Epilogue
kings of Oahu - A Memoir
When two stones are dropped into a pool of water, waves spread out from each source, and interference occurs where they overlap. Constructive interference results where the crest of one coincides with the crest of the other.
Britannica
I don’t remember driving away that day. None of us had ever surfed waves that big before or since. Over that year of surfing the season of 1984/85, we all had been supremely tested and then, without knowing and mysteriously, like waves passing in the vastness of the ocean, disappeared from the lives of each other. I saw them occasionally, but they were never again those characters of that time. A change had come.
That old man was wrong who had given me the advice to go surf while I had the chance of youth. I still surf. I figure that I must be around the age he was when he gave me that life changing advice at the café during college so long ago now. To do what I loved most now because I wouldn’t be able to later. In my late sixties, the face is starting to resemble the ocean. I have distinct glassy patches where hair used to be. The deep furrows of lines that are permanently on my forehead look like sets of waves coming towards shore like corduroy to the horizon and the wrinkles that bend around the sides of my eyes resemble point waves, perfect lefts and rights.
He also was right. There is no way that I could do what I did during that incredible year on Oahu unless I had been young. It seems like I have been writing about some kind of dream or somebody else. I find myself staring unbelieving at the few photos that I have from that year, whispering to myself, “was this for real?” Today I don’t have the strength, stamina, or skills anymore to give it all up for a dream. I also am way too comfortable. I certainly don’t have them in my life anymore or anyone even close to the way they were. Those recklessly free souls who were so wonderfully alive and unafraid.
We all landed on Oahu with less than $1000. We all worked any job we could get so that we could do what we really loved. We spent every day trying to have as much fun as was possible. We were in the prime of our lives, the best age of learning to become adults, living the dream that we all had shared back in Orlando. To surf The North Shore. To go big no matter what. As the swells died with that season, we went our separate ways.
I stayed at the free mansion for another month and got tired of being broke and decided that I would return back to Florida, thinking I might settle down and get that career I had postponed 4 years earlier. I saved and went back to Florida via a Mexico surf trip by bus. After a month at home, I wrote a postcard to Midori. She called and that turned into a daily routine, waking up to her phone calls. She invited me to visit her in Japan. I again saved barely enough and went to Japan. Midori’s Dad gave me a job painting. We fell in love and went back to Hawaii together where we were married in 1987. I became a scuba instructor, lived with Midori on Oahu for another nine years and still continued to surf, alone. Jon was almost constantly gone and then moved to Molokai and Kauai to live in his van and windsurf. Dan had saved enough money to surf and travel, coming back when he had run out of cash to work again for the next trip. Steve completely disappeared from my life in the islands. We had been inseparable only a year before and he was gone. Although invited to our wedding, he never showed up. I wish I could have told him how special he was to me and the incredible impact he had on my life. I saw him one last time, many years later in Florida and the conversation had turned weirdly forced and Steve seemed uncomfortable, there was a distance now that we both felt. After maybe about a half an hour, we shook hands and hugged. He turned and walked forever out of my life, now tinged a bit with gray hair around his temples. Although he lived only a short ten minute drive away from where Midori and I were back in Orlando with our young daughter, I never saw him again.
Today I live walking distance to the beach here in Florida. I can hear the waves from my house and when it sounds like I might be able to go for a surf, I will go down to watch the sunrise, sitting on the sand with my coffee in hand. There in the surf, they are always there with me. In the shadows of memory, I see their phantom shapes out playing in the surf. Sometimes when nobody is around I get overwhelmed thinking about them and let tears fall, wishing I could be with them just one last time. Missing them. I yell their names into the salt mist they loved. “TURTLE!! Shakka Brah! HOBITCH!! I see you there!! MAYNARD! My brother! I love you man! WATTS! Aloha my bradda! GALLUCH! You crazy sons of bitches! We DID It!” “Ken and Pat. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!! Julie, Anita, Katie. My sweet hearted friends. Starchitect, X- Brah, I MISS YOU ALL!”
In the crash of the surf and with the rise and fall of each wave, I can hear it seeming to call out to me in that rhythm that is as old as this Earth. Its inviting ancient whisper, “Come….. Onnnnnn, Come…..Onnnnn, Come….Onnnnn.” And in the excited screeches of the gulls swooping overhead, the voices of my friends once again, shouting to me, encouraging “ Goooo!!….Goooo!!….Goooo!!” The pelicans swooping with speed across the tops of the breaking waves, free, their outstretched wings, the feathers tips shaped as if a shakka. The aloha. In that instant, I can’t help but smile, seeing them, and we are together as if in a dream before they fade with the passing mist. Those kings of Oahu.
RIP In Peace - A Hui Hou
Steve “Turtle” Albershardt
March 12, 1963 Las Vegas - May 24, 2005 Geneva, Florida
A life lived packed to full until the age of 42, Steve had a fatal head injury after falling from a ladder while trimming an oak tree directly over his brother David’s memorial. David had died six months before in a motorcycle collision with a deer. One of life’s strangest ironies to me is that Turtle had incredible skills related to balance on any kind of board - surf, skate and snow. He lost his balance on a ladder and the world lost a Pied Piper of Fun.
Jay ‘The Starchitect” Ellis
July 16, 1957, Lincoln, Nebraska - December 16, 2021, Corpus Christi, Texas
A life live full until the age of 65, Jay travelled the world after Hawaii where he designed several incredible houses, most notably on Maui. He continued to surf in places such as Indonesia and South Africa among others and to the end he never lost his stoke for surfing. He passed after a battle with cancer and the world lost one of the great storytellers.
Michael Watts
March 11, 1962, Fort Knox, Kentucky - October 5, 2016 Indian Harbour Beach, Florida A life live full until the age of 54, Mike was the absolute best kind of friend that you could have. When I called him on the phone, I had to be prepared always for a lengthy chat and to hear his recounting of wonderful memories we shared. He made time for his friends, people in general and especially his most beloved family Anita and their two daughters. During preparations for Hurricane Matthew in October of 2016, Watts was aiding his elderly neighbors in preparing their houses for the storm. He returned home to settle into his favorite chair and have a beer where he suffered a fatal heart attack. During his memorial paddle out in big surf, his board was left to the ocean. When I came in to shore down the beach, I happened upon it on the shoreline, upside down and the lei on top of the bottom of the board. A final goodbye. The world lost a man who lived each day as his own - punk to the end.
Disclaimer: In 2026, these memories of over 40 years ago seem like just a yesterday away. I have written everything from memory with some internet search help for specific dates or events of the time.
This work depicts actual events in the life of the author as truthfully as recollection permits and/or can be verified by research. Occasionally, dialogue consistent with the character or nature of the person speaking has been supplemented. All persons within are actual individuals; there are no composite characters. I can’t help but write this with ego apparent to the reader. I don’t want to come across that way, but I don’t think anyone writing about their best year, and those reasons why, can do so without it being centered on them. I apologize and am thankful if you can read this story for those who lived it with me.
To start kings of Oahu from the start click
Wow…hard to believe you finished recounting these incredible stories of your friends and the year you pushed each other to surf tougher locales and support each other through it. Proud of you that you will self-publish and I already know of four people who will receive your book from me. I am sad this is done as each chapter was a gift to this ocean lover!
If I could wish anything for you, it would be that you keep writing. Your skill improved with each chapter and you have a way of seeing people from the inside out that is charming. A great ride, Mark, thank you!
thanks for bringing us along for the ride on a heapin’ helpin’ of wonderful storytelling. Your writing style reminds me of the Thomas McGuane, etc., greats, where the ego and id are essential characters in the story. Wow, what a gift! Enjoy it and the surf, Bum.