A short story about a long board

Being an East Coast surfer, my time out of the water vastly outnumbers my time in the water. If not at work or active with my family, my free time is most likely spent on something SURF related.  Whether it be reading about it, watching videos or searching the internet for all things surfing.  Over the last several years, I have become quite interested in vintage surfboards and the people that built them.  I have a small circle of friends that share this same interest and this is a story about a surfboard that happens to belong to one of those friends.

Round about 14 years ago, my friend acquired a surfboard from a family in small southern New Jersey  resort town. The board was found in the basement of rental property that was overflowing with left behind items from past tenants.  The board was near the entry of the “packed full” basement and found with some minor dings and the fin broken off and missing.   Overall it was in fair to good shape for a mid 60s era surfboard. My friend happily took the board home with intentions of fixing the dings, installing a modern fin box and getting it in surf shape.  As time went by, the board repairs were put off, life rolled on and after about a year’s time the rental property owner asked again for some help in his basement. So again my friend found himself cleaning out years of forgotten belongings from the old home. This time around he didn’t find a surfboard, but as luck would have it after moving a few boxes there on the basement floor was the missing fin. Once he had it home, he found it a perfect fit in the old board.  

Years passed by, the intended repairs were still pending  and then a chance meeting occurred. A photographer friend mentioned she was doing some work for a man who used to shape surf boards. When introduced to my friend as George Miller, my friend said, “of Land & Miller?” At that point the man smiled and said, “I haven’t heard that name in a very long time!” Being only a block away from his house, my friend told him that he had a Land & Miller surfboard at his house and went over to grab it. George was stoked to see the board and told my friend that he had not seen one in decades.  Being that the board still needed some TLC, my friend asked if George would be willing to take on the repairs.  The answer was, “if you can bring it down to Florida, YES!” So on his next a trip south to visit his brother in central FL, my friend dropped off the board at a shop owned by a close friend of George.  Several months later, it arrived back in NJ all repaired and not a penny charged nor asked for.  

So here she is a 10’ mid 1960s Land & Miller Signature Model with all repairs done by Mr. George Miller himself.  ALOHA