February 26, 1962 - Lewter's Beach, East Ocean View, Norfolk VA (North facing beach at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay).
My buddy Joe Guerra got his brand new "Ten Toes" popout off the purple delivery truck that afternoon and we immediately hauled it 2 blocks to the beach. We had heard that you had to wax it, and Bowling Alley wax didn't help, so we took some of his mother's beeswax from her sewing kit and rubbed it on as best we could (the wax was real hard and the weather and water were very cold, so it was not an easy or particularly effective job).
It was windy, bumpy, and mushy, but we took turns getting thrown off into the frigid water. We managed to get a few brief rides before we had to come in, puke our guts out and drag our shivering selves home. We couldn't even talk about it til the next day, because neither on of us could make intelligible sounds through the hypothermia.
You'd think that would have put us off surfing forever, but we both couldn't wait to do it again. In fact it wasn't long after that that we somehow escaped death trying to surf the infamous "Ash Wednesday" storm (March '62?). I guess its better to be lucky than smart.