Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

Moving to Honolulu as an eighth grader, Finnegan found himself part of a disliked minority as an “haole,” or white person, at his new school in working-class Kaimuki. He was felt intimidated by his Hawaiian and Asian classmates and out of place as a newcomer with no friends at the school. Finnegan recalls being bullied by a classmate and not having the confidence to confront him. His parents assumed that the school would provide a good education, since the public schools in California, where the family had previously lived, were always adequate. Instead, Finnegan remembers how his new school days were “occupied almost entirely by the rigors of bullies, loneliness, fights, and finding my way […] in a racialized world” (3).

Despite his difficulty at school, Finnegan was thrilled to be in Hawaii and had high expectations about the surfing scene. He recalls surfing at the Cliffs for the first time, carefully watching how the locals approached the waves. Determined to surf twice a day, Finnegan would arrive at the beach at dawn, surprised by the roughness of the morning water compared to California. None of the other surfers bothered him, so he calls his surfing time “the opposite of [his] life at school” (8).

Meanwhile, at school Finnegan was consistently drawn into fights with his classmates, which he kept a secret from his teachers and parents. Over time he became friends with boys from the “In Crowd,” a racist gang of white boys; their friendship had a protective effect, and Finnegan was bullied less. At the Cliffs, Finnegan befriended Roddy Kaulukukui, a 13-year-old whose brother, Glenn, was Finnegan’s favorite surfer to watch.

Although Roddy went to the same school as him, Finnegan continued hanging out with the “In Crowd,” whose hobbies included vandalism, petty theft, and partying. Finnegan admired Roddy’s dad, Glenn Sr., a surfer who had taken on Waimea Bay, a particularly challenging beach that most surfers would never be skilled enough to try. Roddy, a native Hawaiian, believed in Hawaiian gods such as Pele, the goddess of fire. He helped Finnegan develop his surfing skills and better understand the different beaches and waves. The boys began trying to surf at Kaikoos, but Finnegan found it a bit too “gnarly” and dangerous. The author ponders how different surfing is from other sports, since surfers’ main goal is to ride waves, which they love, but they also must cope with the inherent dangers of being in the ocean. With each passing year, Finnegan was slightly more ambitious about what he might be able to achieve on the waves, and he continued to admire more experienced surfers.

The author recalls how the move to Hawaii benefited his family; he and his siblings fought less and generally loved their new environment. His father worked in the film industry and scouted locations across Hawaii. Finnegan recalls his father’s advice on how to defend himself against bullies and wonders if he’d been bullied as a child too. He describes his dad as “strong as a grizzly” (23), a fervent supporter of the labor movement, and an anti-racist. Meanwhile, his mother was a child of the Great Depression. She grew up in poverty in West Virginia and then lived in Los Angeles and New York. While she disliked Hawaii, finding it intellectually and socially unfulfilling, she was “game” for anything and didn’t complain. Finnegan’s parents knew little about his social life and considered him “Mr. Responsible.” As the eldest child in the family, he was often asked to babysit his younger siblings, which he resented. Finnegan soon became more accustomed to living in Hawaii and stopped comparing everything to his former “baseline” of Southern California and its “edgeless blandness” (27).

Finnegan recounts how, before the arrival of Europeans, Indigenous Hawaiians invented surfing, which wasn’t only a leisure activity but a spiritual ritual. Craftsmen made surfboards from koa or wiliwili trees, both considered sacred, and priests blessed waves before people rode them. Finnegan explains that since Indigenous Hawaiians successfully farmed on terraces, hunted, and made fish ponds, they had an abundance of food, elaborate harvest festivals, and copious free time to surf. All this changed with the arrival of Europeans; explorer Hiram Bingham described Indigenous Hawaiians in insulting terms and denigrated their surf culture, characterizing it as immodest, irreligious, and unproductive. The decimation of the native Hawaiian population because of European diseases, in conjunction with the growth of colonial industries such as sandalwood and sugar plantations, pushed the remaining Indigenous people into participating in a cash economy, which reduced their time and access to surf. Thus, surf culture collapsed and was kept alive only by a handful of native Hawaiians, such as Olympic medalist Duke Kahanamoku. By Finnegan’s childhood in the 1960s, surf culture had expanded into mainstream American culture as beachgoers adopted the sport in Hawaii and California, spurred on by improved mass surfboard manufacturing.

Finnegan attended a meeting of the “Southern Unit,” a surf club that Roddy and Glenn belonged to. Wanting to become a member himself, he volunteered to help the group fundraise door-to-door. Roddy and Finnegan began to socialize at school too, and over time the “In Crowd” kids easily dropped their racist ideas and began hanging out with Roddy and his brother Glenn. Finnegan developed a crush on Glenn’s girlfriend, Lisa, a 14-year-old at his school, and became closer friends with Ford, a local Japanese teen.

The author entered a surfing contest for boys under 14 at Diamond Head Cliffs, and placed second. Despite learning from Hawaiian surfers, Finnegan retained a lot of his “mainland style” of surfing. The author realized that his obsession with surfing made him feel that he was living a “clandestine life” that his family knew little about and that he’d become even more of a daredevil than his dad. His father was quick to leave his unhappy childhood behind and embrace adulthood, first in the Navy and then working on film sets. The author recalls his early childhood in Manhattan, where his dad worked several jobs. While his parents took him to Mass and Catechism, the author later learned that they didn’t strongly believe in Catholic theology, and he quickly stopped attending church when given the choice.

Finnegan felt that his life consisted of two opposing worlds: the land, or “society,” which included school and family life, and the ocean, which had cast an “enchantment” over him. His brother, Kevin, became interested in surfing, which thrilled Finnegan, but after a frightening accident and near drowning, Kevin never surfed again. The author recalls the tense social scene at his school, describing how one older teen, an outcast nicknamed Lurch, fought and choked Glenn until Ford punched Lurch, and all the surrounding kids, including the author, beat him up. After the fight, Lurch attended school irregularly, while Glenn ran away from home and became “wanted” by teachers and even police. Meanwhile, Ford gained the respect of his peers because of his brave and decisive action in the fight. Eventually, Glenn was found and sent to the Big Island to live with his aunties. His father, Glenn Sr., gave Roddy more responsibilities, with which Finnegan sometimes helped. This afforded him the opportunity to explore a new part of the island, and he ventured into rougher surf and had his first frightening experience.

The next year, Finnegan’s family moved back to California, where he kept surfing regularly at Ventura and Malibu before returning to Hawaii the year after. Upon his return, Finnegan sought out Roddy and was saddened to learn that he’d moved to Alaska after his father was transferred there as a part of his Navy work. Now surfing regularly at Waikiki, Finnegan was happy to run into Glenn and amazed at how he was now a “showstopper” of a surfer. Finnegan found that this busier surf scene was strongly influenced by the “summer of love” (54), including its new slang and music, as well as drugs such as LSD and pot. When a “punk” stole his surfboard, Finnegan asked for help from Cippy Cipriano, a tough kid who forwent his usual $5 fee to confront the thief. Finnegan’s parents decided to move the family back to California so that he could attend high school there rather than in the Hawaiian public school system. Frustratingly, Finnegan’s board was stolen, again, right before leaving Hawaii, and he quickly got to work doing odd jobs in California to save up for a new board.