Joe Funderburg: Surfing Is

Below is an essay written by Joe Funderburg for an English II assignment while he was in high school. Dated February 6, 1966, his words reflect not only his personal thoughts about surfing, but also the relationship between man and the sea.
Surfing is many things to many individuals, but purely and simply, a healthy, vigorous, beautiful sport. Surfing is a release from exploding tensions of Twentieth Century living, escape from the hustling, bustling city world of steel and concrete, a return to nature's reality.

For sheer spontaneous action, surfing is unbeatable. It quenches man's thirst for challenging natural elements. Spiritually and physically, it makes the surfer part of the sea, while the sea, in turn, becomes part of him. Surfing is excitement and physical diversion, yet more. Like all great sports, surfing is a succession of experiences, sensations and impressions, a remembrance of lazy days at a favorite beach; laughter, friendship, golden sunsets and fires at dusk.

Surfing is climbing from a warm bed in pre-dawn's coolness, a sleepy drive, coffee and doughnuts at a roadside diner, and the clatter of surfboards as they're unstacked from a car rack.

Surfing is the joy of watching a sun rise slowly into the sky. It's crisp, clean waves, crest blown high by an offshore wind. It's grey mist, dampness and cool sand under barefeet, the loney cry of a gull sweeping across the silent, brooding seas.

On a big day, surfing is a strong swell and waves that have lost their playfulness. Then its stomach knots, high exultation, a trace of fear.

Surfing is sharing a wordless silence, broken only by the sound of a bar of wax moving back and forth across a board. It's mounting tension before the first takeoff, enthusiasm for the next wave when the ride is over. Surfing is a good ride, brief seconds yet a culmination of endless hours on a board. These fleeting moments of exhilaration and release are days, months, years, of time and experience.

Surfing is the endless search for a windless day, an uncrowded beach, the perfect wave. Surfing is a special kind of madness, a feeling for the sea, a combination of love, knowledge, respect, fear-instinctive perception gained through repeated contact. Surfing is a moment of achievement, of glory, of unsung triumph.

For the man, surfing is freedom and youth rediscovered, and for a boy, a means of expression vital to his being. For both, it's fun, surfing is great.

 

Page created and maintained by:Peter Fritzler,  Randall Library, University of North Carolina Wilmington

First online: June 4, 2004
Last update: October 30, 2007

Citing This Page:

Funderburg, Joe. "Surfing Is." Cape Fear Surfing Archive. William Randall Library, University of North Carolina Wilmington.
[Created: June 4, 2004; Updated: October 30, 2007; Cited]. Available from http://library.uncw.edu/surf/people/funderburgj/assignment.htm.