a pack of pickled peppers peter piper pick
if peter piper picked a pack of pickle peppers
where's the pack of pickle peppers peter piper picked.
sugar is sweet and so are you
Twinkle twinkle little star
how I wonder where you are
up above the sky you are
twinkle twinkle little star
Leigh Hunt, 1784-1859
Jenny kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who loves to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss'd me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
Pontiac woodie.
If there is one fair generalization concerning the sport, it is the fanatical enthusiasm of its devotees. The fickle nature of weather and the ocean, plus the great desire for the best possible types of waves for surfing, have always made surfers slaves to rapidly changing conditions. Surfing Magazine, founded in the 1960s when surfing had gained popularity with teenagers, used to say that if they were hard at work and someone yelled "Surf's up!" the office would suddenly be empty. Also, since surfing has a restricted geographical necessity (i.e. the coast), the culture of beach life often influenced surfers and vice versa. Aspects of 1960s surf culture in Southern California, where it was first popularized, include the woodie, bikinis and other beach wear, such as boardshorts or baggies, and surf music. Surfers developed the skateboard to be able to "surf" on land; and the number of boardsports and spin-offs has grown ever since. Also, surfing (particularly in Southern California) has its own slang, which has coincided with Valspeak. Words like "tubular" and "gnarly" are associated with both.
Surfers have often been associated with being slackers or beach bums. Though this is hardly a proper generalization today, since surfers come from all walks of life, the basis of the stereotype comes from that same over-whelming enthusiasm, sometimes bordering on addiction, that surfers can have for their sport. Along with the rarity of truly perfect surf conditions (plus the bliss that is associated with them) and the inevitable hunt for great waves, surfers often become dedicated to their sport in a way that precludes a more traditional life in a capitalistic society. Surfing instead, becomes their lifestyle.
This has left a long history of surfers veering off the beaten path, and foregoing the traditional goals of first world culture in the hunt for a continual stoke, in harmony with life, their surfing, and the ocean. This is part of the definition of a "soul surfer" whose goals are certainly not that of every person who indulges in the sport, but a vibrant and long-standing sub-group.
Competitive surf culture (centered around surf contests and endorsement deals) is often seen in opposition to this, since it embraces more traditional capitalistic ideals. Since its inception there has always been debate about whether or not surfing for money and prizes is truly compatible with the surfing lifestyle. Though this debate has lessened in recent decades, since many of today's pro-surfers, seem to be able to straddle both worlds: the competitive surfer and "free surfer".
The historic surf village of Ocean Beach, San Diego, California, is a good example of a place devoted to the surfing lifestyle
[edit] Localism
Even though waves break everywhere along a coast, truly great surf spots are rare. A surf break that forms great surfable waves may easily become a coveted commodity, especially if the wave only breaks there rarely. If this break is near a large population center with many surfers, territorialism often arises. Regular surfers who live near to a good surf break may often guard it jealously, hence the expression "locals only"; or as the rock group The Surf Punks put it, "my beach, my wave, my girl, Go Home!". The "locals only" expression is common among many beach towns. These sayings are consistent with the territorialism that drives the beach culture and those that live on the coastal territories year round. The expression "Surf Nazi" appeared in the 1980s to describe territorial and authoritarian surfers. Localism is expressed when surfers are involved in verbal or physical threats or abuse to deter people from surfing at certain surf spots. This is backed by the belief that fewer people equals more waves per surfer. Other surfers, however, sometimes known as "soul surfers", hold less aggressive views towards others. These surfers see surfing as more than a sport; it is an opportunity to harness the waves and to relax and forget about their daily routines.
[edit] Big Wave Culture
A non-competitive adventure activity involving riding the biggest waves possible (known as "rhino hunting") is also popular with some surfers. A practice popularized in the 1990s has seen big wave surfing revolutionized, as surfers use personal watercraft to tow them out to a position where they can catch previously unrideable waves (see tow-in surfing). These waves were previously unrideable due to the speed at which they travel. Some waves reach speeds of over 60 km/h; personal watercraft enable surfers to reach the speed of the wave thereby making them rideable. Personal watercraft not only allow surfers to ride these waves but allow them to survive wipeouts. In many instances surfers would not survive the battering of the "sets" (groups of waves together). This spectacular activity is extremely popular with television crews, but because such waves rarely occur in heavily populated regions, and usually only a very long way out to sea on outer reefs, few spectators see such events directly.
[edit] Surf Terminology
Air - getting airborne
Aerial - airborne maneuver
Amped - charged up; stoked; fired
Backdoor - to pull into a tube from behind the peak
Bail - to abandon a board; jump off; usually without regard to the board's future
Bake - a closeout
Bashing - body surfing
Boost - getting airborne off the lip
Brah - from bruddah, Hawaiian pidgin for brother
Bro - a buddy or friend
Bucket - helmet
Bump - a swell
Bumps - the build-up of wax on a surfboard deck
Carve - symmetrical, fluid turns
Cheater five - five toes on the nose - keep your weight back on the board to maintain trim and speed, squat down and extend one foot forward
Clucked - afraid, intimidated by the wave
Crew - a group of surfers defined by break or area
Deck - the top surface of the board
Ding - damage to a surfboard
Dogging - going backside in the pit
Drop - as in dropping from the crest of the wave to the pit
Dropping in - catching a wave that is already occupied ... taking off on the shoulder while someone is taking off deeper
Drop in late - catching the steepest part of a wave
Dune - a big peaky wave
Epoxy - alternative board construction to foam
Falls - the pitching lip of the wave - don't get sucked into this
Fan - a fan of spray off a turn such as a water skier throws
Fluff - spray off the lip
Falls - top of the wave pitches out and throws a waterfall shoreward
Frigged - snaked
Fully - with commitment and intensity
Full on - with commitment and intensity
Gash - very sharp turn
Gnarly - awesome and intimidating
Going off - a break under optimum conditions
Gouge - sharp, fast turn
Gremmies - grem or gremmie is short for gremlin - Sixties US term for young, possibly or probably mischievous surfer, pre-adolescent surfer
Green room - inside a full cover-up tube
Grommet - adolescent surfer
Gun - a variant of board shape made for big waves
Gunned - under-gunned or over-gunned; refers to the size of your board in relation to wave conditions
Hiddie - from hideous, intense
Hoot - howling and yelping approval and encouragement to buddies
Jag - retreat after getting worked
Kook - someone posing very hard as a surfer. An unskilled surfer
Lip - the portion of the wave that is breaking and falling from top to bottom, especially in hollow waves
Nipped - nipples rubbed raw by board or suit
Noodle - exhausted, overall condition or specific as in noodle armed
Noseride - to walk up to the front of the deck
Meatball flag - black with a yellow dot in the middle, means no surfing today
Pop - kick out
Over the falls - inadvertently riding the lip of a wave as it breaks rathen than the face of the wave
Pit - the hollow-est portion of a breaking wave
Pitch - throw - angle of any run to rise
Pitted - being in the pit of the wave
Pearl - to go pearl diving, the nose of you board submerges and usually the wave pushes the rest of the board over the nose, you too
Pintail - the shape of the tailend of a surfoard, tapering to a point
Pop-out - a surfboard that comes from a mold for mass production, in contrast to being shaped.
Poser - a non-surfer playing the role of a surfer
Pucker factor - the effect an intimidating wave has on ones ability to remain relaxed
Puff - a spitting wave
Pumping - above average large swell
Quiver - a surfer's collection of boards, a board bag that holds several boards
Rails - the side edges of the board that interact with the wave's energy
Rip - to surf to the height of one's abilities
Rocker - the bend in the board, as in a rocking chair
Room - inside a large barrel
Schlong - thick, long, old style single-fin surfboard
Squashtail -
Squid - unlikeable individual
Scab - a reef or rock
Scabbed - getting damaged by a reef or rock
Shred - ability to execute rapid repeated turns - shortboard term
Sick - excellent, top notch - describing a surfer, stunt, maneuver or conditions
Sideslip - when your board stops tracking forward and moves sideways
Slam - bounce off the lip as it begins to pitch
Slash - cutback
Snake - paddling around behind someone who is in position and stealing their wave. Effectively the snake is taking ownership of the wave by being the closest rider to the breaking portion of the wave
Stink-eye - hard, cold, menacing stare
Stoked - geared up, wound up, full of enthusiasm
Stylie - with good form - with grace
SUP - stand up paddle surfing Surfer's knots - large bumps on the tops of feet and on knees caused by callusing where one continuously contacts a board
Stuffed - getting driven under the water by a wave coming down on you
Swish - a meek or fearful surfer
Thrashed - when a wave lays a beating on you
Throwing tail - sliding the tail in a turn, breaking the grip of the fins
Thruster - a surboard with 3 fins with the center fin more towards the tail
Tow-ins - getting towed into waves that are too large to paddle into
Trim - adjusting your position on a board so that it planes, and achieves its maximum speed
Tube - the cylindrical or cone shaped hole created when the lip pitches out far and clean enough to create a space between the wave and the falls
Vertical - turn straight up the wave
Waffling - rapidly working the board back and forth
Wannabe - wan-na-be, someone who wants to be
Wax - paraffin + color + scent + additives to make it apply at specific temperatures. Used on deck of boards for traction
Wipe out - a fall, particularly a spectacular fall
Worked, getting - the action a wave plays on you. It feels like being in a large washing machine
[edit] Issues Affecting Surfers
Global warming, environmental damage, and increasing riparian development may continue to increase pressure on the sport. Oil spills and toxic algae growth can threaten surfing regions. And, many wealthy homeowners have tried to prevent free access to beaches in violation of English and American common law traditions, in which "the strand" is not private property.
Some of these stresses may be overcome by building of artificial reefs for surfing. Several have been built in recent years (one is at Cables in Western Australia), and there is widespread enthusiasm in the global surfing community for additional projects. However, environmental opposition and rigorous coastal permitting regulations is dampening prospects for building such reefs in some countries, such as the United States. A major big wave cultural group in northern Australia in called "clarkey", and are known for their aggression and passion.
[edit] Spirituality
A surfer memorial service, Huntington Beach Pier, Orange County, California.
Australian surfer Nat Young tried to register surfing as a religion, but to no avail. Many surfers combine their love of the sport with their own religious or spiritual beliefs. In Huntington Beach, California for example, a local Christian, non-denominational church occasionally meets on the beach for Sunday early-morning services. After the closing prayer, the minister and his congregation paddle out for a morning session. In addition, many surfing communities organize and take part in memorial services for fallen surfers, sometimes on the anniversary of passing such as the Eddie Aikau memorial service held annually at Waimea Bay, Hawaii. Participants in the memorial service paddle out to a suitable location with flower leis around their necks or with loose flowers (sometimes held between their teeth)., The participants then get into a circular formation, hold hands, and silently pray. Sometimes they will raise their clasped hands skyward before tossing their flowers or leis into the center of the ring. Afterward, they paddle back toward the beach to begin their surf session. Often these services take place at sunrise or sunset. In locations with a pier, such as Huntington Beach, Orange County, California, the service can take place near the end of the pier so that any non-surfers, such as elderly relatives, can watch and participate. Often the participants on the pier will throw down bouquets of flowers into the center of the ring.
� Spirit of Surfing
� West of Jesus: Surfing, Science, and the Origins of Belief
� The Tao of Surfing
[edit] Quotes About Surfing
� � "It's just the best way to start your day. People who surf, they know the object is to have fun. You work hard, but you work hard to have fun." - Cynthia Derosier
"when your surfing your living,everything else is just waiting" ~Josh Mitchell
"All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I'm fine." - Jeff Spicoli
� "In one place we came upon a large company of naked natives, of both sexes and all ages, amusing themselves with the national pastime of surf-bathing. Each heathen would paddle three or four hundred yards out to sea (taking a short board with him), then face the shore and wait for a particularly prodigious billow to come along; at the right moment he would fling his board upon its foamy crest and himself upon the board, and here he would come whizzing by like a bombshell!" - Mark Twain
� "Surfing wasn't about money back then. Surfers always lived cheaply and scraped by." - Mark Cunningham
� "It's a culmination of your life of surfing when you turn and paddle in at Mavericks." - Jeff Clark
� "It's all about where your mind's at." - Kelly Slater
� "Your done, once you're a surfer you're done. You're in. It's like the mob or something. You're not getting out." - Kelly Slater (from Step Into Liquid)
� "None but natives ever master the art of surf-bathing thoroughly." - Mark Twain
� "The idea that an individual can find God is terribly self-centered. It is like a wave thinking it can find the sea." - John Templeton
� "It was so big [the wave], it didn't even know we were there."[1] - Daniel Webber
� "Surfing soothes me, it's always been a kind of Zen experience for me. The ocean is so magnificent, peaceful, and awesome. The rest of the world disappears for me when I'm on a wave." - Paul Walker
� "How would you like to stand like a God before the crest of a monster billow, always rushing to the bottom of a hill and never reaching its base, and to come rushing in for a half mile at express speed, in graceful attitude, until you reach the beach and step easily from the wave?" - Duke Kahanamoku
� "Out of the water, I am nothing." - Duke Kahanamoku
� "Wipe Out" Surfaris
� "Sometimes in the morning, when it's a good surf, I go out there, and I don't feel like it's a bad world." - Kary Mullis
� "If you direct your attention to the position of a bird with regard to the wave surface, it will speedily be noticed to be nearly always on the rising side or face of the wave and moving apparently at right angles to the wave's course, but really diagonal to it." - Lawrence Hargrave
� "I tried body surfing once, but how often do you find a corpse?" - Emo Philips
� "You will never hear surf music again." - Jimi Hendrix
� "Then, after I've gotten rid of Batman and Robin for good, I will rule the waves. Me, the Joker, king of the surf and all the surfers. Then, Gotham City! Later, the world!" - The Joker from Batman
� "There is that desire to go surf the waves by yourself, just you and nature and I will never do it again, never." - Davis Bunn
� "Give us back our suffering, we cry to Heaven in our hearts� suffering rather than indifferentism; for out of nothing comes nothing. But out of suffering may come the cure. Better have pain than paralysis! A hundred struggle and drown in the breakers. One discovers the new world. But rather, ten times rather, die in the surf, heralding the way to that new world, than stand idly on the shore!" - Florence Nightingale