Carl Virgil “Tinker” West who passed away this week at the age of 89 was simply one of the most important people of my young life.

In 1970 when I had nothing, nowhere to live, was broke with nowhere to go, he recognized my talent and took me in. We lived together in one tiny room of his Wanamassa, New Jersey Challenger Eastern Surfboard Factory. His mattress was on one side of the room and mine was six feet away on the other.

He was a natural born misanthrope. He was not an easy man to know, live with, or be around. He was from California and was an old school frontier individualist asking no quarter and giving none. If you weren’t being useful he didn’t want you near him. If you visited the surf shop for more than ten minutes he’d shove a broom in your hand and tell you to start sweeping. He wasn’t joking.

I drove across the country many times with Tinker, first at twenty in his 1940’s Chevrolet flatbed truck with all our band equipment under a tarp in the back seeking our fame and fortune out west. The truck was old and huge with an unwieldy, grinding transmission and he insisted we drive straight through to Big Sur, our only gig, without stopping, for 72 hours. He also insisted I, without skills or license drive my share. That’s how Tinker taught you something. He just made you do it.

We graduated to an old Nomad station wagon in later years and each Christmas we’d find ourselves heading west on I-10 through dry desert and western mountain blizzards. I’d be going to see my folks once a year in San Mateo and Tinker would be headed into San Francisco to see who, I cannot imagine. Did my old friend have parents?  I can’t believe so. I believe he sprung near full grown from the mountains, valleys, and waves of a primitive and unknowable California.

After I became a huge success over the years Tinker asked me for exactly nothing. He was forever alone, working, off the grid and independent. I was always satisfied when I would be the recipient of Tink’s highest compliment. “Springsteen, you don’t fuck around.”

No, I didn’t and neither did Carl Virgil West. The last time I saw him he was in the hospital, near the end, dying from throat cancer. He smiled when he saw me, and I kissed one of my errant father’s goodbye. I hung out for a while, he pulled me close and his voice raspy and nearly gone whispered “ We sure had some adventures didn’t we?” I answered  “we sure did”

When I was about to leave, I saw something I never thought I’d see in this life or the next. He cried. I loved him.