I used to watch Gerry Lopez surf the Banzai Pipeline when I was in high school. He'd drop down one of those huge, vertical faces and casually make his bottom turn, zenfully oblivious to the watery carnage behind him as the massive lip smashed onto the shallow reef. Then, as the wave spun into that classic Pipeline liquid tunnel he would slip up under the lip into the tube in a kind of nonchalant slouch and disappear inside that chamber only to be spit out moments later in a gush of white spray with a sort of half-smile on his face.

It was as if he had just stepped off a bus instead of out of the way of a speeding train seconds before impact. Lopez was what in those days were called soul surfers. They had courage, sure. But they also had style and charisma and, most of all, grace. None of the charging athleticism of today's wave riders.

While today's surfers ATTACK the waves, Lopez and his contemporaries in the late '60s and early '70s, like Billy Hamilton, Jeff Hackman and Barry Kanaiapuni, co-existed with the waves, as if they shared a pact with the ocean to ride its foaming beasts only with respect and dignity.

I know, that's laying it on pretty thick, but it's true. So when I heard Gerry Lopez was coming to Hawaii to sign and talk about his new book, “;Surf Is Where You Find It,”; I decided it was a perfect time to meet one of my school-days heroes.

Lopez lives in Bend, Ore., with his wife, Toni, and 20-year-old son. As a “;surf ambassador”; for the clothing maker Patagonia, he still travels the world and surfs, but he also snowboards and has found the quiet life on the eastern foot of the Cascade Range a perfect home base.

When he called from Bend recently, we chatted about life in Oregon, where I went to college. One thing we have in common is we both surfed the rugged Oregon Coast. The difference is that while I surfed the passive head-high waves protected by jetties or headlands, Lopez does tow-in surfing three-quarters of a mile at sea. I tell him that surfing huge waves like that is against my religion.

“;I'm a devout coward,”; I say.

“;The other day when we paddled out the air was 34 degrees and the water 45,”; he said. That's what you call, Chilly Willy. But the wetsuits today are pretty cozy. “;Patagonia makes a wetsuit lined with Merino wool.”; (Product placement: two points.)

He's in Hawaii in time for the big surf contests, like the Pipeline Masters, which he won in 1972 and 1973. He doesn't compete anymore.

“;I'm the old guy they trot out to hand out trophies,”; he says.

In fact, although he competed in contests, he never seemed to me to be really into them. He was a searcher. That's how he ended up pioneering and discovering now-famous surfing spots in Indonesia like G-Land and Uluwatu.

He stays in shape mainly through yoga and keeping active on the slopes and in the waves. I asked what vices he has.

“;None, actually,”; he said, laughing. After working on the movie “;Big Wednesday”; in 1973 and seeing the destructive spiral of drinking and drugs that actors Jan-Michael Vincent and Gary Busey had booked themselves on, Lopez decided to surf life the way he surfs the waves, with dignity, respect and grace. If that sounds sappy in these aggressive, hard-charging, Red Bull-and-vodka swilling days, that seems fine with Lopez.