When Woodbridge “Woody” Parker Brown first beheld La Jolla in 1937, he wasn’t looking to surf. A glider pilot, he preferred air currents to wave breaks. His wife would tow his motorless airplane to the …
December 19, 2024
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Stories by Chris Ahrens
Reader writer Chris Ahrens tells the story of Windansea
The e-bike memorial at Santa Fe Drive and El Camino Real tells all
I would happily argue that electronic bikes, or e-bikes as they are commonly known, have changed the transportation of humans more than anything since the invention of the internal combustion engine. These vehicles, which combine …
May 22, 2024
Finn Madsen’s FlexWave: the next wave?
Forty-four-year-old Finn Madsen grew up two blocks from where I lived in Cardiff. I would see him around when he was a young man; he rarely spoke to me or anyone else, and I figured …
January 31, 2024
Foilboards fun but not cheap
Like skateboarding, snowboarding, sailboarding, and kiteboarding before it, foilboarding sprouted from the promiscuous seed of surfing. While foilboards and surfboards appear similar if observed from the deck, their bottoms differ radically. Surfboards have fins. Foilboards, …
November 29, 2023
Happiest places in San Diego: Stater Bros., Resilience, Taylor Guitars, Hansen Surfboards
It’s another dreary Monday morning in this, the summer of yuck. As what feels like the whole world races onto a single, dreaded workaday I-5 onramp in Oceanside, stress reaches the breaking point. Horns honk, …
September 27, 2023
Ups and downs living in San Diego's safe harbors
At 2200 square feet, the average American house offers ample ways of escape from the inevitable (if occasional) unpleasantries that accompany extended cohabitation. Each party can usually find a corner into which to retreat for …
June 21, 2023
In-Ko-Pah’s Desert View Tower, the edge of nowhere
Party at the snakes' place The joke is that nobody is from here, because we are on the edge of nowhere, but, sure as snake’s teeth, the right kind of folks will settle just about …
April 10, 2023
Reader writer puts repentant bad boys on YouTube
Video:You Don't Need a Record To Attend Set Free ChurchThe painter Michael Cassidy is either the least or most practical person I know. Least in that he doesn’t measure success in terms of money; most …
January 4, 2023
Reader writer tests alternative medicine on self
Alternative medicine has been defined as “Medical therapies not regarded as orthodox by the medical profession, such as herbalism, homeopathy, and acupuncture.” But while those practices may have been filtered out from the mainstream of …
July 13, 2022
Why Cardiff, Encinitas are vortex of world skateboarding
On the second day of the second month of the twenty-second year of the twenty-first century, a skateboarding legend and a future skateboarding legend discussed their chosen sport within earshot of a writer old enough …
Alana Nichols, Mary Bressi, Sandy Ordille learned to trust the ocean
“If Ponce de León wanted to find the fountain of youth, he should have jumped off the boat.” —Lifelong surfer Skip Frye A paralympic superstar turns to the waves In 2016, 60 Minutes featured local …
December 15, 2021
Dennis Martinez leads the swap of guns for skateboards
A farewell to arms It is my guess that none of the 298 guns — shotguns, .22s, .38s, .45s, and the occasional AR — turned in to the Vista Sheriff’s Department at their “Guns For …
September 15, 2021
Oceanside car guy finds the Holy Grail – and proves it
These days, many family garages function as little more than halfway houses for discards on their way to the Goodwill. Or maybe home-adjacent storage facilities: a place for keeping holiday decorations between holidays, camping equipment, …
July 7, 2021
San Diego's surf stars and those who've settled for next best thing
“Whenever some kid tells me they want to become a pro surfer, I suggest they take up a tennis racket.” — Four-time World Surfing Champion Mark Richards There are an estimated 17 to 35 million …
June 2, 2021
San Diego models of happiness
The only time I was ever really happy was as a boy, surfing the waves at Malibu. — John Paul Getty While there is no straight road to happiness, I learned early on what would …
October 14, 2020
San Diego immigrants sound off on race
I grew up in the United States with a German-American father and a Mexican-American mother. Her name, Lupe, was a common feature of racial jokes at the time, but I could camouflage my Hispanic roots …
August 19, 2020
Oceanside – eclecticism reigns
Homes at end of Oceanside Blvd. claim emergency The city never got approval,” says Mackin. “They just started doing it. These homeowners had carte blanche to put as much rip rap as they wanted on …
July 13, 2020
Bobbi and Mark sleep above the lions in Alpine
Lions and tigers and bears. Is it possible to say the words without at least thinking of Dorothy’s punch line? But a stronger exclamation might be appropriate as Nola the 600-pound white tiger leaps ten …
July 1, 2020
A San Diego dumpster diver's honor
“We’re a wasteful country. A study by the USDA from 1997, but still in wide use, reports that ‘5.4 billion pounds of food were lost at the retail level in 1995.’ The ‘retail level’ applies …
June 10, 2020
San Diegans who will be ready for any disaster
I don’t recall when I first heard the word “prepper,” but it was definitely derogatory, perhaps a step above — but certainly related to — “hoarder.” A prepper, as I understood it then, was someone …
May 6, 2020
The holy ghost of Archie Moore
His was once the most celebrated name in boxing—“The Old Mongoose,” “Ageless Archie,” or simply Archie Moore, the longest-reigning light heavyweight champ. Archie was born in Benoit Mississippi, as his mother claimed, or Collinsville, Illinois, …
January 29, 2020
Oceanside – California's best kept secret
From the moment we spotted the billboard proudly shouting: “Oceanside, California’s Best Kept Secret,” as we wheeled in from L.A. on southbound Highway 101, my brother Dave and I were frothing. Crossing that imaginary line …
October 16, 2019
Jacumba – the far edge of San Diego
A quiet street and an old hotel Jacumba is a kind of living ghost town out in southeast San Diego County, on the Mexican border, in what’s called, the Mountain Empire district. It has come …
September 2, 2019
Ryan Burch and Carl Eckstrom – outlier surfboard designers
While the world seems geared toward breeding out individuality, surfing celebrates those who successfully break predetermined boundaries. Still, in a time not long ago, fog shrouded our tribe’s favorite activity, and we tumbled into what …
July 10, 2019
Surfing owes a lot to Baja
The Baja Peninsula is a Rorschach test. Visitors see heaven or hell in an arid landscape. Three million-plus citizens see a homeland free of the congestion of their northern neighbors. Surfers see a crooked finger …
April 17, 2019
Taylor Guitars’ master guitar designer, Andy Powers has built guitars for Taylor Swift, Zac Brown, Edge from U2 and others
Andy Powers plays a little ditty he made up on the spot on a guitar he built by hand, in the home he rebuilt to perfection. Powers, who ranks among the best guitar makers in …
March 21, 2019
Find money, fins, and Frisbees in the "stank bank"
The great kelp forests off our coast grow up to two feet a day under ideal conditions. At their peak, individual strands can reach over 100 feet in length. Usually, however, they are ripped from …
March 5, 2019
Algae-based surfboard foam produced in Ensenada
After 44 consecutive years in business, Gordon “Grubby” Clark, closed his doors for good. Clark’s company, Clark Foam, once produced most of America’s surfboard blanks, the foam cores essential to building surfboards. His closure resulted …
March 4, 2019
Oceanside’s link to “Once Upon a Time in the West” pedal steel great Buddy Emmons
Nothing cries as convincingly as a pedal steel guitar. While that sound breaths emotion into Hawaiian, country, and even rock n’ roll music on occasion, it is more often associated with Nashville than Oceanside. Yet …
February 28, 2019
The five-star surf spots of San Diego
Tijuana Sloughs in the south and Cotton’s Point in the north bookend the 70-some miles of San Diego coastline. Sandwiched between these two deep-water reefs is one of the lushest wave gardens on earth. Prime …
February 26, 2019
In-ko-pah flying saucer tour
If I were ever going to see a UFO, I figured it would be in the desert. Then, last Tuesday while innocently driving through In-Ko-Pah, near Desert Tower, that rock edifice standing lookout over a …
February 25, 2019
Mat riders in Point Loma and Encinitas
Before the invention of the Morey Boogie Board in the early ‘70s, the surf mat was the vehicle of choice for the novice wave rider. Until that time, liquor stores along the coast rented these …
February 19, 2019
Surf lingo revisted: 1976 to 2019
When Jim Mullin wrote about “San Diego Surf Lingo” for the Reader in 1976, most surfers in our area were riding seven-foot single fin surfboards, smaller twin fin, Fishes, or the newly revived longboards. Progressive …
January 28, 2019
Emerald Isle Golf Course concerned with every little bird
It’s been over half a century since comedian Jack Benny cut the ribbon signaling the opening of Emerald Isle Golf Course in southeast Oceanside. Since then the course has doubled its original hole count from …
January 21, 2019
Sleepers – they look slow and drive fast
Michael Bream’s original down to the oxidized paint 1965 VW twin cab pickup is what auto racers call a “sleeper.” Sleepers are cars that look slow and drive fast. Bream’s vintage VW qualifies by appearing …
September 17, 2018
The advantage of a custom board
“When you add it all up, a surfboard costs a few cents a wave.” — Legendary surfboard shaper, Bill Caster Generally ranging between 800 and 1,200 dollars each, custom surfboards seem expensive until considering the …
January 2, 2018
Another surfer-turned-manufacturer
Carl Ekstrom began surfing in 1948, four years after his brother, Woody, had mastered the sport at Windansea, from where the family was nearly forced to move after their rent was raised from $12 to …
October 2, 2017
DIY surfboard shaping — cool but not too cool
In the early 1960s, surf shops, which had been little more than beach shacks where balsawood blanks were sculpted into surfboards, were replaced by storefronts where surfboards were sold along with T-shirts and trunks. By …
September 12, 2017
Tiny surfboards
Paipo boards are small wooden surf craft made to be ridden prone. Alaia boards are paipos’ bigger brothers and can be surfed while standing. While known in Encinitas for building and riding both traditional-style paipos …
September 4, 2017
Tim Bessell will make you an Andy Warhol surfboard — for $8,000 to $40,000
Artist Andy Warhol became famous for finding art in things as common as soup cans. While surfboards are not that common, pop art’s crown prince did have a brief brush with the functional art form. …
August 15, 2017
Where are Mike Doyle, Mike Hynson, Skip Frye, Joe Roper,Chris O'Rourke, Chris Godfrey, Larry Gordon, Tom Bessell now?
Just prior to the advent of the pro surfing tour in the mid 1970s there was a group of San Diego-based surfers who set the pace for the sport. They helped dictate everything from how …
June 25, 2017