Back in 2018 Matt Titone and the crew at Indoek put together “The Saint Augustine Issue”, a wonderful 92-page print celebration of the Oldest City — filled with art, history, photography, food, and surfing in St. Augustine. One of the features — Tales From The Pump — went inside The Surf Station and the many things the shop (and Tory) has done for the people who have come up through the store since its opening back in 1984. And while the print issue has been out for awhile, we’ll be featuring some of the stories that comprise the feature right here in the coming weeks. (And in case you missed the issue, limited copies are still available for purchase here.)
For the third installment, we’re featuring Jimmy “Jimmicane” Wilson’s words. Jimmy moved from Saint Augustine to San Diego to work at SURFING Magazine back in 2008. One of the world’s best surf photographers, Jimmy — like some many others — got his start in the shop.
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I spent my entire childhood going up to hang out at the shop and the employees were a hardcore crew of surfers who ripped at surfing and also intimidated the shit out of us.
This is people like Jason Hadjis, Tripp Turner, Tooffy [Brian Hornung], Dagen McNally, etc. They allowed us to hang around, but if we ever got out of line they would deal out “red bellies,” a discipline tactic in which we were held down on the floor and smacked repeatedly in the stomach. This would happen if we were rude to a customer, left trash around, or just generally annoyed them to a certain level. Usually it wasn’t so bad, but depending on the crime, I’d seen tears from a few groms.
One time there was a contest at Middles during a huge Nor’easter with the water temp dipping into the upper 40’s. I was terrified paddling to the outside and started to have an asthma attack. I ended up catching a wave in to get treatment and lost the heat to my sister Kristin. I was warned the next time I came into the shop I’d be getting the worst red belly of my life. I held out for an entire week, sitting at home doing nothing, while all my friends carried on with their normal lives, before finally coming to the conclusion that I needed to just take my punishment and get it over with.
As soon as I walked in the door, Tripp broke out the Rainbow sandal and whipped my stomach until I was nearly bleeding. It was the worst anyone had ever seen, but I didn’t cry and learned that paddling out when the waves were big was a lot less scary than facing the dreaded Rainbow sandal.
For Part 1, featuring Zander Morton’s words, click here.
For Part 2, featuring Russell Brownley’s words, click here
