The one(s) that got away ... really, they were real ...

OK - here's the first little bit of posting on this here thang. remember the "one(s) that got away"? No, not yer girl or boyfriend, but your first really unforgettable item, your favorite surfboard! I have a few that I'm kicking myself over and you can see the examples below. One was a David Nuuihwa Lightweight that I found in a skate shop in Atlanta (sometime in the 80's)?!?!? Rode it in Florida and it ripped!!!!! To this day, that was the BEST longboard that I've ever owned. I sold it dirt cheap to a woman who was buying it for her husband as a gift. Yeah, right. I think the guy sent her over to my house to bat her eyelashes and practically steal this gem from me. It worked, she drove off with it and I went in and had a beer. What a knucklehead. The second example is a Harbour Cheater. I bought this out of a marina in Ft. Pierce, Florida in the 70's. It had been sitting there forever and I got a DEAL on it. Rode it and LOVED it, but I only rode longboards in the summer back then. A friend of mine fell in love with it and would bug practically every day to sell it, trade it, whatever, he just wanted it! He finally got me half drunk and/or stoned one day and I traded it to him for a '66 Rambler. Great car, but the board is worth a shitload more these days. Knucklehead ...Here's a few more that I cringe over. I bought an old Rick U.F.O. off a fellow worker at a construction yard in '73. He sold it to me on the condition that I ride it and cherish it forever. It even had black Slipcheck on it. Of course I promised that i would love it until Hell froze over. The thing was a boat, you could ride a ripple for a gajillion miles on this beaut. It had a few dings and was a bit water logged. Being the budding young shaper that I was, I .. you guessed it - stripped the glass and resahaped it into a short single fin. But, seeing as it had taken on a bit of water, just as I was finishing up, it split down the stringer (center)!!! No, I didn't glass it (another mistake). That reminds me. Back in '69 I bought an old Harbour Cheater from the local surf shop for a song - you couldn't even give them away back then. Did I buy it to ride it? Well, kinda. The thing for amateur shapers back then was to buy old longboards and cut them down. I took it to the hotshot kid in our neighborhood to shape it. What a buncha idiots. The board didn't even ride worth a damn. And this was the SECOND board that I got from him (that one was crappy too). I know, I know, we were really stupid. I also had an Olympic that I got at a yardsale. That one was really old, but in great shape. It had a big old "D" fin and it was a heavy tanker. Rode it once and sold it. So there's the ones that got away on me. I wish I had photos of them all, but that might make me really cry like a baby. These couple of examples are bad enough. Let me know about the ones that got away on you. Photos welcome but not required .....