Sam George has told many surfing stories before. But never his own. Until now. Photos: Child of Storms
In the pantheon of surf storytellers, there aren’t many who compare to Sam George in both volume and quality. Call me biased – I’ve worked with him for 15 years – but in terms of finding incredibly interesting tales and disseminating them into digestable content, he has few equals. He brought the legend of Eddie Aikau to life in an Emmy winning 30-for-30 documentary, worked with Stacy Peralta to usher big wave surfing into mainstream consciousness in Riding Giants, and led the editorial departments of both SURFER and SURFING, penning hundreds of magazine articles through the years.
But there was one story he’d never told in full: his own. Until now. This month, Sam’s memoir, Child of Storms, will be released to the public. I spoke with my friend about his new book, how surfing has shaped his life, and how, despite all the negativity that sometimes swirls around our pursuit, he remains staunchly optimistic about the future of wave riding.
Tell me about the title, Child of Storms: A Surfing Memoir In Progress.
Writing the intro to the book, I started out describing the birth of a wave, of an ocean swell. I’m not the first person to use the analogy that every single wave is born in the heart of a storm. Then as it grows, it moves out away from the source. I called swells that surfers ride “the child of the storm.” Then when I was thinking about the image that I wanted to put on the cover of the book, it was a picture of my 12-year-old self.
I’m standing there, with my very first surfboard, next to my dad, and I’m looking at my 12-year-old-self thinking, “Wow, 58 years of chasing and dedicating my life to waves.” And I realized just like the waves, I’m a child of the storms. It fit in my description of that medium to which I’ve dedicated my life to.
The author dialed in, Punta Mango, El Salvador Photo: Child of Storms
And the “In Progress,” part of the title. To me, that just shows you’re a child forever, Sam. The chase is always in you. It seems like that’s what the “…Memoir in Progress” part is all about?
Well, I think the “progress” was that this isn’t just a look backwards on my life. I’m still moving forward. I’m still engaged in surfing. I still love surfing more than ever. I don’t apply myself to surfing the same way I did when I was 25, 35, 45, 55, 65. My relationship with surfing is evolving, but I love it as much as ever. I’m still really engaged and hopefully staying relevant, so I thought it isn’t just a memoir. It’s not just looking back. It’s a memoir in progress. The path still leads on. I’m still on that path.
You’ve lived double the lifetimes of most. Why did you feel like this is the point in your life to write a memoir?
I started thinking about all the writing that I’ve done about surfing. I’ve written in first person, but I’m always writing about a broader topic, especially for a magazine. I started thinking about so many of the stories that I have told, not as a writer, but as a storyteller; all these different scenarios, telling stories at get-togethers and parties and airline travel and on boats and around campfires and all that… all these stories that I’ve told that I’ve never really published. So I started writing them.
Did your dad, who’s pictured with you on the cover, know how to surf and get you into it?
We lived in the high desert of El Centro, in the Imperial Valley, at El Centro Naval Air Station. I had never seen surfing. How I got to 11 years old without ever hearing the Beach Boys or watching Gidget, I don’t know. My mom was an elementary school teacher, so she inspired my love of reading. When I found out my dad was getting sent to Hawaii, I rode down to the library and I checked out a book called Hawaii, the 50th State. I started flipping through it going, “Wow, this place is really interesting.” Then I came across this picture of a guy surfing. It was shot in the ’50s of a guy on a balsa board, a Hawaiian beach boy riding towards shore. I just went, “Wow, what is this?” And I asked my dad about it. He goes, “Oh, that’s surfing, I’ve seen it in San Diego. They ride waves on boards. They stand up like your skateboard, but on waves.” I went, “Can we do that?” And he goes, “Of course.”
So I got my mom to take me to Woolworths and we bought one of those little Styrofoam pool-toy boards. My brother Matt and I started working out in our little kidney-shaped pool. I learned to paddle. I learned to sit up. I learned to spin my board around. We’d put the board down and run and jump on it and slide across the pool. So by the time I got to Waikiki and my dad hired a beach boy to take us out surfing, we sat there for, I don’t know, 40 seconds. He turned around and pushed us both into a wave. We both stood up and rode to shore. I looked at Matt and I said, “Well, it isn’t that hard.” Because I had trained for it in advance, I took to it immediately. I never went through the beginner kook phase. I’m not saying I was a great surfer. I still had to learn, but I never went through that frustrating beginner phase. I think that’s why I threw myself into it so enthusiastically.
Travel stories that have yet to be published are part of Sam George’s new memoir. Photo: Child of Storms
There’s so much great stuff in the book about your surfing life, like when you moved to San Francisco at 14 and had to ride the subways to surf.
Yeah, I lived in the East Bay, mind you, so it was a real effort to get to the surf. I had to get up in the dark to try and get on the very first bus. Sometimes they wouldn’t let me on it anyway. They’d look at me with a surfboard and say, “What the hell do think you’re doing here?” I remember many, many years later, my dad said, “You know, I used to get up early to go to work at dawn and I’d hear you leaving the house and I’d look out and I’d see this lonely kid walking in the dark down the sidewalk with your little backpack and your little board. And I used to think, ‘God, he must really love this surfing thing.'” Many years later, when I was the editor of SURFER, I said to him, “Remember those early mornings? Yeah, I really did love that surfing thing.”
It’s been a dedicated surfing life. That’s what’s cool, all the trips you did that you wrote about in the book.
Yeah, the surfing bike trip in West Africa, the solo kayak trip out to surf the desert island in Baja. I wrote some travel stories for the magazines. But a lot of people didn’t realize that I was traveling all the time and I didn’t write about a lot of my travels and my travel experiences. Writing the book really made me look back at it all. I learned a lot about myself.
Which places that you’ve traveled to have left the biggest imprint on you?
The two places that have had the most profound effect on me emotionally, have been Bali and Baja. The whole exotic nature of Bali just captivated me. I just couldn’t wait to somehow get there. When I got there, it was more than I could have imagined. It was the juxtaposition: this exotic spirituality with the surfing experience. I never thought about surfing just as a sport. To me, there was always something intensely romantic about it. I try to use the word romantic more than spiritual, but when I got to Bali, there was this spiritual element. And then the Balinese people, the way they made you feel for being a surfer.
In San Francisco, growing up as a kid, people were like, what the hell are you doing? You get to Bali and they look at you as a spiritual warrior. They imbued surfing with this spirituality. I mean, the word for surfer is preselancar which means “dancer on the waves.” They imbued it with this wonderful spirituality that really appealed to my romantic nature and a little bit of my egotism. With Baja, I wasn’t a pioneer but I got to surf it early. I got to drive down into the desert and surf those desert waves. It really appealed to my romantic sensibilities that being a surfer was special. To drive all that way and get to a camp spot on a deserted beach, and the contrast between the desert and the ocean. And of course the waves were great. It was that adventurous nature, the stories around campfires, cooking fresh fish, talking to Mexican fisherman. Even more than Bali, Baja was where I discovered myself as a surfer. I really discovered how committed I was and what it all meant to me.
Sam George, circa 1995, enjoying the fruits of his labor. Photo: Tom Servais
The surfing world, especially media, has gone pretty negative. But from working with you for so many years, I’ve always admired how positive you’ve stayed. You’re open to all surf craft. You just have a good outlook. What keeps you positive and gives you hope for surfing’s future?
Let me put it this way: How could you ride waves with young village kids on a remote island off the coast of West Africa who have seen very few white men and never another surfer. These kids who, riding their own hand-carved bellyboards and balsa-log surf rafts, had their spot totally wired. In this incredible scenario, you find yourself sharing the intrinsic joy of surfing completely independent of what we’d call contemporary surf culture. How could you not achieve a better understanding, a more deeply felt appreciation, of what a truly remarkable thing surfing is? Appreciation of the joy inherent in surfing is the key to a long, happy life as a surfer.
I guess in closing, what do you hope people take away from the book?
I’ll stand by my answer to your last question, hoping that readers will come away with a better understanding and a deeper appreciation of what a truly remarkable thing a surfing life can be. And yet these stories aren’t aimed specifically at surfers, but written for anyone who’s ever dreamed of catching their own life’s best wave, and riding it all the way to the beach.
Purchase your copy of Child of Storms: A Surfing Memoir In Progress here.
