Mount Pleasant Senior Living 2021-22

4 www. Char l es tonRet i rementL i v i ng. com | www.MPSen i or L i v i ng. com senior living W hen I was introduced to some of the original members of the Carolina Coast Surf Club, believed to be the nation’s oldest active surf club, they had gathered at The Windjammer for a memorial service to celebrate the life of their friend and fellow surfer, Ramon Basha. The tribute featured anecdotes about Ramon’s championship caliber surfing prowess — “he really is the best surfer to come out of South Carolina” — and stories of his compassion as a doctor of acupuncture and his affection as a doting father. One of Ramon’s daughters, Amy, stuck in COVID-19 lockdown in Australia, joined via Zoom livestream and delivered a poignant eulogy. “I always looked up to him my whole life. There are not enough words to encompass the wonderful life he lived,” she shared. Ramon’s brother Bobby, a CCSC member, chronicled Ramon’s remarkable surfing style and uncanny ability to switch surfing stances — that is, ride a board with either his left foot or right foot forward. “Every contest Ramon entered in South Carolina and North Carolina, he won,” marveled Bobby. Although its founders were already surfing together in 1962, CCSC was officially started in 1963 by 11 or so wayward teenagers “who didn’t know what we were doing,” recollected co-founder and Sullivan’s Island native Hal Coste, now 74. The group began surfing during the longboard era of the sport, which Coste pegged as roughly 1962- 67. CCSC’s founding members were all self-taught, learning the sport by reading magazines and watching old surf films on projectors. Coste’s first board was a Dewey Weber Performer longboard he ordered from California for $110. Co-founder Tom Proctor’s mom Kitty was considered the “matriarch of the club,” always making biscuits and BY COL I N MCCANDLESS Keep Riding Those Waves Surf’s Still Up for Country’s Oldest Active Surf Club “Surfing to me is spiritual. It’s a communion with the environment that I can’t get anywhere else.” -Hal Coste, “Board Shorts”