All of the La Jolla hotshots were there —Tim Lynch. Rusty Priesendorfer. Reed and Joel Wayne, Skip Frye — except one

Do you know what it is to be an old surfer? To hustle waves from kids who weren't even born when you first learned how to catch a wave? To pull out all stops beneath the pitching lip of a long, aqueous wall with the complete understanding that, at the ripe old age of 30, you are headed nowhere but over the hill? Have you felt your heart in your throat as Arctic swells darkened the horizon, paddling for your life, when all you hoped for that day was some playful weekend sport, working the kinks out in the sunlit pulsings of the wide, blue Pacific? Now, once you've seen the shadows of age, do you know how to keep from relinquishing your surfboard to the quicksand of modern adulthood, a musty corner, say, in the garage of the house you won't own outright for another 30 years, your coastal dream cottage that's in dire need of a fresh coat of paint, more eater than you can possibly afford to keep the lawn green, and the semblance of a nursery for the child yoru wife has just reported is well on its way?

It was about a dozen years ago [~ 1974] and cold and gray, probably early spring, and there were waves working at the Shores: nothing spectacular, but the wind had picked up during the night. Little tubes spun off up and down the beach. Veils of spray rose from the tops of swells as if mist from Rainbird sprinklers. All of the La Jolla hotshots were out after a week of rains and slim pickings. Tim Lynch. Rusty Priesendorfer. Reed and Joel Wayne…. Was that even the venerable Skip Frye, riding one of his new-fangled Eggs or perched on a longboard, slicing through a barrel?

So long ago, and who can remember the good days of one year from the good days of the next? There was one surfer that day, a good surfer, who didn’t get any waves at the Shores or anywhere else. Sometime during the night, Gary Keating had given up on surfing and on everything else besides. He sat in a parked car, the engine idling, with a garden hose running from the tailpipe to the front seat through a gap above the driver’s window.

I never heard anything more than that. The fact was suicide, and the victim was a surfer who had attained the status that I was more than eager to ruin my life for. Pictures in the magazines. A steady job at a surf shop. Free boards as a test-rider for a big-name manufacturer. Invitations to contests worldwide.

There was speculation, of course, regarding the whys of Gary Keating’s death. A recent commitment to Christianity, some argued, had failed to deliver the goods. A way with women, said others, had never been one of Keating’s strong points. Yet perhaps the best hypothesis I heard was offered by Eric Orloff, like me at the time, another young buck in the water, and today, apublic defense attorney when he's not out stroking for waves.

“Keating hadn’t been surfing much the last two months,” observed Eric, “and not at all these past two weeks. Cause or effect, who’s to say. But the thing is, Gary hadn’t been out on the water. That’ll kill you every time. You gotta stay stoked.”