When we recently started our GROM program, the most frequently asked question, by parents, volunteers, and staff alike, was: what’s a grom? Most assumed it was some sort of acronym, a confusing translation, an exotic animal, or an entirely imaginary word, so we had to lead them into the strange world of surf slang in order to explain it. Grom stems from the word grommet, a term generally used to denote the lowest ranking members of a naval ship. This term was then borrowed by