Surfing 1962-1969

I was rereading a part of  "Surviving in LA" that I wrote a while back and got inspired to write more of those times in regard to surfing. Here is the passage that inspired me: Here is the button if you want to read the whole blog article: Surviving L.A.

 " In 1960, the first skateboards were beginning. Boys used to take and old pair of metal roller skates and separate the front and back halves and nail them onto a foot long or more 2 by 4 and skate to school this way. Next, guys were going to wood shop to make their boards look more like surf boards. That is actually how skateboards were born where I lived in Glendale in the Los Angeles Area. So skateboards came from just a bunch of boys experimenting and playing with an old pair of metal skates that you put on shoes and a piece of 2by4 wood so they could surf the sidewalks like hot doggers did in the ocean." end quote.

First of all Hot doggers to me meant people that were really good on surfboards but I'm sure it meant something else to other surfers. Along with this there was "Hang Ten" which meant you were all the way forward on your longboard to the point where all ten of your toes from both feet were hanging over the edge. And to do this you had to have enough force pushing your board in a certain way to pull this off even for a few seconds. Otherwise, your board would simply "Nose in deep" and so would you.

The first time I ever tried to surf was on a rented board and it was likely a Hobie or Bing Board at Huntington Beach. I mostly got the crap beat out of me by waves that day and got the board across my shins which really hurt and I found that paddling on your knees on a long board really hurt if you hadn't yet developed "Knobs or knobbies" (callouses) on your knees that kept some surfers out of the military back then so they didn't have to go to Viet Nam. Another trick boys used when they had to take their military physicals was to get really drunk on Bali Hai which was a tropical wine with a whole lot of sugar. So when their blood was tested it showed them to have diabetes.

Obviously, these were really crazy times from about 1963 or 1965 until 1974 during the Viet Nam War. It really tore our nation psychologically apart. There hasn't been something like this since the Civil War and I don't think the U.S. has completely recovered from those times to this day. For most young people like myself in California by 1969 "Trust was gone" regarding our government from Bobby Kennedy's Assasination, JFK's assassination and Martin Luther King's assassination. And the movie "Easy Rider" wasn't just a movie it was a whole lot of people's actual experience of those times  in which many died or went crazy both here in the U.S. and also in Viet Nam or surrounding countries that were kept secret at that time.

But if I go back to 1962 when I first surfed at Huntington Beach I got my Dad and Mom to drive us there from Glendale where I then went to Woodrow Wilson Junior High School from 1960 until June 1963. In fact, I knew the boy who burned down Glendale High. I think it was around my junior year. He was a very strange boy whose father would beat him up physically if he didn't get straight A's. So, when he didn't get an A in one class he burned down the office where the records were kept and wound up burning down half the school. I don't think that helped him any.

By 1963 my friend Mike who was a year older than I and my best friend from ages 12 through when he went to Viet Nam as a Jet Engine Mechanic in the Air Force had owned several cars. His first car that I can remember was a 1953 Mercury that he and I rebuilt the automatic transmission on. The next car was a 1940 Ford Coupe with a flathead 6 cylinder engine. It was painted Jet black and I thought the 40 Ford was a really cool looking car. But, by the time he was 16 he had bought a 1951 Ford Convertible that was painted Red. That was a really bright red car and attracted a lot of attention especially when he hopped up the engine and started to race it on the streets. I never got arrested but I remember one night being thrown against the car by the police with my arms spread because Mike was racing and thinking to myself, "I don't want to have this experience ever again." So, I didn't and neither Mike or I ever got arrested for anything ever even though he kept racing and building up street racing cars with 12 to 16 inch wide racing slicks which were still legal on the road then.

Once Mike had the 1951 Ford and was 16 we put our surfboards straight down under the front seats so the stuck basically straight up into the air with the tips under the front seat the convertible top down and the boards leaning against the back seats. But I don't think this kind of thing would be legal now but it seemed to be then because these longboards were about 10 feet 2 to 4 inches long sticking almost straight up as we drove down the freeways to Huntington Beach or Malibu to Surf. If we went to Huntington Beach and the surf wasn't good enough that day sometimes we would just go to Knott's Berry Farm and go on rides or Disneyland.

Also, one time we went to Catalina Island on the Great White Steamship. We met some other guys who also were going there to SCUBA dive and we all pooled our money and rented a power boat to drive up to Emerald Cove from Avalon where we rented the Speed Boat. The Diving was really incredible then at Emerald Cove around 1968.

In 1969 there sort of was a harbinger to the future. Mike was run over by a surfboard skeg (fin) and was cut across his back. It took him some time before his back healed up from this. This sort of soured us both on  board surfing. So, though I kept boogie boarding and body surfing and still owned surfboards for years I eventually took off the skeg(fin) on one of my boards and surfed it in the snow on Mt. Shasta. I think this sort of thing was the beginning of Snowboarding when Surfers like myself started surfing down slopes on their surfboards without skegs (fins).

But, in 1969 Mike Joined the Air Force as a jet engine mechanic after getting his Jet engine certificate at Glendale College. So, I wished him well but never saw him again until our 40s. I found him through his email address Oval54  because he had a classic 54 VW bug with the oval window. He still collected and worked on cars that he liked and loved up into his 50s. He passed away last year from early Alzheimer's at age 63. Surfing and Scuba Diving was really Great old Friend!

Related to this blog is another blog I wrote called:
Mountain Climbing 1969 to 1980