Cowabunga!

 

If you live in Santa Rosa, California, you can hardly avoid one of the most famous dogs in the world, a gang of kids and the man who brought them to life - Charles M. Schulz, the creator of the "Peanuts" cartoon.

Schulz was born in November 1922 in Minneapolis and in 1958 he moved with his family to Sonoma County, first to Sebastopol and then to Santa Rosa, where he lived and worked until his death in February 2000. Two years later, in August 2002, the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center was opened in Santa Rosa. I still remember those early days when I also met his second wife, Jean, during one of the very first events. Later, during middle and high school, Kaefer regularly worked there as a volunteer in the education room and as a camp counselor for several years. This museum is part of our family memories.

So when there was a special surfing exhibition in the museum, the Geek and I had to go. It was a very enjoyable way to escape the heat for a few hours.

But why "Cowabunga"? 

The Press Democrat, our local paper, wrote on April 24, 1990:

"The word 'cowabunga", created for a character on the Howdy Dowdy TV show in the mid-1950s, was adopted by the generation of kids who grew up watching the program and as teenagers used it as a term of excitement, especially among surfers. By the late 1980s it was being shouted by popular characters like Bart Simpson, an avid skateboarder, and Michaelangelo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who uses surfer slang."

And so does Snoopy.

According to the museum, "Charles Schulz was not a surfer but enjoyed living near the Pacific Ocean. He also always had his ears open for funny words and phrases. He never recorded when or where he first encountered surfer slang, but he used it to comedic effect as early as 1965. He may have heard it from his older children and their friends or perhaps in one of the many beach party films that were then popular." 

Even though Schulz, whose nickname "Sparky" is still used in Santa Rosa, did not surf, there is a very endearing photo of him on a skateboard together with his daughter Amy in the driveway of their Sebastopol home. The other photo is of him and two of his five children at the ocean where he frequently went.

To my knowledge, no one else of the Peanuts gang surfed and so Snoopy became the lone surfing beagle. Not many of those are around, I assume.

I liked the way many of the comic strips were displayed in the museum, giving it the beach, sand and ocean atmosphere (I'm not mentioning the sun here, because that shiny ball often hides above the marine layer at our coast).

There were also a few sketches that Sparky did before creating the actual comic of the day. They always landed in the waste basket, but his secretaries would often retrieve and collect them.

There is way more to write about our visit to the Schulz Museum, but I will leave this for a later post. This has already become very long. Since there are so many faces, much beloved around the world, I will join Nicole for this week's Friday Face Off.

Where Munich Surfs

 

Have you heard of Englischer Garten (English Garden)? It is a public park in the center of München, just west of the Isar, the river that runs through the Bavarian capital. Englischer Garten is one of the world's largest urban parks and even bigger than Central Park in NYC, and it is just a short walk from downtown's Marienplatz. The name refers to its English garden form of informal landscape. The Southern part is the more popular one whereas the Northern part, called Hirschau, is much quieter. The park is 5 km long and runs parallel to the Isar.

It has streams, lakes, wide lawns and meadows, old trees and some popular attractions like the Monopteros temple, the Chinese tower and, of course, a beer garden. We ARE in Bavaria after all. One of my favorite places was the Japanese teahouse.

The Japanese teahouse and a Japanese garden were created in 1972. It was the year of the summer Olympics in München - those of you old enough will probably remember them and hopefully not only because of the horrible massacre in the second week of the games. Sapporo in Japan was the place of the winter Olympics in the same year (at that time the summer and winter games took place in the same year, but in different countries) and has been a partner city of München ever since. The Japanese teahouse was created in order to celebrate this partnership.

Throughout the park there are lawns and meadows to rest as well as trails meandering through the trees.

Do you see the swan sitting on its nest?

This is the Monopteros temple in the background. If you think you see people in the nude here, you are correct. A fairly large part of the Englisher Garten is "nude area" where you can just drop off your clothes if you like - and it's not only the young and beautiful. Remember, we Germans aren't particularly puritanical.

Like any other park, Englischer Garten has its share of Greylag Geese, and I also spotted what I think is a Bar-headed Goose (if I'm wrong, I hope that David will correct me).

But the most exciting part is Eisbachwelle. 

Eisbachwelle is a standing wave in the Eisbach (ice stream) that is produced by the change from laminar to turbulent flow. This is where Munich surfs. On both sides of the stream surfers wait with their boards until it is their turn. Each surfer surfs for about 30 seconds and then drops out voluntarily so that the next person can go in. The surfers take turns alternately from the left and right side. I was impressed how well this works and that no one hogs the wave for more than 30 seconds at the most.

Now, as someone living close to the California coast I am used to seeing surfers - riding the waves of the Pacific. What I saw here at Eisbachwelle is a far cry from the Pacific Ocean, but boy, you need to be good for this. Really good.

I am including a few short videos so you can see the real action - and just look how great these women are!!!

Maybe you need a rest after this. Let's hang out in the hammock for a while.

I'm linking up with Rain's TAD.