The Hobie Memorial Foundation is raising funds to construct a memorial honoring Hobie Alter’s life and his many contributions to the surfing, boating, and skateboarding industries. The Hobie Memorial Foundation Newsletter publishes fascinating historical accounts such as this one in every issue. In this excerpt, newsletter editor Donna Jost writes about the early days of surfing in Southern California.
HOW THE EVOLUTION OF SURFING IN LAGUNA BEACH LED TO A SURFING BAN
Dick Metz has been surfing in Laguna Beach since the 1930’s. Back then there were maybe five or ten surfers in town, the same up the coast in Malibu, and around ten at Windansea. “I went to college in Santa Barbara in 1950 and there were probably only three surfboards in the whole town,” recalled Metz.
Laguna Beach was a “movie” town in the 30’s, more bohemian. Movie stars like Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Betty Davis, either owned homes in town or visited on occasion. “I used to play with Shirley Temple on the beach in front of my father’s restaurant,” said Metz. “The town was definitely on the fringe.”
RELATED: Video – At the Hobie Memorial Groundbreaking
Before World War II, across the country, society was way more formal. Men wore three-piece suits to work; complete with a tie and a vest. “My grandfather always carried around a gold pocket watch on a chain that he kept in his vest pocket,”
remembered Metz.
“I never wore a watch in my life! But that was a sign of success to his generation.” Life was even more conservative on the beach. “Girls wore these big old bathing suits where you didn’t see any skin!” he complained.
Then, there were the surfers. While most of Metz’s friends had jobs and supported themselves, there were a handful that lived and survived on the beach. Gasoline was
only ten cents a gallon, a hamburger was ten cents, or you could dive offshore for your dinner and cook it right on the sand; it wasn’t difficult to imagine such a life before the war.
There was only one time during World War II that Metz remembered you couldn’t hang out at the beach. Three months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese submarine surfaced off Santa Barbara’s shore and fired shells at the oil rigs. On
high alert, thinking that the white sandy beaches were a potential landing zone, barbed wire was strung across Main Beach in Laguna.
“The military also set up an observation post with artillery pieces near the Top of the World,” said Metz. “There were no homes or water tower at that time, but they had a perfect view of Main Beach. Then they asked a bunch of us kids on the track team to be messengers. I got to wear a helmet with a lightning bolt on it.” Dick and his friends never officially delivered any messages down to their headquarters at
the police department. They just practiced a couple of times.
Then, by 1942 or 43, the barbed wire went away and left the beach wide open again. The war in Europe ended first. That’s when the first wave of servicemen came home. Then when Japan surrendered, the rest of the boys came back in 1947 to 1948.
Wives and mothers, who had gone to work to help win the war while their boys were away, went back to being housewives. This created an abundance of jobs for the men, especially at aircraft manufacturers like Douglas Aircraft in Long Beach, California. The GI Bill was also enacted to allow servicemen to go to college.
“That’s when surfing started to really get going,” Metz said. “Friends like Dave “Keyhole” Tompkins, Parkin Cosby, and Bob “Hammerhead” Gravitch returned with a different attitude.”
Surfboards were also about to evolve. Whereas before, 100-pound redwood long boards were commonplace, it was a discovery in England that changed the shape of the surfing industry.
Trying to come up with an idea for a much lighter and faster plane to carry bombs during the war, they country’s defense department’s research produced the Mosquito Bomber. This caught the eye of Douglas Aircraft when they learned about the use of
Ecuadorean balsawood sandwiched between sheets of Canadian birch, as well as fiberglass. Balsa wood was only grown in the high Andes, so it wasn’t something
readily accessible.
Keyhole’s friend, “Hammerhead” worked at Douglas Aircraft in the late 1940’s, where a sample of the Mosquito Bomber’s fiberglass was sent. He got a hold of a piece of it and brought it down to Laguna.
After experimenting with the sample he got from Douglas Aircraft, Hammerhead got to work and shaped a balsa board edged with redwood, using the fiberglass. By 1948/1950, the fiberglass board got so popular with local surfers that the idea caught on and they started to become commercially available. “Long boards went from
100 pounds to about 40 pounds and half the size,” said Metz. “I actually have that first board Hammerhead shaped over at Surfing Heritage.”
The original long boards also had no fins because there wasn’t a way to attach them, which meant that you could only surf at San Onofre or Doheny. Their sets didn’t break as hard, so it was easy to ride big boards.
“In the 1930’s, if there was a fin on a board, it was only about one inch deep,” said Metz. “Ten years later, you could put a much deeper fin on your board with five or six layers of fiberglass.”
Suddenly, you didn’t have the problem of it breaking off when it hit the beach.
By 1953, as the sport began to evolve, there were a lot more people surfing in Laguna.
“During the summer, people would camp down on Main Beach and set up tents. There were no laws against camp fires like today. Although you couldn’t camp at Brooks or Oak Street—the high tide came all the way up to the rocks—the south swell at Brooks Street was the best spot to surf,” said Metz.
After the war, things changed. You couldn’t camp on the beach anymore. That didn’t stop Metz and his friends from partying down at Brooks Street. At night, there’d be drinking and guys trolling for women. Remember, they’d been away for a year or more; their hormones were kicked into high gear. Dotting the beach, couples would wrap themselves up in large towels and roll around on the sand.
Since wetsuits hadn’t been invented yet, towels served a multi-purpose. Surfers back home from the war didn’t need a bath house to change clothes. “They’d just wrap a towel around their waist and drop their drawers.”
Gravity would naturally cause a towel to sometimes slip and you’d see a butt cheek or two.
Homeowners like Vern Tashner, who owned a place above Brooks Street Beach, didn’t like all the flashing and goings-on down below on the sand. “Vern complained about everything,” said Metz.
Tashner got so aggravated about the surfers, he ended up going to the City with a list of petitioners and started raising a big stink. Back in the 1930’s, surfers didn’t exactly have the best image. They were considered ruffians and troublemakers.
If you had a surfboard on your car, it was like you were a Hell’s Angel today. You were out of step with the culture of the times.
By the 1950’s, things had improved slightly. Surfers cleaned up a bit. But Newport Beach still had a rule that you had to buy a ten-dollar license to surf in the city and stick a decal on your board. When Laguna tried to do the same, it didn’t work because the surfers were always getting new boards.
Because of the public outcry over the surfers down at Brooks Street, the City banned surfing at all of Laguna’s beaches from 10am to 6pm. “Brooks Street, Oak, and Thalia were the only places to surf in Laguna because of the long boards we rode,” Metz recalled. “The next six to twelve months was a big hassle.”
“When Hobie’s dad built the “two-car garage” on PCH in Dana Point, if we weren’t camping down at Salt Creek away from the main road, we hung out at his shop, riding motorcycles, drinking beer, and shooting rabbits. There was no policing, no post office, just vacant lots; Dana Point wasn’t even a town yet.”
Eventually, the surfing clubs came about. Hevs McClelland and a group of surfers formed a committee that soon founded the United States Surfing Association in 1961 to try to prevent the ban that Laguna Beach and other city councils in Southern California had imposed on surfing. Its first board of directors included Hoppy Swarts as president and Vice President, Hobie Alter.
“When Camp Pendleton took over San Onofre, the higher ups on the Marine base spoke to the Commandant. They told him that if they let them have an exclusive club with up to 500 members, they would put in toilets and keep the beach clean.” Hobie, Keyhole, Burrhead, and Peanuts Larsen all paid ten dollars to sign up. The club filled up instantly with Metz coming in as Member #110. It was so popular that you couldn’t get in unless someone quit.
“Hobie, the responsible and mature one in the group,” said Metz, “realized early on that surfing should be taken seriously. He suggested Mike Hynson, Robert August, and Bruce Brown wear suits and ties as they carried their surfboards through the airport on their way to making The Endless Summer. He wanted to make surfers appear more in-step with society, and that scene and photograph from the movie gave surfing’s image a huge boost.”
Prompted to take additional action against the surfing ban, Hobie and his friends responded by organizing the Laguna Beach Surfing Club. According to an article in the Laguna Beach Indy, written by David Vanderveen on June 13, 2013, Hobie went to Red Guyer, Laguna Beach City Recreation Director, and football and track coach at Laguna Beach High School about starting a contest at Brooks Street. About the same time that the Laguna Beach Surfing Club morphed into the now 62-year old Brooks Street Surfing Classic, foam surfboards came out in 1958/59, which changed the surfing culture forever. And the rest is history.
