So in the noodling around looking up stuff for my post below I found this video interview from a documentary about surfing in Newport Beach in the 50's and 60's. I did not wacth until after my post below. It brought back so many memories. Bob, the subject, has about 10 years on me, but the thoughts and experiences are still pretty much the same. He articulated "The Code" that I alluded to down below about how one handled themselves in the water back in the day, but he filled in all the gaps. I had a board that Dale Velzy personally shaped for me and got busted down on Pendelton more than a couple of times. I had forgotten about The Greeter in Laguna Beach. I remember him. He used to hang out around The Pottery Barn. I had no idea back then how special my time there was. I / we all thought this was normal and how everybody lived. That was not the case as we all have come to understand. Just was lucky to be in the right place at the right time.
OBTW .. the Greg MacGillivray mentioned in the video is the same Greg MacGillivray who is doing all of the IMAX movies. He started out making surfing movies way back when with his partner Jim Freeman.
I'm curious about something: when you surfed in CA, did you ever encounter other surfers who tried to control public beaches by bullying and physically harassing "outsiders"? There was a recent article about that sort of thing, and the piece stated that it had been going on for years.
Surfers have always been territorial to some degree. Back in the 60's it was always locals rule and that was interpreted in many different ways. Back then, there were not all that many public beaches. That has since changed with public access laws, but even with that, home owners still get in the way even though the surfers have made peace.
But there is no simple answer for your question. Again the short answer is yes, never a physical thing in my case, but there has been property damage to cars, some minor, mostly tires slashed, but that was generally rare and extreme.
Down in the Orange County we were all mostly respectful though. It was when in Rome, do as the Romans do. What we considered crowded back then would be laughed at today. But depending where you were and who was in the water already, as a visitor or guest, you carefully studied who was good and who was not and figured out how to keep out of the good ones' way and not drop in on them. That was the surest and shortest road to a confrontation if one was going to happen. But again, you respected those who were there in the water first and found out how you could fit in best. If you were good yourself and figured out the break quickly, that would usually gain respect in short order. Provided you shared the waves and did not become a wave hog. Beginners or less talented, not so lucky. Then there the Valley kooks and flatlanders from inland. The San Fernando Valley and Riverside / desert ish people respectively. Those that didn't live at the beach and couldn't surf everyday. Their skills were generally suspect and limited. They mostly kept to the public beaches like Doheny and up around Huntington and Bolsa Chica.
Also the City of Newport Beach in Orange County had a unique approach in the mid 60's, they made us get licenses for our surfboards. Contrary to the article, city residents and surfers in nearby cities could buy one if they wanted to bad enough. They cost somewhere between $10 and $15 per board each year for residents. Might have been higher for non residents, I don't remember. There were serial numbers on them in the middle between the city seals so you could be identified without any I D, which being at the beach was most likely.
That was a lot of cash for anyone back then, let alone kids. If you had a board on your car in the city limits without a license, the cops could technically give you a ticket, complete with fine and a court appearance. That was rare but if they caught you on the beach, busted, with ceremony. The cops or the lifeguards could bust you. They could even seize your board if you pissed them off enough. And then your folks got pissed off at you because they had to go to court with you and all that. They couldn't get you in the water because everything past the mean high tide line was out of the city's jurisdiction. But sooner or later you had to come in, unless you had a boat to go to. And that's when most people got picked off. Age meant nothing. It created great hostility between us and the cops and lifeguards. It did keep people from other places away, but still it was totally wrong and was eventually overturned in court, after I had moved east. I do not know if they had to return the fees. Probably not. Another thing that got me paying attention to politics at an early age. You were also easily identifiable when you went somewhere else and there were some who would take out their attitudes on you. You were one of them rich kids from Newport. Didn't matter if you were just as pissed about it as they were or as broke as they were. It could just suck to be you if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I do remember when the licenses first came out the NB lifeguards made a sneaky surprise visit to our beach to see if we had licenses on our boards. We did not. But back then our beach was private and not under their jurisdiction and we told them in no uncertain terms to get the fuck off of our beach and stay out. We did win that one. Fucking police state it was or they tried. Yeah, I did have access to a private beach just a ten minute walk from my house. We did our best to keep it to ourselves. But we did have to coexist with the people who ran a race horse recovery hospital there who charged people money at their gate to get in. It is also where I had a run in with the secret service when Nixon was visiting his brother who lived in the same place I did during his campaign in 1968 and I told them to get the fuck out of my neighborhood. I could go on and on for hours, but that is not what you read this far for ...
L A up north or down in San Diego it was a little different, especially up in L A. Much more crowded and more opportunities for hostilities. And this brings me to what you were most interested in, the article you mentioned about a group getting physical with outsiders. Yes, The Lunada Bay Boys. They even have their own wiki page, they are so notorious. I believe that you will find a link to the article you read about them at the bottom. The results on the google search will provide you with plenty of reading, too. Yep, they have garnered international notoriety. They do represent the other extreme but it will show you how far the territorial battles will still go. There are some places in Hawaii that are still enforced local only spots, but they are kept pretty quiet and handled much more subtlety.
Once again if you wish a deeper insight into the world that really made me a lot of what I still am today and more insight into the question you asked, read The Pump House Gang. While not exactly my world, I was a part of that world and mentality. You say you are a student of history ? The stuff provided above should either bore you in a hurry and get you off on a tangent that is hard to put down. You just cannot make up this stuff. Yeah, I was at ground zero for a whole bunch of stuff. I come by so many of my attitudes very honestly and a world (cohort to be more precise) few really know about, let alone understand. It might just be one of those things where you had to be there ... you tell me ... Where were you and what were you doing in the 60's, or just in high school cuz I think I have a few years on ya ... This was a time like no other before or since. And just think of all the new music that provided the soundtrack.
Beats talkin' about Trump, eh ? . an after thought. yeah, I realize I haven't done all that much in my life or with my life compared to most. There were plenty of people doing the same thing at the same time that I was doing these things. I haven't traveled the world, made any kind of money or contributed anything meaningful to the world. I'm not hung up and still living in the 60's. I'm just at the end of my life and reflecting on some very interesting and intense parts of my life that I lived to the hilt and somehow survived and made me into what's left of me today. Not bragging about anything or looking for pity ... someone just asked a question and I had nothing better to do than answer it and toss in some more stuff that came to mind along the way. Just stream of conscience ness ... of an old geezer ...
Location: Really deep in the heart of South California Gender:
Posted:
Nov 22, 2018 - 3:35pm
kcar wrote:
That was a very interesting article, Kurt—thank you for that and your memories. Far more interesting than arguing about Trump, as you pointed out when talking about growing up in a certain part of the country (can't remember where). I'm curious about something: when you surfed in CA, did you ever encounter other surfers who tried to control public beaches by bullying and physically harassing "outsiders"? There was a recent article about that sort of thing, and the piece stated that it had been going on for years. Happy Thanksgiving to you and Patty (your wife?). I hope she's feeling better. What she went through sounded pretty scary.
That was a very interesting article, Kurt—thank you for that and your memories. Far more interesting than arguing about Trump, as you pointed out when talking about growing up in a certain part of the country (can't remember where). I'm curious about something: when you surfed in CA, did you ever encounter other surfers who tried to control public beaches by bullying and physically harassing "outsiders"? There was a recent article about that sort of thing, and the piece stated that it had been going on for years. Happy Thanksgiving to you and Patty (your wife?). I hope she's feeling better. What she went through sounded pretty scary.
Short answer, yes. I'll get back to you on that. There currently is one place in particular and you likely read about that one in Palos Verdes (Lunada Bay IIRC). The two places I lived before moving east to Philly then Cleveburg were Berkeley where I was born and a little place called Corona del Mar, now part of Newport Beach.
Thanks, she's doing better and Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
Post inspired by wallacehartley's remarks about South Africa's future in the Cause of Poverty thread.
Since a long board Gremmie (now Grommets) in the mid 60's, South Africa has meant 3 things to me. Cape St. Francis aka the perfect wave, Great Whites and Apartheid. Now I can add J Bay to the list ...
But back when surfing was still relatively relegated to a collective small group in SoCal and Hawaii and Australia, for those of us who surfing was more than just something you did on weekends, weather, geography and to a lesser extent geopolitics were very well studied. I dare suggest that unless you surfed and were reading Surfer magazine in the 60's you never heard much if anything about Apartheid in South Africa if you were still in high school, let alone most adults. I could be wrong but doubt it.
With the movie The Endless Summer, we finally had visual proof that the 'perfect wave' did exist. It really created the beginning of a global search for rideable waves beyond California, Hawaii and Australia. In 1966 Surfer Magazine published an article of a visit to South Africa in search of catching Cape St Francis breaking as shown in the movie. That never happened but the article discussed the local surfing scene and told us about 'black only' beaches with the picture of a young black boy standing outside of a fence at a 'whites only' beach. It touched off a firestorm of responses that took over a lot of the conversations in SoCal for nearly a year. That is how someone so young (13 yo) became very aware of Apartheid here in the states. An excerpt from an article about the Surfer Magazine story.
Surfers sojourning to South Africa also turned a blind eye, at least initially, to apartheid. To be fair, Surfer magazine waded into the controversy in 1966 with an article on South African surfing and segregated beaches. The column sparked the greatest reader response in the periodical’s history and Southern Californians weighed in on both sides of the issue. One Orange County surfer confessed that the article impacted the reader like none other before it. “Waves are for everyone to enjoy … not just a chosen few.” A fellow Californian surfer agreed. “When I saw a picture of the native standing on the beach as three surfers made their way toward the waters from which he was banned,” she wrote, “it really got to me.”
Numerous fellow Golden State surfers dissented from their more race conscious counterparts. “I think SURFER, has really taken a giant step – downward,” one L.A. resident responded. “Why can’t politics be kept out of surfing. I never thought you would sink to discussing racial discrimination as a topic in your magazine. Why can’t SURFER stick to stories about surfing and surfing places that surfers actually surf.” Another Californian who claimed to have surfed South Africa on three separate occasions advised Surfer and others to “focus on our own racial problems before we start knocking Africa’s.” Considering the history of U.S. segregation in housing and sites of leisure, notably pools and beaches, the writer might have had a point. Only he went on to parrot arguments of white segregationists, arguing that black South Africans had no interest in surfing in places reserved for whites only.
Of course, arguments that black South Africans expressed little interest in surfing required a certain amount of willful ignorance. In Bali, white surfers provided tepid excuses as to the apparent absence of a indigenous surfing scene. Though some surfers argued the Balinese “feared the ocean,” the fact was a “vibrant surf culture” emerged at the same time whites “discovered” Indonesian surf spots. White surfers just chose to ignore it or never encountered it. In South Africa, blacks faced greater opposition in this regard. As anti-apartheid activists like Douglass Booth noted, “Sports did not transcend politics.” If blacks experienced discrimination in housing, education and elsewhere, why would access to surf breaks differ?
Once again surfing changed life for so many people for the better or at least made people aware of things that needed to be changed. This is long before the "hey dudes" came along and made us all look like a bunch of dummy slacker / stoners. The cited article is long and goes into many areas of the history of surfing in a very honest way. A trip down memory lane for those of us who were there and informative for the curious and therefore worth the read. And to show that my remarks in the other thread were not casual or pandering. I've been paying attention to South Africa and Apartheid for over 50 years and have been concerned about how it will end. It does not appear that it will have a peaceful ending to the story. Rhodesia Zimbabwe comes to mind as wallace mentioned.
And another article about the founder of Surfer Magazine. A magazine that had a tremendous impact on my and many other peoples lives long ago. And besides, Rick Griffin was the staff cartoonist back then, too ... Some of you Dead Heads may be familiar with Rick. He was our's before he was your's ...
Now I can close out some windows that have been open for a few days waiting for me to write this post.
Mahalo and Pau !
That was a very interesting article, Kurt—thank you for that and your memories. Far more interesting than arguing about Trump, as you pointed out when talking about growing up in a certain part of the country (can't remember where).
I'm curious about something: when you surfed in CA, did you ever encounter other surfers who tried to control public beaches by bullying and physically harassing "outsiders"? There was a recent article about that sort of thing, and the piece stated that it had been going on for years.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and Patty (your wife?). I hope she's feeling better. What she went through sounded pretty scary.
Post inspired by wallacehartley's remarks about South Africa's future in the Cause of Poverty thread.
Since a long board Gremmie (now Grommets) in the mid 60's, South Africa has meant 3 things to me. Cape St. Francis aka the perfect wave, Great Whites and Apartheid. Now I can add J Bay to the list ...
But back when surfing was still relatively relegated to a collective small group in SoCal and Hawaii and Australia, for those of us who surfing was more than just something you did on weekends, weather, geography and to a lesser extent geopolitics were very well studied. I dare suggest that unless you surfed and were reading Surfer magazine in the 60's you never heard much if anything about Apartheid in South Africa if you were still in high school, let alone most adults. I could be wrong but doubt it.
With the movie The Endless Summer, we finally had visual proof that the 'perfect wave' did exist. It really created the beginning of a global search for rideable waves beyond California, Hawaii and Australia. In 1966 Surfer Magazine published an article of a visit to South Africa in search of catching Cape St Francis breaking as shown in the movie. That never happened but the article discussed the local surfing scene and told us about 'black only' beaches with the picture of a young black boy standing outside of a fence at a 'whites only' beach. It touched off a firestorm of responses that took over a lot of the conversations in SoCal for nearly a year. That is how someone so young (13 yo) became very aware of Apartheid here in the states. An excerpt from an article about the Surfer Magazine story.
Surfers sojourning to South Africa also turned a blind eye, at least initially, to apartheid. To be fair, Surfer magazine waded into the controversy in 1966 with an article on South African surfing and segregated beaches. The column sparked the greatest reader response in the periodical’s history and Southern Californians weighed in on both sides of the issue. One Orange County surfer confessed that the article impacted the reader like none other before it. “Waves are for everyone to enjoy … not just a chosen few.” A fellow Californian surfer agreed. “When I saw a picture of the native standing on the beach as three surfers made their way toward the waters from which he was banned,” she wrote, “it really got to me.”
Numerous fellow Golden State surfers dissented from their more race conscious counterparts. “I think SURFER, has really taken a giant step – downward,” one L.A. resident responded. “Why can’t politics be kept out of surfing. I never thought you would sink to discussing racial discrimination as a topic in your magazine. Why can’t SURFER stick to stories about surfing and surfing places that surfers actually surf.” Another Californian who claimed to have surfed South Africa on three separate occasions advised Surfer and others to “focus on our own racial problems before we start knocking Africa’s.” Considering the history of U.S. segregation in housing and sites of leisure, notably pools and beaches, the writer might have had a point. Only he went on to parrot arguments of white segregationists, arguing that black South Africans had no interest in surfing in places reserved for whites only.
Of course, arguments that black South Africans expressed little interest in surfing required a certain amount of willful ignorance. In Bali, white surfers provided tepid excuses as to the apparent absence of a indigenous surfing scene. Though some surfers argued the Balinese “feared the ocean,” the fact was a “vibrant surf culture” emerged at the same time whites “discovered” Indonesian surf spots. White surfers just chose to ignore it or never encountered it. In South Africa, blacks faced greater opposition in this regard. As anti-apartheid activists like Douglass Booth noted, “Sports did not transcend politics.” If blacks experienced discrimination in housing, education and elsewhere, why would access to surf breaks differ?
Once again surfing changed life for so many people for the better or at least made people aware of things that needed to be changed. This is long before the "hey dudes" came along and made us all look like a bunch of dummy slacker / stoners. The cited article is long and goes into many areas of the history of surfing in a very honest way. A trip down memory lane for those of us who were there and informative for the curious and therefore worth the read. And to show that my remarks in the other thread were not casual or pandering. I've been paying attention to South Africa and Apartheid for over 50 years and have been concerned about how it will end. It does not appear that it will have a peaceful ending to the story. Rhodesia Zimbabwe comes to mind as wallace mentioned.
And another article about the founder of Surfer Magazine. A magazine that had a tremendous impact on my and many other peoples lives long ago. And besides, Rick Griffin was the staff cartoonist back then, too ... Some of you Dead Heads may be familiar with Rick. He was our's before he was your's ...
Anyone else pissed off at the WSL"s new broadcast format for contests on CBS Sports ? I don't want a greatest turns mish mosh, I want to see the whole heats, the whole rides. Being far from the water, I really do enjoy seeing the whole thing, the lulls, the closeout sets, the ones that went un ridden.
Can't have anything nice ...
Still dealing with Slater's wave machine, half way through it. It really is great and a profound achievement but it seems boring almost. Too predictable. It may become something like compulsories in figure skating.
it seems like you'd be able to get the entire footage on demand
Anyone else pissed off at the WSL"s new broadcast format for contests on CBS Sports ? I don't want a greatest turns mish mosh, I want to see the whole heats, the whole rides. Being far from the water, I really do enjoy seeing the whole thing, the lulls, the closeout sets, the ones that went un ridden.
Can't have anything nice ...
Still dealing with Slater's wave machine, half way through it. It really is great and a profound achievement but it seems boring almost. Too predictable. It may become something like compulsories in figure skating.
