{"id":6786,"date":"2013-06-02T18:59:54","date_gmt":"2013-06-03T01:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=6786"},"modified":"2013-06-04T21:19:02","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T04:19:02","slug":"a-turn-in-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2013\/06\/02\/a-turn-in-the-road\/","title":{"rendered":"A Turn in the Road"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jeff-Divine-Book\"<\/a><\/h6>\n
The Jeff Divine coffee table book (above) included the zany photo from the earlier days at the magazine. That’s Divine on his back, author Brad Barrett smiling at the camera, at the rear on his knees is me.<\/h6>\n

\"Surfer-Gang-1300\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I got to thinking about turns in the road, my own and those of others. Most of life is a slowly evolving continuum. Year follows year without much changing. But sometimes something big happens and changes everything.<\/p>\n

You see it immediately, and in time others begin to see it in you. Invisible faith becomes visible. You can no longer walk in the old direction, at least not happily, as your whole internal orientation has changed.<\/p>\n

For whatever reason, in thinking about this, I remembered a quote in the introductory essay in the book, Masters of Surf Photography: Jeff Divine<\/em>. I got it out and looked at it again.<\/p>\n

Jeff Divine and I worked together a long time ago, at Surfer Magazine<\/em>. His art is gloriously revealed page after page in this beautiful coffee table book, the kind that people look at but don’t often read. But the writing gives depth to it all. Brad Barrett, previously photo editor, did a fine job giving background and an overview of life at the magazine where these talents were expressed and honed.<\/p>\n

Actually, I probably wouldn’t have the book on my shelf but someone gave it to me, and pointed out that I was mentioned in it. That’s what I looked at again this morning. Two places.<\/p>\n

Page 14: \u201cBy this time the ‘Jesus movement’ was taking hold across the country and Orange County was a hotbed of gung-ho religious activity. Three of the Surfer staffers, art director Hy Moore [I was known as Hy in those days] John’s brother Joey [John Severson was founder of the magazine], and Rick Griffin [also of Haight Ashberry psychodylic art fame] had recently converted to Christianity and were attending Bible studies, dropping, for the most part, their hedonistic ways.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

I remember those days. Actually my radical turn-in-the-road experience happened deep in Mexico, with little knowledge of any \u201cmovement taking hold across the country.\u201d For me it was better away from all that, as the conversion had to be real, honest, heartfelt, uncoersed, private, and deep. From the first day I knew it was permanent.<\/p>\n

I also knew that others would have a hard time understanding it.<\/p>\n

Nor was I too worried about that. Instead I was searching for and responding to the new leading as it was revealed to me. I didn’t realize that this was being observed by others as the invisible faith being revealed in outward actions. Next page:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Christian thing was still pretty strong at the mag, and late in 1972, our art director Hy Moore dropped a bomb. He was heading to Guatemala on a missionary assignment to help the locals print Bibles . . .\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Interesting to see that in print, these many years later. What Brad described was the beginning of a 32-year career, one that has since been replaced by another. But not the earlier orientation, the one described on page 14. That continues, now just worked out in another way.<\/p>\n

And that’s all I have room for here.<\/p>\n

For more of the story, check out Damascus Roads, a video earlier aired on TV. It’s now on my website, or just click the button here. Let me know what you think.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here are some quotes out of the book, Masters of Surf Photography: Jeff Divine, and a lively video about my finding God, and then painting, in that order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6786"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6786"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6823,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6786\/revisions\/6823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}