New Yorker magazine has limited free access.  Off Diamond Head is an extract from the book whose release date is at the end of July.  New Yorker provides links to Finnegan's classic "Playing Doc's Games" about San Francisco's Ocean Beach, which is available free from another source.   

This photo was provided by Finnegan.  

 

"There wasn't much nose-riding, which was the subspecialty rage at the time on the mainland and required scurrying, when the opportunity arose, to the front of one's board-hanging five, hanging ten, defying the obvious physics of flotation and glide. I didn't know it then, but what I was looking at was classic Island style. I just took my mental notes from the channel, and began, without thinking about it, to walk the nose less." 

Edited: 05/26/2015 at 06:11 PM by ww

 Thanks for posting this . A really great read I'm going over to Amazon to see if the book can be per-ordered 

It turns out I've been on Finnegan's street and had a look (from land) at Cliffs.  I was curious enough about Doris Duke's house (which is mentioned in the story) to do the tour.  

When My wife first went to Hawaii in 1972 She worked as a compainion for the daughter of a very wealthy Family. The Girl had been in a bad accident and had brain Damage. Colleen was there to make sure she did not get lost as she had memory problems The Family lived close to the Duke estate, Colleens next job was as a live in Nanny in a home over looking China Wall.  She would offten take her charges down to watch the Surfers. 

I grew up on Black Point in the 60's and we surfed from Port Lock to Ala Moana as kids. I really enjoyed the memories his story brought back. Kahala Elementary and Kaimuki High were as he described. My parents never believed what we told them about bullying in school. Bullying is not a new phenomenon!

I traveled with Bill Finnegan to Fiji in 04 and his stories during that trip made me pre-order this book. He was an international journalist in the 70's/80's that brought his board on every trip. He told me of his feral camping trip on Tavarua before the resort was even thought of, surfing restaurants before cloud break was found by surfers. Look forward to the read.

Wow!

I've never met Finnegan, of course, but have been in awe of him as a writer.  He just did a New Yorker story on the highest inhabited spot on earth, a gold mining town in Peru.

That was a great read, hated to see it come to an end... Thanx



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I've decided to accept the fact - I'll always be a big kid!