A poor fisherfolk’s son from Bongtud-Tandag, Jevan’s skimboard was made from a piece of marine plyboard washed onshore when a Cebu-bound cargo ship capsized near Mancagangi Island three Decembers ago.
Jevan joined the 1st Tago Skimboarding Competition as “expert” because there was no grommet category. Easily he won the hearts of spectators both with his skimboarding skill and his honesty to show what he really is----a poor boy who wants to excel in a water sport he has learned to master!
Unlike his opponents, Jevan wore no board shorts because he had none. What he had was a faded black jersey shorts whose seat had holes. As a rule, surfers and skimboarders don’t wear briefs (don’t ask me why), but because his shorts had holes in them, Jevan wore formerly-white briefs with bacon waistband.
When it was his turn to hit the waves, that was when Jevan turned into a riot. Poised on a mound of slate-gray sand meters from the shore, he would then clutch at his woodie board with two ebony hands and run toward the waves. But halfway through it, his shorts and briefs would fall and his other hand would be quick to pull them back to prevent himself from riding the waves in full monty.
Laughters! Whistles! Claps!
Tiny and fragile-looking, Jevan rode the wave like a flotsam: light, graceful, and pliant. Though he had to tug perpetually at his shorts and briefs from the impact of onrushing waves as he flipped and glided, Jevan still managed to enter the semis. Eventually he lost to much better and older skimboarders.
Jevan may have won a petty sum of two-hundred pesos for performing the best long-ride, but deep within him he knew he won big by captivating the hearts of Tagon-ons!
See you next year, Jevan!
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