I am really excited about Barbarian Days. Talk about a great read. It is a memoir by New Yorker staff writer William Finnegan and his life told through surfing. He learned to surf at a very young age in southern California and then later in Hawaii when he was about middle school age. He was born in 1952 so his early years were in the 60’s when life of course was a lot different than it is now.

In Hawaii he talks about getting up every morning before school and paddling his board out to surf before going to school. Nobody went with him, no safety gear no nothing. At that time I was in Price, Utah and Eagar, Arizona and although far from the surf, on weekends, when we were not doing chores, my brother and ranged far and wide on our bicycles and got into and out of scrapes that my parents never heard about. Such parents would make the headline news now days as they managed a perpwalk with handcuffs led by deputies. Back then, kids were on their own much of the time.

Anyways, Finnegan’s account of the social pitfalls of school and staying out of the way of the bullies really resonated with me.

From there the story takes off on his adulthood as a surf bum going around the world, cadging cash and money as he could in search of desolate beautiful waves. I’ve never been surfing and never will go surfing but he sure makes it sound fun and terrifying at the same time. He talks about being pulled down to the bottom of the ocean and held there by powerful waves, sometimes two waves in a row ( a double wave hold down he calls it.)

He writes about the social pecking order out on the “Lineup” waiting for the waves. The big dog locals get first pick, visiting kooks (newbies) get the crumbs.

He gets a little older and finds a calling as a journalist and not a reporter who reports on the latest zoning fight at the board of adjustment. He reports on Apartheid in South Africa and Latin American revolutionary wars. He goes where the action is and sometimes where he can find a wave.

He gets a job at the New Yorker but still finds waves in the Atlantic and he is getting older but he still enjoys them backs off a little bit from the big ones.

This in one of the best books I’ve ever read and recommend it highly. It is still $14.99 for the Kindle version. I got my copy at the library. It took me longer than two weeks to read it and I’ll get it back to them today because I am getting daily emails about all sorts of terrible things are going to happen to me if I don’t return it soon.

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