WK # 4-- Post # 2: Pump House Gang

I found this article to be a great read. Tom Wolf was masterful with his punctuation; he was truly able to "speak" through his writing using a certain attitude and lingo that completely transported me to Windansea Beach during the 60s. Throughout the article I found myself being, perhaps, overly critical of my own experiences surfing. I thought to myself: "shit, I am a total city boy--a complete kook by the Pump House Gang's standards." I've "haired-out" plenty in my city-boy life, trying to make a buck and participate in society.

Though, if I am being honest, I've been fighting a tug of war with myself  for years. I am 30 years old. I have worked my ass off in jobs, and I've also checked out of society several times when I've gotten to the point where I feel like I am working just to pay bills and have "stuff." Ultimately, however, what I realized after reading this piece, is the Pump House Gang and others like them were/are brats. That is not to say there is nothing they can teach us. They represent a valid expression of human life which lives completely free, day in and day out. Their every move was free-flowing; there was nothing forced, or false, contrived, or phony about them. Still, they were brats. They had the luxury of time and resources. To be born and raised within walking distance of a beach is, to me, a huge luxury.

By the time I graduated high school I had moved seven times across three different states, and I had been enrolled in six different high schools--of which I attended five. I've been working legitimate jobs and paying taxes since I was 15--and not because I wanted to, but because I had to to survive. The Pump House Gang didn't know how good they had it! The same goes for so many young people like them growing up in small beach towns. For instance, I often think about the young people growing up in Santa Cruz and the bubble they think is universal. It's like, come up to Oakland or San Francisco and start talking about the Westside or the Eastside of Santa Cruz--no one will care.

Basically, I enjoyed the excerpt for the sheer nostalgia of it, and I could see where the mindset of young beach brats might lead them to believe so strongly in their Peter Pan fantasy to go so far as to committing suicide before growing old. And, I know I sound cynical here, but I truly appreciated the expression of life that Tom Wolf exposed with his piece. The Pump House Gang was unique, and they showed us all that, in fact, we need very little to live an enchanting life.