George Greenough is clearly "on the spectrum," as they say—except nobody ever says it about George. Not in public anyway. We say he's "odd" or "eccentric" or "wired differently," and leave it at that. Yet everything Greenough has done for surfing, the astounding leaps in performance and equipment, all of it shared openly and freely with no interest whatsoever in profit, can be seen as the result of his oddness, his unique wiring. So thank God for George being different. Call it what you will.

That said, being who he is must be difficult at times—for both George, and those around him. This also isn't talked about.

The only thing I've yet come across that tried to capture the difficulty, the asymmetry, of George Greenough is the article you find here. It ran in the Anderson Valley Advertiser in 2010, and was written by bodyboarder and 

 Delmore is enough of a surfer to know of, and be slightly awed by, Greenough's place in the surf pantheon. He's also enough of an outsider to present the man unvarnished.

The Greenough surname first came to me on the back of a wine bottle. The communion-worthy elixir was from a brand called Saucelito Canyon, owned by William S. Greenough, and located just outside of my stomping grounds in Arroyo Grande, California. I later learned that Bill Greenough was in fact the younger brother to George Greenough—who I know from watching and rewatching a VHS copy of “Innermost Limits of Pure Fun" during my smoked-bombed Eureka youth.

As my own path turned from waves to wine, I secured a job as Saucelito Canyon's first tasting room manager in San Luis Obispo. Bill Greenough was my boss. I'd hear family snippets here and there about "Uncle George.” A couple times I answered the phone and the voice on the line would announce, “This is George Greenough. Is Bill or Nancy around?” I'd shyly transfer the call. He lived in a pyramid on a hilltop in Byron Bay, Bill's wife Nancy told me once. She added that he never dates and has the yellowest toenails she'd ever seen.

In the spring of 2010, I left the States to make wine in South Australia, reserving a month afterward to fly to New South Wales and surf my way up to the Gold Coast. As it happened, I got an email from Bill and Nancy along the way that mentioned they were going to be in Byron Bay to see “Uncle George.” “Please come,” Nancy added. “It's a once in a lifetime experience."

I boarded a Greyhound Bus at Port Macquarie, headed for Byron, bringing a bodyboard and fins. Seven hours later, the Greenough's daughter Margaret and her fiance Chris picked me up from the station, amid a dreadlocked flock of roaming backpackers. At the vacation house near Walagos Beach I caught up with Bill and Nancy, and learned that George was coming over at 11:30 the next morning.

Waking up at 11:15, after a night on the town, I grabbed a cup of coffee in the kitchen while Bill and Nancy set up outside for lunch. Suddenly a skinny, barefoot man with a blond-gray matted mullet slinked in the door, wearing a Patagonia bomber's jacket and stained white shorts. He sat on one of the couches and started flashing through the reading materials on the table. “How's it goin'?” I said, being the only one in the room at the time.

Nancy called out “Is that Georgie?” and came into the room, followed by Bill. There were no hugs or handshakes. “What is this crap?” George said about the magazines like 

 and such that were on the coffee table. “There is so much crap these days!”

“George,” Nancy said, “I want to introduce you to Darren. He was our first tasting room manager and he rides a kneeboard. Is that what you ride, Darren?” I came over and shook George's hand.

“Oh I'm sorry, a bodyboard,” Nancy said.

George took that in for a second and then said “A bodyboard? No one rides a bodyboard. Those are what people bring dead floating bodies in on. You ride a boogie.”

"And Darren rides his in a . . . ." Nancy paused and looked at me. "What position do you ride in Darren?"

George nodded without eye contact. "At least you don't ride a pointed nose surfboard,” he said. "Pointed nose surfboards are offensive weapons. They are aggressive and dangerous. Anyone who gets hit by one can sue the manufacturer.” He cited an incident recently where a shortboard pierced through someone's skull at The Pass.

He then started going off on conservationists and how they're fucking everything up. “There was this woman on the radio the other day, trying to expand the non-fishing areas around here. And someone finally called in and asked her if she even ate fish, and she says, 'No, I'm a vegan.' It's people like this that are making these new laws. I say take it, kill it, eat it, don't worry about it.”

I could tell by this point that here was a man who wouldn't ever know me, wouldn't really care to anyhow, and chances are had already forgotten my name.

We went outside for lunch, and I managed to knock Bill's glass of Coke onto a major portion of the prawn and rocket salad platter. That effervescent, syrupy seasoning didn't faze Uncle George in the least, he had three helpings of “the Coke salad” from the brownest side of the serving tray, and even praised its flavors. I set a chilled bottle of Burge Family semillon on the table, but George didn't drink. “Why put something in your body that smells and tastes like it can kill you?” he said. The subject turned to Margaret and her fiance Chris, both of whom had both just graduated from UCLA Medical School. “You guys should move here to work!” George said.

“I don't know though,” Margaret said, “Darren had a hard time getting his work visa.”

With yogurt dressing all over his lips from the cold fish course, George said, “But you guys are doctors!” Then he sank a distrusting stare into me from across the table. “What are you?”

An answer wasn't really expected, though I muttered the “winemaker.” George left early, and we could hear him still talking as he descended the long driveway to his vehicle out of sight. “Well . . . that's Uncle George,” Nancy said.

The following day, George invited us over to his place before noon. We brought our own sandwiches, as nobody was sure if George's offer included lunch, and drove through a nature preserve with instructions to “just follow the power lines.” It reminded me of driving to surf Patrick's Point up in Humboldt County, with a lush forest-scape, massive ferns, elevation, and ocean views here and there. We found George's gate and its “No Trespassing” sign, and were soon on his property, hemmed in by massive overgrowth on both sides that scratched the hell out of the rented car's paint job. The greenery opened up to reveal a wild wooden pyramid at the top of the hill, with George seated on the outer deck on one of two tattered, mismatched couches. His new boat was out front by two old vehicles. Lime and lemon trees grew alongside a fenced-in garden that extended along the spine of the ridge. There were expansive views in all directions. Margaret at the wheel opted not to brave the rainwater trench between us and the house, and left the car parked at a distance.

“You could've made it, " George said to her, disappointed.

“Hi Georgie,” Nancy said, stepping onto the wet earth. “We brought lunch.”

“I already ate. I thought you’d be here at 11:30.” It was 11:50.

We walked past random tools, scraps of fiberglass, wood, foam, and other boat construction materials. Again, no formalities were exchanged. It was very freestyle. We stopped at his new boat, which he said he hoped to sell to the military, complete with a machine gun propped front and center. Bill and Chris snapped pictures of George beside it and I got the drift that he particularly didn't appreciate the media session. Then we embarked on a garden tour, while George talked about how his place was on rainwater only. He had two reserve ponds with waterlilies growing on the surface that purified the water. “We get 60 inches of rain out here on average. This place used to be a banana plantation. I bought it in 1975. Now it's probably worth three-million.” He showed us his rainwater tank for the house and told us how he had recently pulled a huge dead python out of it. He called the water board and asked what he should do, since the water stank. "They recommended pouring bleach or chlorine in there and waiting a week or so. I didn't do anything. It purified itself in a couple days.”

Chris asked about snakes. “Well, the eastern browns, those are quite common and deadly. I've got those in the house. And red-bellied blacks. Those are bad too. Here, do you guys want to see a poisonous snake?” We reluctantly nodded, wondering if said snake would be in a cage, or just roaming around the pyramid.

We walked past some open spaces in the bottom of the structure, one of which held old longboards and kneeboards. There was an unglassed blank laying in the grass. On the west end of the pyramid we approached a folded tarp on the ground. “Pretty much anything you lift up around here you're gonna find something underneath. Especially when it gets cold like this.” Sure enough, George lifted a corner and a snake was half exposed, retreating into the tarp as much as it could. “See there's a red-bellied black right here,” George said with a genuine smile on his face, trying to get it out into full view.

After that thrill we took an indoor tour of the pyramid. A Super-8 film Projector sat on the kitchen table, which was covered with old magazines, tools, letters, and pictures. The cluttered floor looked like an earthquake had shaken an entire library off the shelves. Snakeskins hung on a hook on the wall below a collection of shark jaws that George had personally caught with mere fishing poles. “What's that?” Chris asked, pointing at what looked like a massive tarantula dangling from some shark teeth. “It's just the skin from a huntsman,” George said. “Here, do you want it?” Before Chris could say anything it was bottled up for him as a gift. “I'd like to see you get that through customs!” George laughed.

In one corner a big-screen TV offered the only resemblance to a usual dwelling, along with two thrashed couches in front and a set of car seats to one side. DVD's were spilled all over the place. “All of George's furniture he gets on the side of the road,” Nancy told me.

As the last stop, we climbed a staircase up to George's bedroom, with 360-degree views all the way to Lennox Head to the south. More snake skins were beside his mattress on the floor, as well as a nine-volt battery and a massive rusted ax. “What's that for, George?” Nancy asked, nodding toward the ax.

“Home invasion. Australia won't allow me to have a gun. I also have these lead weights. Imagine coming up these stairs and having these weights chucked down at your head!”

We ate our sandwiches outside, and suddenly the largest red wasp I've ever seen flew past. “Oh man,” I said, getting ready to bolt. I was sitting next to George on one of those couches.

“If you get stung by one of those it's like sticking your finger in a light socket,” George said. “It's like being stung by 20 yellowjackets. But you can actually pick them up by both wings. I made a movie doing that.” The wasp flew into a boat engine sitting right next to the front doorway.

“Are any of your movies on DVD?” I nervously asked him.

“There's a video store in Humboldt where you can rent it," I said to no real acknowledgment.

George got up, disappeared into his house, and re-emerged with two brand new DVD copies of his movies for me. 

. I thanked him earnestly, holding them in my hands, stoked.

After lunch we migrated inside and sat before the big screen while George showed us some of his new stuff. First up was a short titled 

, with a very cheery George eradicating a massive red wasp with his bare fingers, set to the appropriate sounds of a buzzy didgeridoo. Next was Innermost Limits with new audio commentary, including descriptions of stunning in-the-barrel footage shot at Lennox Head. Watching these clips with us, George was in his most natural, affable, comfortable state. We finished with his making-of-the-boat film, which had a dry humor to it. “I might put all this stuff together for another surf movie,” he said afterward. Soon it was time to leave. There was another dinner get-together scheduled for that night, and George was invited. He said if it was early enough he'd try to come.

We didn't see him that night, and I never would paddle out with the man. When I think of George Greenough these days, I see snakes, spiders and wasps. And barrels, of course. Deep ones.

Article un-published at request of author Darren Delmore

"THE GEORGE GREENOUGH EXPERIENCE," BY DARREN DELMORE

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