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longboard. John Sr. was out there riding a Dale Velzy ten-foot wooden longboard in the days when surfers were considered bums, but John Sr. doesn’t give a shit because he knows he works for a living and bums don’t.
    This is what John Sr. tells Jack like maybe only a million times on the beach or on the job. What he tells him is, “There’s work and there’s play. Play is better, but you
work
to earn the play. I don’t care what you do in this world, but you do something. You earn your own living.”
    “Yeah, Dad.”
    “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” John Sr. says. “But I’m telling you: you do the job, you do it right, you earn your paycheck. Then the rest of your time is yours, you don’t owe anybody shit, you don’t owe any explanations, you have paid your way.”
    So Jack’s father teaches him to work and to surf. Turns him on to all the good stuff: In-N-Out Burgers, Dick Dale & His Del-Tones,
tacos carne asada
at El Maguey, longboards, the beach break at Lower Trestles, the old trailer park at Dana Strands.
    Young Jack thinks it might be the most beautiful place in the world, this long ridge overlooking Dana Strand Beach. The trailer park has been closed for years; all there is now is a few decrepit old buildings and some trailer pads, but when he’s up there among the eucalyptus and the palms which overlook the gorgeous stretch of beach that curves into the big rock at Dana Head, well, it’s the most beautiful place in the world.
    Young Jack spends hours there—hell,
days
there—on the last undeveloped hillside on the south coast. He’ll surf for a while, then hike up the ravine that leads up the bluff and slip under the old fence and wander around. Go sit in the old rec hall building where they used to have Ping-Pong tables and a jukebox and a kitchen that put out burgers and dogs and chili for the trailer park patrons. Sometimes he sits there and watches the lightning storms that crash over Dana Head, or sometimes he sits up there during the whale migration and spots the big grays moving north up the coast. Or sometimes he justs sits there and stares at the ocean and does nothing.
    His dad doesn’t let him do a lot of nothing. John Sr. keeps him pretty busy, especially as young Jack gets older and can handle more work.
    But sometimes when they’ve finished a big job they take the truck down to Baja and find some little Mexican fishing village. Sleep in theback of the truck, surf the miles of empty beach, take siestas under palm trees in the ferocious midday heat. In the late afternoon they order fish for dinner and the locals go out and catch it and have it ready by the time the sun goes down. Jack and his dad sit at an outdoor table and eat the fresh fish, with warm tortillas right off the grill, and drink ice-cold Mexican beer and talk about the waves they caught or the waves that caught them or just about
stuff
. Then maybe one of the villagers gets out his guitar, and if Jack and his dad have had
enough
beers they join in singing the
canciones
. Or maybe they just lie in the back of the truck listening to a Dodgers game through the crackle of the radio, or just talk to the background of a mariachi station, or maybe just fall asleep staring at the stars.
    Do a few days of this and then drive back to
el norte
to go back to work.
    Jack graduates from high school, does a couple of semesters at San Diego State, figures
that
ain’t it and takes the test for the Sheriff’s Department. Tells his dad he wants to try something different from Sheetrock and 2 by 6s for a while.
    “I can’t blame you,” says his dad.
    Jack aces the written exam, and he’s bulked up from the construction work and the surfing, so he gets on with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Does the usual gigs for a few years—serves papers, picks up fugitive warrants, does car patrols—but Jack is a
smart
kid and wants to move up and there’s no spot in Major Crimes so he applies for fire school.
    Figuring that if you know