Awareness is Everything with Bamboo Bob

In this week’s episode with Bamboo Bob we discuss the wide diversity and uniqueness of his nursery Pura Vida Tropicals, how he builds soil with local resources, how awareness is everything when learning to surf and learning to live well, his karma initiator, swimming with aliens and his 60 year history of surfing. You don’t want to miss this one, Bamboo Bob’s enthusiasm is electrifying!

Episode Highlights:

[00:00] A sample of the plants and edibles at Pura Vida Nursery
[06:45] Building soil
[13:48] Awareness is everything: Our surf session,
[16:07] His karma initiator and swimming with aliens,
[23:05] Sweet spots like Oceanside
[31:07] 60 years of surfing history
[33:52] Tracing a familial line

Quotes from Bob:
"Nature's phenomenal. I just love collecting everything. As you can see here, I haven't stopped yet and I'm 75 years old and I continue to put seeds in the ground, even though I know I'm not gonna be able to live long enough to accept its shade. I've had couples that come over here and brought their kids, and then I get a phone call later from the parents. "Hey, my son wishes you were his grandpa, so he could learn lessons." They come back and have started their own little gardens. I hope I'm doing good and that's the inspiration that I like to try giving."

"You gotta have releases where you can get out of that rat race of working and what have you. Find time for yourself and getting yourself centered. That's what surfing does. You have to have more of it, and then you find that euphoria."

"There's a lot of more life than what we think we know all the time. We’re like a horse with blinders, take those blinders off and inundate yourself with stuff and really find out what you want to do."

Get in touch with Bamboo Bob

• Pura Vida Tropicals Nursery

More about Christine Foerster

• christinefoerster.com
• Instagram @christinefoerster

Photo of Bamboo Bob by permission by Santos Sal Garcia of Global Photo USA

Transcript

Christine: Hi, Bob. 

Bob: Hi, Christine 

Christine: It's nice to have some time to sit with you now that we’ve done a full tour of your 200 plus palm, you call it a city farm? is that an accurate tour? 

Bob: I call it a tropical nursery. I have so many things here. I used to have a hundred types of bamboo in the ground, soil, bamboo shoots, food, teach edible landscape, rain water reclamation  that concerns life and growth.

Christine: Just walking through this, it's about an acre that you have here and I have seen and tasted fruits and things that I never even known existed in the world before. Part of what you were saying is that the San Diego region is very unique in terms of its potential for growing, in that it can grow from semi-tropical all the way to, you even have some bamboo that grows in southern Chile, right? In the very snowy southern region.

Bob: Yes. So yes. What’s nice about this area is the mean temperature. Like I said, Walter Croke did a special in 1971 and it was on nationwide TV and all the realtors use it just for sales purposes. Of course, they're being a realtor and the average mean temperature in this area is 71 degrees, but it accommodates so many plants, so many diversities.

Bob: You're subtropical, you're tropical, your cactus, your succulents, everything all in between. So many generations of plant people are in this area. And using its resources, which is the weather. And continuing on, let's 

Christine: Talk about some of the things that you had me try. I've tried about three different kinds of guava. And there was a strawberry tree? 

Bob: Yes, it’s a strawberry tree. I don't have the botanical name on it, but it's an acquired taste. But it's free. You put the tree in the ground and guess what? There's fruit coming off of it. If you like it, you eat. Probably what you're gonna talk about next is a surname cherry. So there are all kinds of different tropical cherries and some of them happen different times of the year. This particular surname cherry is so prolific here, it's growing all year long. So when you're walking around your property, you want to eat something that's fresh, right off the tree, guess what? You have it. Some of your other types of cherries only happen one time a year, and they're all characteristically different. Depends what type of a tree it is. 

Christine: That cherry was delicious. I think that was my favorite thing. And you had a finger lime?

Bob: Yeah. Australian finger lime. It’s a lime caviar and it's a new introduction. It's probably been in the country10, 12 years. And it comes from the arid parts of Australia, grows quite well here. Very thorny plant, but it's really unusual. Most people think it's a chili. So when I'm giving it to 'em, I have to explain or I have 'em sign a waiver. It's very good. And, and the texture is like lime caviar. I brought about 50 plants in from Northern California. They're using them in beer breweries. They'll keep a live plant in the middle of the bar area. So when someone's buying a high dollar beer and they say, yeah, gimme that lime over there and charge 'em three bucks per lime. And, and off you go with your beer, your Corona and, and keep on going. Plus it's a good fruit.

Christine: It's wild. When you break it off, it feels like a very small, hard cucumber. When you bite it, it's a big crunch and then you open it and you squeeze it.

Bob: What's fascinating, it's almost like salmon eggs. But it's like lime caviar actually. I didn't design the world, but I love what or whoever did, they’re doing a good darn damn good job and keep it up!

Christine: There was also a flower that looked like a kidney and a liver.
Bob: It's called the dutchman's pipe. And then you showed me on the other side of the vine that when it's opened, and it's this big spread eagle, huge contraption of a… 

Bob: your old your dad bending over by the bathtub. 

Christine: It looks a little bit like a dirty rag, right? But it does have a prominent anatomical feature right in the middle, right?

Bob: Again, I didn't design it, I'm just describing it and that's what it is. But you know, I call it the kidney and liver plan. So when you're walking around, you guys drink a lot. You need a kidney or liver. I got 'em right here. And they come with three different sizes. The big giant one, there's a smaller version and a medium size version. So again, nature's phenomenal. I just love collecting everything. As you can see here, I haven't stopped yet and I'm 75 years old and I continue to put seeds in the ground, even though I know I'm not gonna be able to live long enough to accept its shade. Keep it going. And I love inspiring people with it and just showing 'em what you can do. I'm gonna probably carry on a little bit here, but in the clay soil, guess what? I've proved that you can grow all this stuff and how easy it is. So when people come here, please bring me your kids. I want to inspire the kids and the tasting what I did to you so they can teach the parents how to be great and maybe make their life a little bit better.  

Christine: Well, the other thing that we talked a lot about is how you build soil. Could you go into that because you're really using your local resources and then you have this place set aside in the back lot of your acre to build soil. Could you talk a little bit about the process? 

Bob: I like to use recyclable material, so I use a lot of horse manure. Horses are pretty hard to come by right now because they want to get rid of the stuff for salmonella issues. If you go to a horse ranch where they got low grade, Very important because high grade horses, they use sawdust chips, which is just chips of wood and it hasn't broken down in nature yet. You want low class horse poop. Horse poop doesn't have much nitrogen. I use recycled potting soil, which is basically got peat moss charcoal and I think it's bark, I'm not quite sure. Then I use coffee grounds, chicken, manure, pearlite, a lot of coffee grounds, and it depends what type of mixture I'm using. If I'm using it for stuff like epiphytes, like what you see in Hawaii that take a lot of humus and I use lava. And that seems to work. So, and it all depends what type of plant that you're gonna be putting it. And a lot of decomposed granite. Decomposed granite to me is what rocks on the earth are breaking down the first time. If you take regular granite, it hasn't broke down, guess what? It's been a rock there since the beginning of time. So what it's doing when it turns into granite, it's releasing all its minerals it's had for billions of years and giving them to you to use. But it's decomposed granite with all the minerals and the trace minerals that you need for growing. It's almost like a fertilizer and people use it for roads and stuff, but again, it's a product that makes plants. 

Christine: It also allows for good drainage, 

Bob: Which the roots do like too. And yet it has so many purposes. I use my decomposed granite for the roads . My pathways helps break down clay. And when I'm using the soil with clay, I use a product called gypsum which is basically what they make drywall out of. It's calcium and it breaks up the molecules of clay and it turns it into something else. So it helps break down the clay. All these are really basic materials and they're easy to come by, but you just gotta be, not a scavenger, just be resourceful. I like that feeling and showing people how to be, rather than creating a whole other industry for stuff that's sitting right next to you and you don't use it cuz you'd rather go buy it from somebody. 

Christine: That's good to remember. You are known as Bamboo bob, and you had a 200 foot bamboo forest around your lot. And then you talked about a pest that came in through Madagascar and… 

Bob: then Hawaii. Yes. It's called a bamboo meal bug, very nasty plant. And it seems like as many plants as we got, we got many bugs to eat things and stuff. This one here was quite bad. How do you had to get rid of it? Coffee grounds do work. You could go after it with neem oil. Basically, it just didn't do it. The chemical that they came up with was made by Bayer. I hope I'm not getting litigious here, but it was made by Bayer and it's basically tobacco juice. And lo and behold, it's wiping out the bees and it's causing all our bee population to go down. And so I got out of bamboo a little bit. I still kept a lot of plants where I could keep them manageable. Things like coffee grounds do help manage that pest.

Bob: You have to be aware. So when I'm telling people to plant a garden like mine, a lot of people try to have automatic irrigation, keeps you away from your plants. So I'm probably about 60, 70% automated irrigation. To what I'm growing in, but the surrounding, I have to walk and really do a visualization. What's flying in from next door? What's flying in from Madagascar via Florida or whatever? How's the plant doing? Because these things can't tell you what they're doing. You gotta be aware of it. What's happening? What's things are not happening? Do I need to be pruned? Do I need to be massaged? Do I need more fertilizer? Quit watering me or water me too much. You gotta communicate with the plants. I know that sounds crazy, but you are, and they communicate back by giving you all that fruit. 

Christine: Oh no, I don't think that's crazy at all. I think plants are communicating with us all the time. But it’s like having a thousand babies out here though. There's so many, how do you keep up with all of it? 

Bob: I don’t, you got me there. I have a hyper side too. And it's in my spirit, so I keep on feeding my spirit and I know I'm doing right and I just keep it going. Again. I have go back to the kids. I wanna show them how to be, I'm gonna grow my own food too. Bob does. So I've had couples that come over here and brought their kids, and then I get a phone call later from the parents. Hey, my son wishes you were his grandpa, so, he could learn lessons from all that, and they come back and started their own little gardens  else. I hope I'm doing good and that's the inspiration that I like to try giving.

Christine: I wanna transition to our time in the water and tell you that I was so thankful when you reached out to me. I sent you a little text cuz we have a common friend Leah. But, I have been known to chase people down in the parking lot asking if they wanna be on my podcast. And you actually called me. And so it was so nice to have that sense of response and enthusiasm and I really appreciated that. This is how I did that. I listened to your podcast cuz Leah gave me the information. So before I called you, I listened and I found you to be such a sincere person and that same energy that I had wanting to learn surfing, which to me is the most spiritual sport that could be out there.

Bob: And I was so intrigued by the way you approach people and your sincerity and your integrity there to keep it going. I said, why not bring it? You know, so if I could reach more people, not that I'm using you. It's co-mingling and we're helping each other. And guess what? You're helping a ton of kids. And I hope that somebody's listening to that, has the patience to sit there and listen to your podcast and try to learn something. I try to learn, I'm 75 and I try to learn 15 things a day of not many more, so I keep it going. 

Christine: Great. Well thank you very much for that. So we met in the parking lot. It was a nippy morning, it was November. 

Bob: I'm surprised that you wanted to go at eight in the morning. Normally I wait a little bit, but it's okay. I mean, you have a little bit of a hide to you, and I like that.

Christine: Well, I like to go early in the morning. I like that feeling when the water's quiet and calm and when we got out in the water and it was pretty empty, right? But I was struck by the fact that it was nippy in the parking lot, but by the time we paddled out, it was actually, you even said it feels almost tropical out here. It was really nice, nice temperature in the water.

Bob: There's a characteristic about Oceanside that riverbeds and the canyons of the Santa Margarita are, guess what? They've wind rivers also. Those come down from the mountains and bring all that air down, especially when it's growing offshore. And guess what? You step 20 feet out into the sand and it seems to change dramatically. And that's what it did, didn't it? It just warmed up. So as soon as you get away from that parking lot atmosphere and you get into the sand area, guess what? It warms right up. Of course, we walked along the rocks too, which I call taking the elevator out. And that's always more pleasant. The jetty's got a presence to him and I have one particular rock. I call it Bob's Rock. It’s phenomenal. That whole jetty was made up and there's one rock that does not belong there. It's completely different than all those rocks there. It's got turquoise in it. Quartz in it. It's got crystals in it and it just don't belong there. And it's right at the high tide line there. Of course, there's too much sand around that. It's half buried. But the next time I go out there, I'll show it to you and it’s Bob's rock. I tried to get a guy to put it in the back of my truck and the guy says you want me to go to jail or lose my job for over a rock?And I go, dude, it's only a rock man. You got a million more there. And he wouldn't do it. He was just laughing. I had people try to chisel the crystals out of there  else. So once you show people something, it's called awareness. You got all those rocks and all that life. You got the crabs, you got the sea enemies, plus, I like the smell. It's a nice place to stretch out for sure. 

Christine: And you drew a circle on the sand with the fin of your board and you called it a karma circle or something?

Bob: A karma initiator. Okay. So when you step into the circle, you initiate your karma. So I didn't say if it was good or bad, that's the point. If you wanna step in it or not. But basically it's my last exercise circle and it makes me think it's a portal from land going to the ocean. Because I have a little philosophy when I meet people from the Midwest and I try to explain surfing or the ocean. It's the only thing that we have on earth that we throw ourselves in a completely different environment where things will eat you. You could die, you can stop breathing. So it's just like going to Mars in two seconds. You're out of your element. You are out of your element if you don't understand and be aware of what you're stepping into or you're gonna die.

Christine: You talked about this movement created by the movement of the moon. 

Bob: Let me explain. That's good, I love that. Miles and miles. I love that philosophy. That's gonna be on my gravestone or whatever, but I'm gonna be out there in the ocean anyway. So basically what we're riding when we ride a wave, we are riding a thing that was created on the other side of the world with compliments of the sun and moon's gravitational pull created on the other side of the world and pushing waves and storms and what have you, which create the waves and a swell to which each one of those is a separate entity. They may look the same just because of the bottom of the ocean, but they're sitting there dying on that shore, so you're riding an energy source that was created on the other side of the world. Again, with all those compliments and getting your gratification from that. So that's part of the fever that you get. Some people call it the stoke. I call it a fever. And it is addictive. 

Christine: Yes. I think once you start, you have that feeling day after day. You miss it when you don't go to the ocean. Because it's that first submerge, you feel kind of that cleanse of the water and the ocean, you've talked about how plants communicate with you, to me, the ocean also is like a friend, right? And sometimes it beckons you and says, come play with me. And other times it's kind of angry and it's kind of slapping you around, or it's like charged with I don't know, it just feels like it has a lot of different emotions too.

Bob: When I got back from Vietnam, I went to Orange Coast College, I was gonna be a marine biologist. And you start figuring out all the stuff that's out there in the water. Did you know if you take a little tablespoon of water and put it underneath a microscope how many living things that you're putting into your mouth? It's got phytoplankton . There are aliens in your teaspoon of salt water. If you put a microscope on it, you might never put an ounce of salt water in your mouth, but there's millions of plants. And then again, the first top three feet is all phytoplankton. What does that do? They make 75% of the oxygen in that we breathe. So we have to protect that top level. So we're swimming around all these elements that are alive. And all these different spirits , millions of them, may it be in just a little simple teaspoon of water. There's millions of life there  else. Now you get to the bigger ones with the dolphin coming around and playing with you. The whales coming, playing with you, the fish, there's live baits swimming around you  else. It's my spirit and it's my spirituality. 

Christine: This is a little bit of a tangent, but you have a few superstitions that you kind of operate by, and I have to say, you're the first local that I've ever met that doesn't shuffle their feet.

Bob: You're just all set to me if you're gonna get hit. I've only been hit once. I’ve been surfing since 1962. Guess what team? That's 60 years ago. Alright. once. And it caught me. He grazed off my big toenail and it just got me a little bit. I'm gonna have a little side story to tell you after that. But anyway, that's the only time I've been hit. So to me, if you're gonna die, you're gonna die. You can't shuffle your feet in life  that you do, you're gonna get hit. You're gonna get hit even if you shuffle your feet. So why waste all that time in life be fearful of the ocean? You know, those things are out there, but it's just like life. All those things are out there and they're gonna kill you anyway. But your awareness is everything. I'm not saying not to be completely stupid. When you're walking out there by the elevator where we walked out, normally you can see the bottom where you're walking. Guess what? You're checking out the bottom. You're seeing different fish. There might be a little tiger now, a leopard shark going by, or a different fish or a different type of bait or maybe some artifacts or somebody's watch gold ring, what have you. To me, awareness is the whole key. But superstition, I like to save energy cuz I like old school.

Bob: When I first started surfing, we had 40 pound boards and if you didn't time 'em the waves right on a large day or on a high tide or a thumpy area, guess what? Your whole session is ruined. There was no leashes, what they used to be called leg ropes.  you had to hold onto that board like you were holding on to your mom and then there was a train running over you. And sometimes you were doing end over end over end . Guess what it took me an hour to get to the beach. When we first started starting to learn how to surf, and your session's over cuz you're beat up and tired. Okay, let's go drink five cups of coffee and go try it again and then do it. So I came up with a superstition, if you got your hair wet when you were paddling out, you were gonna have a bad session. What that made you do is time the wave, so you paddle out, save your energy, so you had more energy to use for what you wanted to use it for other than trying to save your life. 

Christine: Well, it makes perfect sense to me. And I'll knock on, I don't have wood here, but I'm gonna knock on something, oh, you want me to knock on your head? I haven't been hit hit either and I grew up here. I’ve been spent my whole childhood playing in the ocean.

Bob: Do you shuffle? 

Christine: Oh yeah. And I went down to Baja tons and there the whole floor would, my dad was really into sailing, so we would spend long trips down in the Gulf area. And we would dock the boat and then my brother and I first thing jump in the water and sometimes the ground would just explode.

Bob: There used to be a place called Ray Bay up in, Seal Beach. It was the water that was coming out of the power plant. It was all warm, completely carpeted on the bottom. I've seen people take their board like, and turn around the fin and try to stab 'em . And beating the water so they'd go away. I mean, it's funny, but some people really are afraid of them . They're there, like, sharks are there or whatever. There's this barracuda if you go where Barracuda are with the big chompers they got and all that  else. Finding that balance with nature and accept what it is and don't be afraid of it and just move ahead. That saves time. 

Christine: Once we were out in the lineup you were really helpful because you communicated very effectively with me. You would give me little hand gestures in the air, and from the get-go, I felt somehow protected by you because you said, let's make this really a nice surf session. You lent me your board at one point. You were pointing out, hey, head over there or watch this wave coming here. So it was also a really nice day for a beginner. 

Bob: Well, listening to your last podcast, the early ones that I listened to before we doing this, I understood that you tried choosing the right places to be, the right place to take off on it too. The peaks are shifting because sometimes when you get a soft swallow, they're bouncing off the rocks and you need to be in different places and the peak isn’t in the wrong place for you, you're just struggling to take off in one place, and you should move over a couple of feet. Or if there's a couple of dangerous surfers out there, they don't care about anybody, stay away from them, get over here,  like that. Or if you're too far out or too far in. So I hope I wasn't too over bearing or trying to be a mean parent.

Christine: Oh, no, not at all. I had a great time. You also talked a lot about finding that sweet spot on the board. And I think you mentioned that because you saw that I still tend to ride a little bit too far back on my board when I'm trying to catch a wave.

Bob: I think it's a paranoia of not wanting to pearl 

Christine: Probably. 

Bob: And pearling to surfers, it's always an excuse for people to laugh at you. So we got a little story about pearling. Are you familiar with the garabaldi? Yeah, he's golden state fish. Okay. There's a white one, you see him by the rocks  to goes bald, and he's pretty aggressive. Like when I'm a scuba diver. I scuba dive and they'll come up there and just bounce right off your mask because they're tough cuz they can't be eaten. They’re protected or something. So every time somebody pearls, I say, Oh, you just saw the white Garabaldi, which is a sacred one, like the white buffalo, and every time he is underwater, he's waving. They say, Hey, how you doing down here? Make it a little bit of fun when you're pearl because you made a mistake. That's nature, right? Go to hell. Leave us alone. We're learning, or something like that. So you have a hesitancy. A hesitancy to stay back on your board so you don't pearl. But guess what? It makes it hard to catch the wave. When you got a shorter board, you're plowing the water too much and you want to be a little bit more forward on it so you can get on those waves easier which you want to do.

Christine: And then once I jumped onto your longer board. I had to shift dramatically forward. And you had this really helpful tip where you said, stretch your arms as far forward as you can, like you're paddling, and then it's about six inches. 

Bob: Yes. Your hand should be about six inches back from the nose. That's the relationship with that board. 

Christine: Oh, just with that board. 

Bob: Most boards are that way. Now when once you started getting the long boards it's completely different. The relationship, almost like a personality, like a person. So every one of 'em, you gotta learn this relationship to you on that board. Where do you have to sit? And that's part of that sweet spot. Where you take off, where you stand up when you pop up , where your feet placement. So, that relationship that you gotta learn on that particular board is that way. It's more of a competition board, lightweight, long board. It's not a log where you can turn from any position. And it's more friendly rather than the big old logs. What I call logs, I mean single fin, like the old school boards we used to ride.  They're making a comeback right now. Michael Taki's making a bunch of those. Weston is. It’s old school where when you're turning, you have to step back on the board. You can just sit there and crank and turn in the middle of the board in a position and no weight backwards when you have to turn.

Christine: And that's because you said you had a trifin set up too. 

Bob: Yes. I like my boards loose. The side bites are really small, so basically it's a board without any fins on it. My main fin's only six and a half inches, you know, and it's a cutaway fin and a lot of people laugh at that. And that's old school. You're not going to new school. But you know what? It's me and it's working as my personality and it works. But, once somebody tries it, they speak a different language. That's all this preconception of something they haven't tried and until they try it. It’s the same with the plants, with the kids.

Christine: You had me try paddling on my knees, which I've seen people do. And I always think it looks great, especially when they paddle out through the waves, I've seen people do it effectively, but it's quite awkward when you… 

Bob: We used to catch waves like that. Well if you think about it, cuz when you're laying down, where do you have all your weight? So if you're on the back of the board, guess what? All your weight's back forward. But when you're on your knees, your position on that board and the balance is more centralized. So if you wanna throw more weight forward, you do like that child's pose, like I told you in the paddle with both hands. And guess what? That puts more weight forward. It allows you to catch the wave easier, makes good surf nuts on your legs and on your feet.

Christine: You said there was a lot of talent in the water that day. It’s another particular thing about Oceanside that it not only has a challenging wave, a very dynamic and changing wave that keeps you progressing. But that also invites a lot of different levels of surfers out. These people who really marked marked history. 

Bob: Yeah. Taylor Jensen was out, three time, world champ, long boarder, rides progressive boards. He was out there. And people, what I call tip timers. Again, with those big logs, there was a bunch of 'em that surrounded us after a while and you saw how they were paddled, no leash. They have the confidence to go, but they always get out there on the tip and doing the stuff. But it inspires you cuz it's showing you how to be. When you go to places where you don't see that, guess what? You don't see how to be. And if you keep an open mind, you can watch and learn from them

Christine: Definitely. I mean, that's half of what you're doing out there is watching.

Bob: That's right. Watching, trying to get better so you get more gratification from it.

Christine: Sometimes you're paddling for wave and then, okay, this person's already on it. But then you watch what that person did with that wave.

Bob: The cut backs, the run up to the nose. Yeah. Playing around. That was the longboards. The shortboard borders were always beating up the wave, the slamming, bam, bam, bam, bam. And they're slapping the wave, like they're beating it up like they're mad at it or something. That's a whole other style. And they're doing that too. If you wanna learn that. It's a little bit rougher at our age to do, and I’m not dating you, I'm dating me. 

Christine: We talked about the special place that Oceanside That it has a reputation for being a little bit rougher and, all the things. I grew up here, so I remember going to Oceanside High School and we always had the bad reputation. But I've always found it to be with a lot of heart and soul and really great people. And you think that that translates out into a little bit more respect out in the water.

Bob: Compared to Carlsbad, each city's a little bit different. It depends on the crowds. Again, you have to gain that awareness when you go to a new place, you sit back and watch. Watch the waves, watch the surfers, watch what they're doing to each other. Okay, are they taking off on each other, or anything like that? Or if you can see any verbalization going back and forth, just see the atmosphere. Now, is that conducive to the way it's gonna be all the time? If you're going out that day and it is that way, be aware of it and try to stay away from that area if you know you don't wanna be confrontational like that. Some places are more, some are less. Oceanside to me, always had that stigma on it being a rough place, but once you start surfing there, and paid respect, not taking off in everybody, it's mellower than all the other places. 

Christine: Let's go back a little bit. Why don't you tell us about your history with surfing, the early days. 

Bob: Okay. 1962, The thing called the Beach Boys came out, all this music, Funicello came out, Blanket Bingo, all the different surf movies. It just set a whole array of things off. Back then in 1962, surfers were bums. Everybody was a bum that surfed, guess what? Because it's part of the addiction that you receive when you go out there cuz you want more of it and you keep on going surfing rather than trying to go find a job at McDonald's for 50 cents an hour. So there was a bad stigma on it. I lived in San Bernardino, California to the home of the Hell’s Angels. Guess what? That was 60 miles away from the ocean. We used to go there every weekend or in the summertime. We were always there on all different kinds of different boards and started surfing. From that point, we used to go to a place called Huntington Beach.

Bob: Before that though, when I was a kid, my parents used to take me to Corona del Mar across across the harbor from the wedge where there’s Newport Beach, and I started on raft. The old raft canvas rafts that always tore apart  the upper part of your body because they were abrasive, but I just fell in love with the water and what it did to you. Catching the waves, basically. That's how I started, outta high school and going all the time with my friends and different boards.

Christine: What do you remember being the biggest challenge for you in the early days when you were learning to surf?

Bob: Not getting there enough. Cause that's the addiction, you caught that fever, may it be a drugs or anything. You definitely got a euphoria off that. Plus it was the release. Some people don't have it. I don't see how people in the Mid Midwest live. What is the release? You know whether I'm going chopping wood and I hate to say it, beating your family. What is your release? Well, you gotta have releases where you can get out of that rat race of working and what have you. So you find time for yourself and you can find yourself getting centered, you know? And that's what surfing does. You have to have more of it, and then you find that euphoria. So, and that's why they called us bums back in the day. I mean, I mean, that stigma probably lasted til the mid seventies. Surfers were bums until contests came out and everybody discovered money in the thing. And once you discover money then it's okay, go out and be a bum so we can take your money. You know, buy cars, buy surf racks, surf products, surf clothes, on and on and on. Good old capitalism.

Christine: I'm curious too, knowing a little bit about your personal history, you say that you are the son of Italian immigrants. And that your grandparents fled in Italy when Mussolini came to power. Your grandfather went to Tierra del Fuego. And that began the journey with plant medicines and botanicals. 

Bob: Yes. 

Christine: But I'm curious how all of that feeds into surfing or if there's like some kind of line you could trace. Or we could just start there with your grandfather. 

Bob: How to answer that? That's a good question. I'm gonna go back to the awareness thing. I thrive on awareness. It may it be what direction it could be. And that awareness that he brought to us basically was awareness of plants, throwing your poop into the wind and be able to come down on your feet again and be able to live, survive, and thrive. When a country goes haywire like Mussolini and Hitler did, at that time, United States wasn't really too friendly to what was going on. And if you do your homework a little bit, they tried to keep it under the books. There was really a fascist element of America. They didn't really let Hitler do what he was doing or get into the war, nobody wanted to. But like I said, when you get a perspective of awareness back in another country and you see what America's doing here and it's going crazy already over in the country you're living, you go to a place that's not, that was South America.

Bob: Most of my relatives fled to South America. I had an aunt that lived in Sao Paolo, Brazil. She moved there. Late thirties. Stayed there forever until she died. I had other relatives in Venezuela. A lot of Europeans went that direction. My grandfather went to Tierra del Fuego, threw his poop into the wind there, got into plants. He was a vivacious gardener in Italy. He was a cement, plaster contractor. Could do cement sculpturing, gargoyles on churches, what have you. I have all those old tools still. So he liked exploring. Then he came to America and brought his whole family. My dad came, I had an uncle that did stay in Italy and he be joined the Italian Secret Service of all places, and then when Mussolini got caught in the street, he was part of the element that brought him down.

Christine: It was helpful that he stayed.

Bob: Yeah. But the exploration aspect, I'm trying to answer that question, how that got me into the ocean. They lived in Sicily, which is by the water in the bottom of Italy. My dad was raised in a place called San Lucio. He'd go out his front door and dive into the ocean and get clams, muscles and stuff to eat for the day. Every time I went to the beach with my dad he sort of embarrassed me in the way we were kids, right? He'd go to the pier pile and start yanking muscles off of and start eating them. Or he'd go out in the water and tell me, hey, Huntington Beach had giant clams at that time, go get a clam man. You weren't supposed to get them. So I used to tuck them in my shorts and bring them up to him. Smuggle clams out of the water. 

Christine: So he brought that enthusiasm for the water and that knowledge of all of the life. And the giving nature to the ocean. 

Bob: Right. There's a lot of more life than what we think we know all the time. We take the blinders off. We’re like a horse with blinders, take those blinders off and start accepting all this stuff, inundate yourself with stuff and really find out what you wanna do. 


Christine: I am just absolutely captivated with this beautiful nursery that you have here. Everything that you're growing.I feel like I traveled through several countries in the last hours. 

Bob: Well, you haven't seen nothing yet. There stuff is tucked in the nooks and crannies that I have not showed you yet. 

Christine: So it's a really wonderful gem that you have here and so much expertise and knowledge and just love of plant life. I really thank you for sharing all of this with me. And also the time in the water. 

Bob: I hope this is a friendship that could keep on going because you wanted just to learn how to surf. It goes more than one lesson, you need many more, or you need many more experiences so you could understand what you're doing and keep it going. Anytime you want to use one of my longboards or something like that you're more than welcome. And then along with the plant life too. To all my customers, I tell 'em no question is not too stupid. Anytime you want to ask something like that. Cuz what I want to do is I wanna make this place green. I'm an old hippie. I wanna make it right again, bring the oxygen back that we need and all the life back so we have a good life. 

Christine: Wonderful words to end on. Thank you so much, Bob. 

Bob: Pleasure. Thank you.