Glory Days?

Some people get on my case about the title of the book, in particular, Glory Days. I had a little FB contest to see which name was best… Back in the Day, Surviving Hawaii, Glub Glub…and blame Clay Feeter for convincing me Glory Days was the best. I had to add Maui to the title because some other Bruce not named Matlack had coined the song. There were also about ten religious books under the same title, which was curious, because there was a nod to the God Squad right there in the Prologue, Saving Kelby. “God wasn’t going to save Kelby. I’d have to.” Now, New Agers would claim I was the instrument, but my own horn nadda toot. Tom Pace makes a much more convincing Jesus. I did save quite a few lives over my Maui tenure, and my own okole was saved by surf god Bill Boyum one day, an unknown angel on others.
 
Back to my point. Youngsters and old kids claim they are in the glory days with lighter equipment and cooler colored shorts, and I’m not neon arguing that. I see maneuvers, sky high jumps and speeds attained like never before. But these were the glory days. When the equipment was evolving in a revolutionary manner, breaking from the mold of well, molds. Plastic molds. Nobody rode the same board anymore. It was all about custom and crazy designs that all somehow worked one day and were scrapped the next. Core maneuvers were being unleashed left and right and gods and goddesses of the sport were having their faces etched in the cliffs of Hookipa. So yeah, they were glory days all right, much like the day when Gerry Lopez showed up at Michael Jan Vincent’s surfspot on a short board. I sign my book, Glorious Days Ahead, and I hope to have a few left in me.

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