Maureen writes: We called him “The Bolt” and he was the best surfer I have ever witnessed in person. Though I’ve had opportunity to be in the water with a few pros over the years, he was better than all of them, and he was from Maine.
We didn’t know his name at first so we christened him with our own nickname, after the surfboard he usually rode. A deep purple tinted “Lightning Bolt.” Single fin, rounded-pintail, about 7′. The logo, made famous by Gerry Lopez, a bold yellow lightning bolt that stretched 1/3 of both the deck and bottom. No words, no names, just that yellow bolt. We’d all seen those Lightning Bolt surfboards under the feet of Gerry Lopez and a few of his team riders, Rory Russell most prominent, blasting out of Banzai Pipeline barrel after Banzai Pipeline barrel in both Surfer and Surfing magazines and the few movies you could view at high school auditoriums and community centers in coastal towns on both coasts and Hawaii. We all coveted those boards and dreamed of owning one. In our area though, there was only him.
