Life is everything that you make it.

Life is your friends, your community, your parents, your good, special dear friends, and the time that you spend with them,

it all comes together in a positive way and never forget that.

Paul Strau passed away this past weekend. He was at home with loved ones, at peace, comfortable,

and with his Hawaiian music playing by his bedside. He was 83 years old. His daughter, Summer,

provided me with this quote. I asked my dad recently what he would want to say to everyone when he stepped into eternal life.

He smiled and said, Aloha.

End quote.

If you listened to Surf Splendor last month, then you would have been introduced to Paul

and the podcast series Pod Aloha, which was produced by Paul's son-in-law, Kiernan McGuire,

and featured Paul interviewing his old pals, Greg Null, Jerry Lopez, Skip Fry, Fred Hemmings,

and Joey Cabell amongst them. One episode, however, featured Kiernan interviewing Paul himself,

and that is what I'm going to play for you here today in Memorium for Mr.

Strau. I'd offer a short biography on Paul Strau, but Kiernan actually does a very thorough

job of that through this interview, so I'm going to leave that to him. Or you can go back and

listen to episode 587 of Surf Splendor to hear Kiernan and I discuss Paul, his contributions, and his

legacy in the intro to that episode. So a word of thanks to Kiernan McGuire and the entire

Strau family for making this episode available for me to share. Also, shout out and thank you to Roger Hines, who is the first

person to introduce me to Paul over a decade ago. And also an acknowledgement to the Surfing

Heritage and Culture Center in San Clemente, where Paul served as executive director. And that's

where I used their library as a studio space when I very first

started Surf Splendor for the first few years. So I had the honor of being in Paul's presence

...