The wild glint in your eye and John Severson

I not a big fan of most of the hundreds and hundreds of surf publications out there these days

Partly because I'm long past the target demographic they shoot for.

And of course there is that "only once in a blue moon" shot of a mat, a hand plane or just someone body surfing photo policy. (if you don't advertise here we don't run your picture) I understand the approach from a business point of view but as a stoked surfer it makes no sense at all and quite literally leaves me wanting more. Thank goodness for the Surfers Journal and the thousands of bloggers out there that keep the stoke alive.

Another reason the current Action Sport Retailer cataloges are basically unreadable is that I grew up reading SURFER.

I had an older brother that took up the sport not long after our family moved to Huntington Beach in 1960. A big part of being in the tribe at the time was reading SURFER, along with Levi's, a white t-shirt, huaraches and a Pendlelton. I'll leave out the weird hair requirement because one it was weird and two I have never fully understood it.  Although it would be a few years before I got my own board we were in the water whenever we could.  Funny thing everyone used to body surf. If you were captured by the allure of the ocean then the next step was renting a mat from one of the stands during the summer. !! After the stands closed you used a crudely shaped piece of plywood as a Paipo / body board while you saved you paper route money for a surfboard.  I still have splinters from being almost cut in half by those suckers, but I digress.

SURFER magazine and by that I mean John Severson and his band of editors, photographers, artists, writers and well surfers keep the stoke torch burning all those times we couldn't get a ride to the beach, in school or the surf was just plain old flat as a pancake.

Not only did he keep the stoke alive but during the late sixties he and his magazine took a very anti Vietnam war stance. This no doubt cost him thousands in advertising and cancelled subscriptions. The magazine continued to be a good read, was full of stoke and had a social conscience for many years.

Thank you Mr. Severson