Forums > Surfing Shortboards

Michael Peterson

Reply
Created by waveslave > 9 months ago, 23 Nov 2015
waveslave
WA, 4263 posts
23 Nov 2015 7:46AM
Thumbs Up

Just finished reading MP Untold. The lost stories of an Australian surfing legend by Sean Doherty.

Great read and it took me back cause I'm originally from the Coast and of the same vintage.

Here's a piece out of the book contributed by Rabbit Bartholomew:-

"You know, in the middle of it all, in the fog of war, when the battle lines had been drawn between Michael and me,
I remember one Sunday afternoon.

This happened just a few years ago, not long before he died.

I was in the supermarket, buying stuff for my son's seventh birthday party.

I was pushing a trolley full of soft drinks, lollies and cakes and chips,

and I come around the corner of the aisle and at that very instant,

coming down the aisle from the other end, there he is.

He's in tracksuit pants and is twice the size he was back then,

but he's wearing the same aviators and walking the same strut. It's all there. Michael.

And suddenly here we are, shopping trolleys at twenty paces,

and all I can hear is The Good, the Bad and the Ugly playing again.

It's Lee Van Cleef and Clint Eastwood.

And the recognition was instant, and suddenly we were both transported back to that time when we were rivals.

The recognition was instant.

"Sh!t, that's MP."

"Hmm, that's chine."

We meet halfway down the aisle and stop. There's silence for a few seconds.

"Hey chine. What are ya doing?"

"Not much." I looked down into my trolley. "Just getting the stuff for the party, mate."

I look into his trolley and it looks a lot like mine, some chips and stuff,

and even with the aviators on he doesn't make eye contact and we don't say a lot,

but there we were, thirty-five years later, the soundtrack still playing.

Nothing had changed except we had shopping trolleys instead of surfboards.

It was a moment in Coles on a Friday afternoon.

"See ya Michael."

"Yeah, see ya, chine."

I walked into the cereal aisle and stopped and just went, Wow!

It was the most ironic, wonderful thing ever.

It wasn't five-foot-eights at Kirra, it was shopping trolleys in aisle 5.

But there we were, decades after the war, and it all just came flooding back.




Ashmullet
NSW, 282 posts
2 Dec 2015 4:43AM
Thumbs Up

Such a great read



Subscribe
Reply

Forums > Surfing Shortboards


"Michael Peterson" started by waveslave