Jeez, hasn’t it changed? Late 2017 and I could parade Kelly Slater through town, and no-one would've blinked an eye. Today, Tuesday 4th September 2018 and he’s known - no, not Outerknown, known - I mean known.

A little while back I scribed about the impact of what we know today as The Surf Ranch. Here's the link...yes, great piece, I know. Thanks for the plaudits.

I’ve landed back at the farm, the other side of Stratford, 8 miles from the Surf Ranch for all of 48 hours on my way out to Texas. It’s just before 9am in the morning. Blue skies for as far as the eye can see, hasn’t rained since April and I’m back at the dinner table...heck, breakfast, lunch, dinner, this table has seen everything of three generations for farming. In from checking water, checking crops, smelling dry air and smelling dirt and dust. You’ve got to love it out here. And then, and then..?

In walks my brother (yep, the same one who a few years back asked, ‘Do you know a guy called Kelly Slater’?) and he's got a question: ‘You want to see the Surf Ranch?’ I kinda feel like I’m doing some Keanu backwheeling from The Matrix. ‘Say again, Surf Ranch, you mean Kelly’s place on Jackson Avenue’?

Again, rather nonchalantly from my brother the farmer, ‘Yeah, well I’ve got a little time. But we’ve got to drop the pump off in Armona too’. Talk about priorities, so we’re off.

It’s all changed in the Tulare Basin, Kings County, Central California. Everyone knows who Kelly Slater is. It’s all changed within twelve months.

Farm kids are talking surf language and farming housewives are following their favourites on Instagram - 'Oh, I just love her!' Within a few months an area with no interest, no history or association with the water, other than crop allocation and the occasional summer visit to the Coast 1 ½ hours away, are surf-mad. It’s like Bruce Brown has just wheeled out of town in late 1966 with The Endless Summer. The Woody has rolled onto the next patch of dirt showing to a new crowd of soon-to-be disciples. They’re all mad, bonkers-mad, for surf.

Or, should I say, what their perception of surf is.

Because this, my friends, is the future, and it’s not about us. Yes, we’re surfers, we know what a cold wetsuit is like and the ice-cream headache and the dream of offshores and no-one else out. But it’s not about us, it’s about the future audience. It’s about moving those followers away from traditional sports and into surfing. But this time round, some fifty-plus years later there’s no need for Bob Evans to shimmy up to Ampol, Midget to play nice to the Sydney Morning Herald, or indeed Bruce Brown to convince The Fresno Bee that this is ‘all good clean fun’. The deal is done, it’s sold. The dream has been seen, and the internet doesn’t lie (ohh, don’t go there).

…you get to the gate, and it’s like you’re Charlie Bucket hardly believing that he’s got the golden ticket and those pearly gates are actually going to open. It’s just that these gates are made of wood with a very, very cool logo embossed on the front. It’s just that these gates don’t often open. But this morning they do.

…it’s hard to say no to the farming neighbours.

Surf wear, Central Valley-style

If all accounts are correct there’s going to be a few thousand people in town this weekend and unlike the local derby (think QLD vs NSW, Essendon vs Collingwood, Wallabies vs All Blacks, and on that note please let us win just once!) when the Hanford vs Lemoore game is on everyone already has a bed to sleep in. This weekend it’s a sold-out show. There ain’t an empty bed in town and someone’s making a pretty penny on the side. Did I mention parking? But I digress...

I’m in The Surf Ranch, and it’s a hive of activity. It’s pretty full on like it would be anywhere else a professional event is taking place. Busy bees. I won’t go into the wave itself, I think enough people have put in their two bobs worth here, though I will say it's an engineering marvel. I’ve seen and surfed NLand in Texas, and this is completely different. The water is contained, and I for one don’t have a negative comment to say on the wave itself. The WSL competitors were there in the water, like clockwork, making every four minutes count. Impressed is an understatement. I applaud.

Worlds colliding...

But let’s get back to my brother the farmer. He’s asking a million and one questions as is his wife, lovely gal. They’re into it. Following their ‘favourite’ surfers on Insta and, when they get home, they’ll no doubt share this online and their kids will get the bug. Because this is what we might just miss in this whole gigamont of a production.

The future market, the follower, is not surfing, but they love it all the same. In the US, Pro Football, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey...you name it, they love it, and they watch it – but they don’t do it. For the life of me, I can’t understand Gaming, but bloody millions of people do, and they love it. They even pay to sit in a stadium and watch people game. They can watch someone else game for hours, so why can’t ‘indoor surfing’, as I’ll gently describe it, be the same?

We are politely and courteously shown around. There are a few locals employed here and, because there’s only one school in town, the school I attended in 1987/88, Lemoore High (now say that just like the cheerleaders did in Grease), everyone knows everyone. It’s impressive...the whole set up. There’s been a lot of thought put into the old water ski park, and I’m still trying to figure it all out. But, at this point, I’m standing back and giving a clap because I remember that timeless quote from Teddy Roosevelt in 1910, back against the wall, in Paris, delivered as part of the ‘Citizen of the Republic’. We know it as ‘The man in the arena’ speech. I think Kelly has some right to identify with this.

…and onto God himself.

I’ve met him once and found him polite, maybe not polite as in the MR sense of polite, but never the less Kelly was polite. Now talk about ‘bang for your buck’. It’s Tuesday morning, the first competition is on this weekend and every man, woman, child, and dog wants a piece of Messer Slater. The poor bugger is no doubt being pulled from pillar to post. And, my friends, we go back to my brother, the farmer.

…he sees him, God that is, trying to tuck into his lunch (I’ve never seen anything so healthy in Lemoore) and decides to, as we would say in the land of convicts, have ‘a (not so) quick word’. ‘Kelly, my name’s Charlie, and I farm here’.

Well, can I say I’m giving Kelly nine out of ten. He’s polite and courteous, asks what Charlie farms and about the area itself. He’s got a lot on his plate, but he maintains eye contact and is even kind enough for a photo. Me? I’m trying to escape. I’ve said ‘G’Day’ and noticed the million and one bees around the Queen (no King in a hive) and just want to get the heck out of there. But the farmer is talking Pima cotton. KS? He’s a nine, MR is still the perfect 10, but in the courtesy stakes, it’s hard climbing that MR mountain…but considering what God is juggling today I’ll up him to par.

Decked in denim and plaid, the good ol' boys tower over God

We leave the pearly (wooden) gates behind and head into town for lunch, my favourite, Tadeo’s and it's Tuesday. You know what that means - Taco Tuesday. Throw in a Michelada (don’t say no) and you’re well and truly done for $10…with change. I catch up with friends in town and it's obvious that the Ranch has made a difference. Farming suppliers might not be getting a new order for a cotton picker anytime soon, but people are benefiting, and that’s a good thing. Up until this week whenever I am back in town, as I have been over the last thirty years, I’ve been the only Australian. But today, ‘Heh, I met an Australian last weekend who was at the Surf Ranch’. So the novelty factor is gone, ‘thanks Mick’.

I’ll miss the show. I’m out of town 6am tomorrow morning as I point the Chevy to LAX (actually, it’s an import as my farming family pointed out). If you are in town, enjoy. It will be as hot as Hades, I don’t think it will drop under 36° and I for one cannot see the relief of the blue ocean in sight. We’re in the valley. There’s dirt, dust, and heat. It’s the Surf Ranch, the future, enjoy!

// THE U TURN