepono, 150-plus
kilos of Polynesian threat. And, for whatever reason, Junior kept a
protective arm around Alex.
Later, Alex’d move to Kauai for a year, setting up at Hanalei
Bay, right where the Irons kids grew up and then she’d take off to
Bali for six months. Australian surfers taught her how to ride a
motorbike in Poppies Lane. She hopped a boat to Lombok for a while
and then did the 24-hour bemo-ferry run to G-Land where she got so
lit up by malaria she had to call her parents to get flown
home.
But, do you think little Alex can live in Ocean Grove?
Chasing money and more adventure, Alex grabbed a cruise shop
waitress gig with a gal pal who happened to a beauty who’d just won
the Miss San Antonia beauty pageant. Her friend brought along her
boyfriend and together they cruised the Caribbean.
Soon, more adventure. This time Europe as a backpacker. The
couple had split back on the cruise ship and Alex and the guy
travelled to Europe, strictly as pals. Separate beds. Totally on
the level.
But, then, one night in Austria.
A few drinks.
Laughter.
Stumbling into the cold night.
One night.
One night in 1990 and the creation of John John Florence, named
after the American president’s little boy, the kid who bravely
saluted his Dad’s coffin in front of millions of Americans. Yeah,
that’s a name that has strength, that has courage.
Alex remembers driving in her ancient Valiant, the ex-husband
gone, John, five, Nathan, three, Ivan, a baby at one-and-a-half,
looking over at her little boys and saying: “What do you guys want
to do? We don’t have to do anything or be anywhere? We can stay out
til 10:30! We can go to thrift stores!”
The partnership didn’t work. How could it? Three little boys.
Ain’t a lot of cash in the house they rented at Rocky Point. Dad
soon disappeared into the penal system.
Alex remembers driving in her ancient Valiant, the ex-husband
gone, John, five, Nathan, three, Ivan, a baby at one-and-a-half,
looking over at her little boys and saying: “What do you guys want
to do? We don’t have to do anything or be anywhere? We can stay out
til 10:30! We can go to thrift stores!”
Alex took her kids everywhere and despite what y’might call a
massive hand break, felt this sudden freedom. A total freedom. She
took them everywhere. And that summer after the Dad split Alex
packed up the house and with her three little ducklings that
followed her everywhere, flew to Bingin in Bali where she knew a
local family who’d let ’em stay in their warung, cheap.
Sure, she didn’t have much money, but here they were living on
10 dollars a day, and they stretched out their resources ($1200)
for a sublime four months. Little Ivan, who was just over two then,
had broken his leg on the trampoline before they’d split but Alex
was cool, she just carried her kid everywhere.
Back on the Shore, Herbie Fletcher, a pioneer of jetskis in the
surf, was towing John John into bombs when he was seven. Here they
were, back at Rocky Point, just one house back from the sand,
funded by taking in up to 10 boarders at a time, squeezing ’em into
three bedrooms. Alex’d let floorspace for $250 a month. Whatever it
took.
They built a half-pipe in the yard. Magazines British Vogue, US
Vogue and Elle couldn’t help themselves when they heard about this
gorgeous solo surf mom and her shaggy haired boys. Alex felt like
she had a guardian angel. No money, but she was on the beach, was
feeding her three boys and, well, you tell me that this ain’t the
life.
Meanwhile, Alex was studying for her degree in English
literature at the University of Honolulu. And, this is where it
gets real good. Alex says that if you saw the size of her student
loans, which she’s only just paid off, you’d think she was the
“gnarliest surgeon ever.”
But, her gig was using her loans to support the family, to raise
the kids. She didn’t want to leave her kids with just anybody. So
she went to school at nights and took in boarders. Yeah, sometimes
dinner was corn flakes, but the kids were playing outside in the
sun and were getting pushed (or towed) into waves by a role call of
surfing icons including Nathan Fletcher, Danny Fuller, Kala and
Kamalei Alexander, Herbie Fletcher and Pete Johnson.
Jamie O’Brien, too, but he was always a little crazy and’d
sometimes throw dog shit at the kids. But, he also got John into
contests and pushed into waves during his first-ever heat, aged
four.
And, it wasn’t all surf. Nathan, a smart kid, would gobble up
whatever lit books Alex threw at him, from Bukowski to Tom Wolfe.
He’d mow through a thousand-page volume in one day.
Still, these were, are, ballsy little kids. Alex has lost count
of how many times she’s thrown a bleeding kid in the car and
hot-dogged it to emergency. John’s broken “almost everything”, his
neck, his back, legs, wrists, arms, ankles. Ivan earned 55 stitches
in his face (rogue fin) after he paddled into a 25-footer that
would later be nominated for the Billabong XXL wave of the
year.
Eventually, they were squeezed out of the house by a sale, an
owner moving back, whatever it was, Alex can’t remember.
So Alex and John John, now 10 but mature beyond his years,
’cause he’s seen some shit out there on the Shore and he knows what
it’s like to live on nothing, were walking down the street that
runs parallel to the beach and talking about the situation, saying
stuff like, “Oh man, what are we going to do now?”
And, as they’re walking, there’s this little beach house, just
on the corner of where they live now, and Alex, being Alex, sees
this car in the driveway, looks at John, who nods, and they walk
right up to the owner, their brown faces break into gazillion watt
smiles, and they say, “How about it?”
And, suddenly, they’re at Pipe.
And, the rest, y’might say, is the first day of the rest of
their life.
