Week 4 response

This week's articles were very interesting to me, especially the Hynson piece. The story of how he had adventures of smuggling film through India was very descriptive of the strict international regulations at the time. The best part was how he came up with the idea to smuggle hash using a hollowed out surfboard. The surfboard was a relatively unknown piece of equipment at the time so it attracted a lot of attention. Regardless of the attention though no one in foreign countries knew the makeup or weight of a surfboard so it worked very well to hollow out a board and stuff it with hash despite all the difficulties he had doing it. The article really showed how drugs played a large role in surfing culture both in obtaining them and their use. It was really apparent in his story that obtaining these drugs using his wits was not only important to himself but also gave him social recognition in the eyes of his peers. The Wolfe article focuses on gangs, more specifically age groups, and the effects they had on society. The connection it had with surfing and living in garages as well as the impact it had on the nightlife in La Jolla shows how ingrained surfing and its lifestyle is in California and United States history. These social effects are easy to observe through these personal stories and display perfectly how they mesh with popular culture at the time, by communicating the importance in age difference we can get a better look about what was socially important at the time. The event where the girl with no ID with her getting turned down from a club because she "didnt look younger than 25" almost shocked me because of how much things have changed since then.