Which brings me to that much-maligned word, Dude. People give you shit for saying it all the time, but if you think about it, it's a good word to employ. It means all sorts of things, and out there on the water, an economy of words is a necessity. It's loud out there and great distances are involved. If you want to point out a killer swell to a bud, you point and yell, "Dude!". It also doubles as a warning. If you don't get what the other guy's saying, you look puzzled and ask, "Dude?". If you're disappointed in your bud's performance or if you just want to offer some consolation, a simple "Dude" with a sigh conveys a depth of emotion I've yet to encounter anywhere else in the language. I guarantee that if the Founding Fathers were from the beach, the Declaration of Independence would've read:
Dude.
And everyone would've known what they were talking about. John Hancock, when endorsing the document, would've probably added, in large, stylized script:
Totally
So stick that in your nose and snuff it, you King's English pansies.
Now, there was some drug use, but nothing exceptional. Some dudes toked up, but those were usually the lesser dudes whose skills in the social and sporting departments weren't quite up to snuff. Tokes usually impacted your performance in both areas, so most dudes stayed away from it unless it was an "in" to get a chick. There was certainly nothing subversive about it and it didn't have any real cachet to it. We usually stuck to Mad Dog 20/20 or Thunderbird when we wanted to get ripped.
Now imagine my surprise a few years later when I go to the Pink Floyd show in Philly and see the travelling carnie types in attendance. They had the nitrous canisters out in the parking lot where people were paying for balloons filled with the stuff for a buzz. There were all sorts of pills, powders and leafs on sale from out of people's cars. You had all these people going ga-ga over the shit.
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