A snarky remark by my friend Kevin changed everything I thought I knew about surfboards. After parking in front of his house by San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, I unloaded the hefty eight-foot surfboard that guys like us ride when we reach middle age. But Kevin, 62, appeared with a snazzy little 6-foot-4-inch shortboard that looked like something 11-time world champion Kelly Slater would have ridden in his heyday.
Shortboards are like Formula One race cars—insanely fast and fun, but super hard to ride. Kevin and I both gave them up back in the 1990s. And yet, here was Kevin scoffing at my big old-dude board with a friends-don’t-let-friends vibe, and saying, “Is that really what you’re riding?”
