Looking back a few decades, it’s hard to believe that I once participated in the animal habit of territorialism, or what surfers call “localism.” I mean, who am I, a guy 40 years removed from an L.A. barrio, to call out anyone for being from somewhere else? To those I yelled at in the past, sorry. I was young and foolish.

A while back, I was poisoned by my own bitter medicine. It had been a while since I had surfed and there I was bobbing in the lineup like a wounded sea lion, trying to catch a wave and link up a few turns. The problem was that about 50 of my best friends had the same idea. So I paddled deeper into the lineup and waited for a wave. Then, as I began paddling I heard this kid say, “Hey.” The kid took off and I backed off and sat and waited for my own wave. By the time the next set arrived, the kid was back in the lineup, this time paddling behind me, yelling and dropping in. Thinking how much the kid reminded me of myself, I held my temper and continued to wait. Then, he paddled behind me again and sat there. Not wanting to provoke a confrontation, I calmly said, “If you continue to paddle behind me, I’m going to go.”

The kid became defensive and started screaming. “I’ve never seen you here before,” he yelled, in an attempt to intimidate me. “Not that it matters, but I first surfed this spot in 1963, about the time your dad was graduating junior high,” I replied. The kid continued screaming that he had never seen me before, and I was about to paddle in when a friend of mine paddled up and asked the kid where he was from.

“San Diego,” he replied.

“Where in San Diego?” inquired my friend.

“El Cajon,” the kid replied, with the red face that a nonlocal surfer knows all too well.

“That’s cool, everyone’s from somewhere,” I replied. A kid who looked like kid No. 1 (apparently kid No.1’s brother) paddled up and told me to shut up. I shut up and paddled in, not wanting to start a fight. Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing. The news today made me certain that I did.

As I was driving the 805 freeway, I heard the news that a man who threw a single punch had killed another man in Pacific Beach. The story took me back to my silly little incident and I wondered at the outcome of a fight. I mean, even if I won, I would lose, just as the man who killed the other man has lost.

Surfing is not a contact sport, but it is a great way to blow off the stress of an aggressive world. When I pull off the freeway and paddle out, sometimes the tension is increased rather than diminished.

I guess what I have learned over the years is respect. All of us need to ride waves from time to time in order to deal with the angry and landlocked masses. Let’s leave the anger on the freeway, or, better yet, learn to deal with it by going surfing, in peace.