00:00:09.480 - 00:00:18.400

Tell me about coming to Stone Harbor with the surfboard. Oh, how that started? Yeah, when did that happen?

00:00:18.400 - 00:00:33.780

Well, the exact date on that is going to be about 1960, 1960, 60, 61, right around there. The exact date on that, you know.

00:00:35.400 - 00:00:44.340

The easiest way to find out is to find out when they released a movie called Gidget. Because it was a rainy afternoon and we

00:00:44.340 - 00:00:52.800

went to see this movie at the Harbor Movie Theater called Gidget. And it had surfboards in it. And that's the first we'd ever seen surfboards.

00:00:52.860 - 00:01:00.580

We used to just ride on the beach on canvas rafts, inflatable canvas rafts, and then body surf. And we saw that and we were like,

00:01:00.660 - 00:01:09.460

oh my God. So then the following summer was when all of a sudden surfing started to get, from that movie, surfing started to get a little

00:01:09.460 - 00:01:18.340

bit more notoriety on the East Coast. And you'd hear some stories about up in Go-Go Beach. Where's that?

00:01:18.400 - 00:01:24.640

That's in New York City. That's one of the provinces up in New York City. And you heard a couple other places.

00:01:25.700 - 00:01:36.160

And they were riding surfboards and stuff. So I wanted to get a board. And I heard about a guy up in Long Beach Island.

00:01:37.100 - 00:01:49.280

And he sold surfboards. So I saved up some money. And I was setting pins and working at that time at the movie theater.

00:01:49.840 - 00:01:55.980

Okay. And... Where? That would have been at the Park Movie

00:01:55.980 - 00:02:00.640

Theater in Stone Harbor. I was the doorman. Wow. Okay, started out as a usher at the

00:02:00.640 - 00:02:10.220

Harbor and then you got promoted. Okay. But anyway, so I got a friend of mine, one of my best friends, his brother,

00:02:10.940 - 00:02:22.980

borrowed his mother's car. And we drove up to this place. And the guy had a grocery store on the, let's say, causeway going into Long Beach

00:02:22.980 - 00:02:27.760

Island. And there were circles as you went around. And his was right in one of the circles.

00:02:27.760 - 00:02:34.100

And went in there, but he didn't have surfboards in the grocery store, but they were back at his house. Went back at his house, he had a

00:02:34.100 - 00:02:40.100

Cape Cod, went upstairs in the attic, and here they were. So I got my first surfboard up there. We put it in.

00:02:40.740 - 00:02:46.200

The car was a VW Bug with a sunroof. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so we put the surfboard in there.

00:02:47.180 - 00:02:53.300

Just sticking out nine feet, eight inches long. That's crazy. And drove down to Stone Harbor. Do you remember what it cost?

00:02:53.640 - 00:02:59.840

Yes, it was $95. And the name of it was Shark. I said J-R-K. And the guy who sold it to me

00:02:59.840 - 00:03:05.080

was Ron John. Ron John. Yeah, uh-huh. And at that time he just had it

00:03:05.080 - 00:03:11.180

around a grocery store. Oh my gosh. That had been in the family. And for how long had you been coming

00:03:11.180 - 00:03:14.900

to Stone Harbor? Since 1950. Okay. Yeah.

00:03:15.520 - 00:03:23.820

So you came in the summers? Came in the summers, that's right. Where were you during the winter? In that particular period of time when we

00:03:23.820 - 00:03:33.320

were first coming down, I was in a place called Bryn Mawr outside of Philadelphia. And then when I was in sixth grade, my parents bought a farmhouse and moved out

00:03:33.320 - 00:03:38.340

into the country. Okay. Up near Redding, Pennsylvania. The town's called O-L-E-Y.

00:03:38.540 - 00:03:42.780

Okay. It's claimed to fame as Daniel Boone was born there. Very cool.

00:03:43.060 - 00:03:50.380

So, yeah. It had an outlying one-room schoolhouse. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it was really neat.

00:03:50.540 - 00:03:59.700

So you got to spend the winters in the country and the summers down here. My dad would drive us down here, my sister, myself, and my mother, and drop us

00:03:59.700 - 00:04:06.540

off. The day school let out. And then we went back the day after Labor Day.

00:04:07.080 - 00:04:15.860

So we never made the opening day of school because he didn't want to drive back in Labor Day traffic. So did your parents own a house and

00:04:15.860 - 00:04:22.840

so forth? Yes, they did. What they did is they bought a lot on the channel on Golden Gate Drive for

00:04:22.840 - 00:04:30.200

$2,500. Wow. And my father always wanted to, he was a salesman, but he always wanted to build.

00:04:34.060 - 00:04:39.280

He liked to build. He liked to do projects and stuff like that. So he built a home, me and my

00:04:39.280 - 00:04:46.580

mother, with the help of relatives and some little contracting in there. I mean, you know, the pilings had to go in and the foundation.

00:04:46.900 - 00:04:55.480

But after that, that was it. So we'd come down on the weekends in the spring and get some work done on the weekends.

00:04:55.780 - 00:05:01.600

And then it took about a year and a half. It was a single-story home. Wow.

00:05:01.660 - 00:05:04.520

That was it. Is it still there? It's still there. What's the address?

00:05:04.520 - 00:05:09.980

That's correct. 10525 Golden Gate Drive. Wow. That's neat.

00:05:10.080 - 00:05:18.700

Yeah, it is really neat. He had a book that said, I forget what it was, How to Build Your Own Home for $7,500, I think is what

00:05:18.700 - 00:05:28.700

the title of the book was. And did he do it? Yeah, I mean, I don't know what his cost came out to be, but yeah.

00:05:29.120 - 00:05:35.500

So that was it. And in those days, I hate to ramble. No, it's okay. Okay.

00:05:35.500 - 00:05:41.580

I can edit it. Okay, good. But in those days, I mean, the houses didn't have heat.

00:05:42.980 - 00:05:48.780

These were all summer homes down here. Right. You came down in the spring, you turned your water on.

00:05:49.900 - 00:05:57.720

Under house, you drained your pipes when you left in the fall. Burrow went around and turned all the water off at the curbside unless you requested otherwise.

00:05:57.920 - 00:06:04.020

So nobody was here. No, nobody was here. Very, very limited people. I mean, nobody.

00:06:04.280 - 00:06:08.800

Just such a handful. Wow. But as I said, they would turn all the water off.

00:06:09.400 - 00:06:16.360

Just go right up the street and have this thing. If you didn't want your water turned off, you had to notify them.

00:06:17.000 - 00:06:32.100

Otherwise, it was turned off. So from about 1950, when you started coming, until the late 60s, nobody had surfboards. Not late 60s, earlier than that.

00:06:32.700 - 00:06:37.680

Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like I said, the year after it gets it. Okay.

00:06:37.800 - 00:06:45.040

I'll have to find out when that was. Yeah, okay. And as I said, there were no surf shops.

00:06:45.320 - 00:06:51.460

That went up there. The following summer, one opened up over in Cape May. Okay.

00:06:51.720 - 00:06:57.900

So it caught on. It caught on really pretty rapidly. Okay. So I had the first board.

00:06:57.980 - 00:07:09.620

When we got back, we drove down to the life-saving station in Stone Harbor. 2nd Avenue ended at the convent. And so you went down the 3rd, and

00:07:09.620 - 00:07:17.560

there was a dirt road to get back into the life-saving station. And so we went back there, and there was a path through the dunes, a couple

00:07:17.560 - 00:07:27.160

of series of dunes. Carried the board over the dunes, went out, launched it, stood up on the first wave, which was really neat.

00:07:28.080 - 00:07:35.320

Stood up on the second wave. Stood up on the third wave. Then we look up the beach, and here comes this jeep.

00:07:36.620 - 00:07:43.900

And it was the captain of the guards. Who was? Who was at that time, Bizzacco. Okay.

00:07:44.120 - 00:07:55.080

Okay, and he took my board and wrote me up because you weren't allowed to launch boats from the beach. And it's like, no, it's not a boat.

00:07:55.200 - 00:08:00.060

It's a surfboard. No, it could be anything. You can't launch it from the beach. Huh.

00:08:00.240 - 00:08:07.220

So I took it back to the shack. John went and got my mother. You know, this guy who was driving me up there.

00:08:07.320 - 00:08:15.720

She came down and started, you know, giving some grief. We got the board, took it back to the house, and, you know, that was pretty

00:08:15.720 - 00:08:20.060

much it. Got a surfboard but no place to ride it. How about that?

00:08:20.080 - 00:08:26.340

But you could ride over in a place called Poverty Beach in Cape May. Right. Yeah, but you needed a ride to get

00:08:26.340 - 00:08:34.000

over there. And that would have been, you know, the older brother of my friend again. So, yeah, that would have been it.

00:08:35.240 - 00:08:40.220

And then I had to go to court for this. Really? Yeah, to pay a fine.

00:08:40.980 - 00:08:52.160

And in the interim, this guy had gone around and got people to sign a petition that said we should allow surfing on the beach.

00:08:53.120 - 00:09:02.320

And so we went into court, and the judge was looking at this thing. No attorney or anything like that. And he's up there with me.

00:09:02.360 - 00:09:08.060

He said, well, I have this. And he's looking at it. Yeah, they've got to be able to come up with something.

00:09:08.600 - 00:09:14.360

Get out of here. And that was it. So the judge wanted you guys to be able to surf?

00:09:14.380 - 00:09:23.020

Yeah, he just said this is ridiculous. So what the borough did is they said, okay, you can surf before the lifeguards come on and after the lifeguards leave.

00:09:23.120 - 00:09:27.220

Oh, that made sense. Yeah, which made sense, didn't it? Yeah. And that's the way it was.

00:09:27.360 - 00:09:37.860

And by that time, Barry Davies, he lived on 94th Street, had gotten a board. And Dennis Baumgartner had gotten a board. So we're only dealing with like three of

00:09:37.860 - 00:09:42.860

them. So we're really not going to crowd a lot of people out. But you would also get some of the

00:09:42.860 - 00:09:53.440

kids who lived in courthouses around there. They had boards, too. And they would go to Wildwood Crest, or they'd go to Poverty Beach.

00:09:54.660 - 00:10:01.300

And so as soon as we were allowed to surf here, one of those hours, they started coming in. And they mainly showed up early in the

00:10:01.300 - 00:10:08.040

morning. That was sort of a better time. But you'd get them in the afternoon. But still, it left a whole period of

00:10:08.040 - 00:10:14.360

the day where you couldn't surf. Yeah. Pretty good long period. Yeah, pretty long period of the day.

00:10:14.980 - 00:10:25.620

But the convent, the nuns at the convent, they only went in the water from 1130 to 2 o'clock. And the borough would send a guard up

00:10:25.620 - 00:10:35.180

there to guard them. And when they went in, they wore the old, you know, cover-everything-up bathing suits. And sleeves down to here, down to their

00:10:35.180 - 00:10:45.060

ankles, black dress on top of baggy pants. And they'd go in there. And they didn't really leave the convent that much during the course of the day, except

00:10:45.060 - 00:10:49.720

for this period of time. They were really on kind of retreats. Okay. Yeah.

00:10:50.200 - 00:10:57.300

I mean, they still do it now. But they're a little more active in getting around. So he had come up with the idea,

00:10:57.580 - 00:11:05.880

well, you know, you're not using the beach except from 11 to 2. And he talked to the nun there and said, what do you think it would be

00:11:05.880 - 00:11:13.460

okay if they surfed here when you're not swimming? She said, sure, that's fine. So then we ended up— Then you had

00:11:13.460 - 00:11:16.000

a surfing beach. Yeah. Now we had a surfing beach. That's cool.

00:11:16.220 - 00:11:22.520

So that became the surfing beach. And what's—remind me what street that is. Sure, that's 111. It's still the same street, yeah.

00:11:22.640 - 00:11:27.180

Okay. Yeah, this weekend coming up we'll have the Nun's Beach Surfing Tournament. That's right.

00:11:27.460 - 00:11:32.500

Yeah, this will be about the 17th or 18th. Now it all makes sense. Mm-hmm.

00:11:32.900 - 00:11:37.780

Yeah. So when did they—they established other surfing beaches, right? Now there are?

00:11:37.980 - 00:11:42.220

Yes, they did. Okay. Yeah, that's well after this. Okay.

00:11:42.220 - 00:11:48.320

I think they established 110. That's a surfing beach. I have one I think established a couple beaches.

00:11:48.880 - 00:11:55.840

Okay. And that occurred—that's where you had a guard that would sit. And that occurred sometime in the—I'm guessing in

00:11:55.840 - 00:12:05.600

the 70s. Okay. You know, once you're finished school and you're working, you no longer have that down for

00:12:05.600 - 00:12:10.980

the summer. Yeah, I know. You do know, don't you? So you miss some of the details in

00:12:10.980 - 00:12:20.480

there until you—yeah, until you can get your own place down here and then your family starts doing what your predecessors did. Right.

00:12:20.480 - 00:12:27.460

So I miss a period in there. Yeah. When all that had occurred, so I won't be accurate on dates on that.

00:12:27.940 - 00:12:38.960

In Avalon, I mean, because we were divided by dirt, I mean, we really didn't—you didn't interface all that much. Because you couldn't come back and forth.

00:12:38.980 - 00:12:47.340

Yeah, you couldn't come back and forth. You really didn't interface. And when you looked at that, you saw all that vegetation.

00:12:47.340 - 00:12:59.720

So it was that way from 42nd all the way down to almost 80—the athletic fields at 81st. That was it.

00:12:59.960 - 00:13:06.280

There was nothing in there. You know, there were a couple of artist colonies up in the dunes. Yeah.

00:13:08.640 - 00:13:15.340

You know, the big stuff now. But you had that, and that was about it. There was nothing else until you got there.

00:13:15.340 - 00:13:25.260

So, you know, I mean, occasionally Avalon—kids from Stone Harbor get to Avalon to go to the Avalon Dance, which was above the movie theater.

00:13:25.780 - 00:13:30.320

Right. And vice versa. Kids from Avalon would come to Stone Harbor to do the Stone Harbor Dance, which was

00:13:30.320 - 00:13:34.340

at Civic Club. Okay. Or for movies. Yeah.

00:13:34.360 - 00:13:40.800

Which movie theaters you had won, you know, so. But you needed to get a ride, or you pedaled your bike all the way.

00:13:41.100 - 00:13:50.740

Uh-huh. But in Avalon, I remember you could be a lifeguard at 17, where in Stone Harbor it was 18.

00:13:51.140 - 00:13:59.240

Okay. Yeah, so there was a guy—his name was Carney, Mike Carney. And he spent a lot of time in

00:13:59.240 - 00:14:07.780

Stone Harbor, but then he could be a guard up here at age 17. And I know he was very early on the surfing in Avalon.

00:14:08.000 - 00:14:13.600

Okay. I've lost track of him. Yeah, I wonder if I could find him. Yeah, I mean, I'll see what I can

00:14:13.600 - 00:14:16.980

do. But he was very early, because he would come down. Uh-huh.

00:14:17.180 - 00:14:19.920

You know, he would come down to Stone Harbor. Yeah. And surf, too.

00:14:20.160 - 00:14:26.020

Right. Yeah. It became that—the Nun's Beach just became a popular place.

00:14:26.400 - 00:14:32.820

Right. Yeah, where you'd think everybody would want seclusion. At that time, all six would want to be together or five.

00:14:33.000 - 00:14:38.680

Right, because there were so few. Yeah, so few. Yeah, there was never fighting over waves. That's good.

00:14:38.820 - 00:14:47.680

Uh-huh. Do you have any sense of, because it was such a small community, like whether people were surfing in Sea Isle or Ocean City

00:14:47.680 - 00:14:52.360

or like on any of the other islands, or did they all kind of gather? No, no, yeah, they were. That's what I'm saying.

00:14:52.380 - 00:15:02.140

Oh, they were. Poverty Beach was an attractive place, and so therefore, a surf shop opened up down there. So really, Stone Harbor was the very first

00:15:02.140 - 00:15:06.940

in the area to have a surf beach? No, no, no. No, they were surfing up in North Jersey. Okay.

00:15:06.940 - 00:15:11.020

There was one guy surfing over in Cape May. In Cape May. In Cape May, yeah.

00:15:11.120 - 00:15:19.760

I know at Diamond Beach, do you know Diamond Beach? Yeah. Okay, and Wildwood Crest.

00:15:19.900 - 00:15:23.300

Yeah. And Diamond Beach, they were surfing there. Okay. Uh-huh.

00:15:24.080 - 00:15:32.260

Yeah, I mean, but they were small groups. Uh-huh. Yeah, I remember a kid getting hit by lightning in Diamond Beach and getting killed, and

00:15:32.260 - 00:15:39.820

that was the year we first started surfing down here. It was like, oh, let's get out of the water before, whenever you see lightning, you

00:15:39.820 - 00:15:52.160

need to think at that time. So it was very small, up and down. Ocean City, you know, had a couple poppers. 7th Street up in Ocean City was popular.

00:15:52.780 - 00:16:06.880

What happened in the following year, or a couple years, to promote surfing on the East Coast, and these would be the board, the surfboard manufacturers, they would host surf meets.

00:16:07.460 - 00:16:16.440

Uh-huh. And they typically, it would typically be this way, you know, they'd come in with a van or, you know, a couple vans, and

00:16:16.440 - 00:16:23.160

they'd have a surfing movie. Uh-huh. And so they'd take a beach, and they'd have a surf beach, and they'd have a

00:16:23.160 - 00:16:30.300

surf contest, and you'd sign up for it, and it's got a trophy. That was better. Maybe you got a trophy and a t

00:16:30.300 - 00:16:37.900

-shirt, or two t-shirts. Uh-huh. Then they'd show a movie, like in a gymnasium, and it cost 25 cents to go.

00:16:38.240 - 00:16:45.380

And it was in 16 millimeter. Oh, my gosh. So they would have an 8-track that was soundtrack for it, and they would narrate

00:16:45.380 - 00:16:58.400

the movie as it went along. And again, it would be Hobie Alter, Hobie Surfboards, you know, Dewey Weber, Weber Surfboards, Greg Knoll, Greg Knoll Surfboards.

00:16:58.740 - 00:17:09.260

And they'd try to promote their brand. And that really spread a lot. So you could, for example, you know, so let's say they'd have Diamond Beach, they'd have

00:17:09.260 - 00:17:16.900

a surf contest. Uh-huh. Then the next day or the day after, they'd have a surf contest at 7th and

00:17:16.900 - 00:17:21.500

Ocean City. Uh-huh. Then the next day, they'd have one up in Atlantic City.

00:17:21.740 - 00:17:30.140

Uh-huh. And then the following day, it would be Surf City, 7th and 1B Sound. Just move along like that.

00:17:30.260 - 00:17:36.440

That's right. Yeah. And they'd show the movie that night. So as kids, you know, by this time,

00:17:36.480 - 00:17:42.500

I could drive. Uh-huh. But, you know, I mean, to see a surf movie and to learn what you're supposed

00:17:42.500 - 00:17:50.180

to be doing, not just from a magazine, so you'd go to every, so you'd go three days in a row. I wasn't even thinking, like, who would have

00:17:50.180 - 00:17:53.620

taught you to surf? You just had to figure it out on your own. You had to figure it out, but when

00:17:53.620 - 00:17:58.180

you saw it on film. Right. And that was it. And you just, yeah, you'd travel.

00:17:58.500 - 00:18:04.480

So for three nights in a row, you'd just watch the surf movies. Maybe you competed, maybe you didn't. Uh-huh.

00:18:04.560 - 00:18:11.840

Most of us were a little shy to compete at first. And they would bring a surf team with them who would give demonstrations.

00:18:12.480 - 00:18:17.900

Yeah. On how to hang five, how to hang ten, and do that kind of stuff. I don't even know what that means.

00:18:17.900 - 00:18:23.220

That just means run up to the end of the board and hang five of your toes all behind. It's called nose riding.

00:18:23.440 - 00:18:28.900

Okay. It's a long board, so if you could get all the way up to the end of the board and stand there, you know,

00:18:28.980 - 00:18:36.120

and get all, without, you know, going under. Yeah. But they had a certain amount of speed, and you tried to hang your toes off

00:18:36.120 - 00:18:44.760

the end of the board. Yeah, there were all these kind of primitive sort of moves like that. But, yeah, you, so there were, I mean,

00:18:44.840 - 00:18:58.820

so there were these places of small surfing collections of people. Uh-huh. And I think in five years or four

00:18:58.820 - 00:19:03.380

years, if you look back, it exploded. It exploded. Absolutely exploded. Yeah.

00:19:03.860 - 00:19:07.300

Maybe the Beach Boys had a little bit to do with it. Yeah. Uh-huh.

00:19:07.880 - 00:19:16.780

Yeah. So all the surf shops opened. Yeah, and then all the surf shops opened. There was one in Stone Harbor on 96th

00:19:16.780 - 00:19:23.100

Street that opened. And they sold, there was an apartment up above it, and it was a garage. Uh-huh.

00:19:23.160 - 00:19:29.640

So it was sold out of the garage. Uh-huh. And then he'd rent surfboards, too. That might have been around the fourth year,

00:19:30.000 - 00:19:33.860

see? Yeah, so people could come down with their kids. They could rent a board by the hour.

00:19:34.100 - 00:19:36.920

Right. Just the way they used to rent those canvas rafts. Yeah.

00:19:37.300 - 00:19:41.700

Yeah. And then he'd take it down to the Nun's Beach. And at that time, about the fifth year,

00:19:42.000 - 00:19:55.060

you were also allowed to take it up to 114. There were no guards. That was never guarded then, so now they

00:19:55.060 - 00:19:59.720

had to deal, you know, people weren't, you weren't allowed to swim. If you weren't allowed to swim, then you could surf.

00:20:01.300 - 00:20:05.080

Okay. So then you had, like, a whole five blocks. Yes, they had, uh-huh.

00:20:05.080 - 00:20:12.620

But that became a collection spot. Uh-huh. Not necessarily been the best, what we call break, wave break, but you could surf there.

00:20:12.620 - 00:20:18.180

And since the guards left, there was, like, one or two beaches that had the best wave. Okay.

00:20:18.740 - 00:20:23.800

And the collection would go down to there. That's funny. Yeah. It was funny.

00:20:24.300 - 00:20:30.140

This was all long boards. Uh-huh. Yeah. So what else did you, did you work?

00:20:30.300 - 00:20:33.780

I mean, did you do anything else while you were here? Yeah, I worked down there all the time. Okay.

00:20:34.120 - 00:20:39.380

I mean, that's, I mean, my first job was at the bowling alley. Oh, right. And you'd set pins.

00:20:39.400 - 00:20:44.880

You'd set pins, yeah. And you got nine cents a game. Oh, my gosh. But it was about eight, seven or eight.

00:20:45.560 - 00:20:52.360

And you got nine cents a game. And then, uh, I also had a paper route. Uh-huh.

00:20:52.420 - 00:20:57.980

And I delivered the bulletin that came in the afternoon. Uh-huh. And the bulletin at that time costs a

00:20:57.980 - 00:21:07.740

nickel. So you got one and one-third cent for each paper that you delivered. And the trick to that was you had

00:21:07.740 - 00:21:14.220

a lot of weekly rentals that came down. So they'd move in on a Saturday. And you'd ask them if they want the newspaper.

00:21:14.480 - 00:21:18.280

And they mostly said yes. Right. But you had to make sure you collected from them.

00:21:18.520 - 00:21:22.680

Okay. Before they moved out and the next one came in. Huh.

00:21:23.000 - 00:21:28.620

Yeah, or else, you know, you could be out your money occasionally, you know. They don't think of paying the paperboy. Oh, my gosh.

00:21:28.900 - 00:21:36.860

And you always got an extra number of newspapers. Let's say five or ten. And you'd walk along the beach and see

00:21:36.860 - 00:21:41.340

if you could sell them there. And if you couldn't sell them there, you'd go up and you'd stand in front of the movie theater.

00:21:41.680 - 00:21:46.900

Uh-huh. And when the 9 o'clock show went out, you'd sell them there. The best place to sell the papers was

00:21:46.900 - 00:21:52.380

St. Paul's Church on Sundays. Uh-huh. That's before they had Saturday mass. Right.

00:21:52.460 - 00:21:56.400

People were in there. And you got 25 cents for that, so you got to keep a nickel. Uh-huh.

00:21:56.820 - 00:22:04.880

So I did that. And then you did other odds-and-ends kind of jobs. Uh-huh.

00:22:04.880 - 00:22:14.340

And when I was, I guess, 13, I got a job at the Harbor Movie Theater as an usher. Uh-huh.

00:22:14.580 - 00:22:19.240

And I got 50 cents an hour. So I broke into double digits. Wow. Yeah.

00:22:19.420 - 00:22:29.560

I was rolling it. But, I mean, was that like a decent amount of money for you at that time? What were your expenses?

00:22:29.920 - 00:22:35.180

Right, yeah. Springer's Ice Cream Cone was 10 cents. Okay. Okay, so.

00:22:35.320 - 00:22:38.940

That was a lot of ice cream cones. So that's why it says five ice cream cones. Yeah.

00:22:39.180 - 00:22:44.560

Per hour. Yeah. Yeah. And you get two free movie passes, which

00:22:44.560 - 00:22:50.480

after watching the movies, you really didn't want to go. Uh-huh. But you could always, your parents would be

00:22:50.480 - 00:22:54.960

nice and they'd buy them from you. Uh-huh. You know, or the neighbors if they were going to go buy them from you.

00:22:54.960 - 00:23:03.920

So you picked up an extra 90 cents, something like that. Uh-huh. Then following the summer, I guess because I

00:23:03.920 - 00:23:14.300

did a good job, the guy who managed the Harbor and Park movie theaters offered me the job as a doorman at the Park movie theater.

00:23:15.180 - 00:23:18.400

You know, and that was like a big deal. Totally. Now I get a salary.

00:23:19.840 - 00:23:25.780

$12.50 a week. Wow. Yeah. Which when my father figured out, I'm now

00:23:25.780 - 00:23:29.660

making less than 50 cents an hour. Yeah, it sounds like it. Uh-huh. Yeah.

00:23:29.660 - 00:23:34.940

He tricked you. Yeah. Wow. And then after doing that for just part

00:23:34.940 - 00:23:44.580

of the summer, I got a chance to work in the kitchen at the Shelter Haven. Uh-huh. You know, and for that I got a

00:23:44.580 - 00:23:52.860

dollar an hour, you know, washing pots and pans and things like that. So that was kind of nice. But it was a daytime job.

00:23:52.980 - 00:23:59.540

Uh-huh. So it was, yeah, you went in at like 9 in the morning. We got off at 4.30 because they

00:23:59.540 - 00:24:04.560

started serving dinners, I think, at around 5 .30. Uh-huh. So we were doing all the cooking and everything else.

00:24:04.560 - 00:24:12.880

You were scrubbing the pots and pans, putting things away. So, you know, suddenly I'm losing my pants. It interfered.

00:24:12.880 - 00:24:20.740

Yeah, absolutely, with what you knew before. You know, I never even knew anything about Shelter Haven until they built the Reeds. Yeah.

00:24:20.740 - 00:24:25.520

And, you know, they called it that. So I was like, what's that? What was it like? Was it like the Reeds is now?

00:24:26.260 - 00:24:33.080

It was intended that way. The first Shelter Haven was Victorian in nature. I don't know if you've ever seen a picture of it.

00:24:33.360 - 00:24:37.780

Looks like the old Avalon Hotel up here. Okay. Yeah, Cedar Shake. Uh-huh.

00:24:37.860 - 00:24:44.660

Big round building, ballroom in the center. Okay. Rooms up above. The Shelter Haven that the Stacks put up

00:24:44.660 - 00:24:50.060

was more motel-oriented. Uh-huh. And it was second and third floor were motel rooms.

00:24:50.240 - 00:24:58.260

Uh-huh. And the first floor had a restaurant in it that looked out over the basin. So that was supposed to be pretty nice.

00:24:58.820 - 00:25:08.020

Uh-huh. And then it had a bar, and it had a swimming pool on the dock. So, yeah, and it had valet parking, too.

00:25:08.140 - 00:25:15.100

So you could park. Besides individual parking, you could park. Yeah, you could also. So their restaurant that they set up had

00:25:15.100 - 00:25:20.340

a Major D. Uh-huh. So they tried to make it a little more upscale.

00:25:20.900 - 00:25:28.860

And it also had a liquor store besides the bar. And the bar at nighttime would have a pianist might come in there or a pianist

00:25:28.860 - 00:25:34.040

and a vocalist on the weekends. So they tried to cater to something like that. Right.

00:25:34.240 - 00:25:44.180

So they did a decent amount of business that first year, second year, third year. So the following year, I went from in the kitchen to what they call out front

00:25:44.180 - 00:25:49.000

as a busboy. Uh-huh. Now my hours are 4.30 to 10 .30. That's better.

00:25:49.160 - 00:25:56.640

Yeah, that's better. That's exactly right. I mean, you still left your time to have fun at nighttime, but you had all

00:25:56.640 - 00:26:00.860

day on the beach. Right. Yeah, and there the hours went. You had money in your pocket every day.

00:26:01.080 - 00:26:07.600

Very good. Yeah, that was a really good deal. Yeah. So it didn't take long for many of

00:26:07.600 - 00:26:13.540

us down here to figure out that you really want to work in the restaurant trade. Yes. You have the most attractive hours.

00:26:13.540 - 00:26:18.000

So all of that is going on while you're a teenager. Yes, that's correct. Okay.

00:26:18.140 - 00:26:21.880

Yeah. And then did you go to college? Yes, I did. Where did you go?

00:26:21.940 - 00:26:27.960

I went to Notre Dame. Oh, cool. Yeah, well, there's no ocean out there. Yeah, why'd you do that?

00:26:28.160 - 00:26:33.060

Why were you there? Yeah, I was never going to go anyplace else. Yeah.

00:26:33.140 - 00:26:42.860

Yeah, when my grandmother died, my grandfather and I, he took me out. My aunt, his daughter, lived in Michigan City, Indiana.

00:26:43.680 - 00:26:52.060

And so we flew out, first time on a plane, he and I, and she picked us up at the airport, went back to their house, and the next morning we got

00:26:52.060 - 00:26:58.440

in the car and drove down to Notre Dame. It was the summertime, and we were walking around there, and she said, this is where

00:26:58.440 - 00:27:04.080

you're going to go to school. And you said, and what? Nobody in my family ever went to college. Oh.

00:27:04.420 - 00:27:15.380

And nobody needs, this is where you're going to go to school. So after that, I just said, everything, if you played football, baseball, basketball, and pick up,

00:27:15.480 - 00:27:21.760

it says, we're Notre Dame. Mm-hmm. So she says, well, I got accepted there. That's where I wanted to go.

00:27:23.100 - 00:27:31.300

After college, I was able to take a few years off and go back and do what I liked to do, and that was surf.

00:27:31.760 - 00:27:36.580

So I went to Hawaii. Oh, neat. Yeah, for four years. That's great.

00:27:36.580 - 00:27:43.080

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was really nice. And when I first got over there, I

00:27:43.080 - 00:27:50.700

was running for surfboard manufacturing at that time, and they said, well, if you can make it to the West Coast, I mean, if you can make it to Hawaii, we'll put

00:27:50.700 - 00:28:00.360

you on the West Coast team. I'll figure it out. Now, say you could, people would pay you to drive their car across the country.

00:28:01.240 - 00:28:05.360

Really? Mm-hmm. Yeah, they would. Not a lot, but they'd pay you.

00:28:05.600 - 00:28:11.000

Let's say you moved from the East Coast to the West Coast. Right. Yeah, they were called drive-aways, and you'd

00:28:11.000 - 00:28:17.420

drive it across the country. So I delivered a car to Palo Alto. Mm-hmm. And then I was going to come down

00:28:17.420 - 00:28:23.280

to L.A., because that's where the surf shop was. That's where they made the boards. Mm-hmm.

00:28:23.520 - 00:28:33.540

And, you know, that was a tough phone, going from Palo Alto, San Francisco, to get down there. It just was hard getting rides and stuff.

00:28:33.860 - 00:28:41.380

So I turned around, put my thumb out, and went the other way. I went to the San Francisco airport. And in those days, you could fly what

00:28:41.380 - 00:28:49.060

was known as youth standby. And that meant if you just waited and there was an empty seat on the plane, you got it for half price.

00:28:50.200 - 00:28:58.040

I wish you could do that now. So I just, you know, and they only flew over there. United was the only airline that flew, and

00:28:58.040 - 00:29:06.800

they just flew twice a day. So the planes are generally full. But now if I got an empty seat, and that was $55.

00:29:07.700 - 00:29:15.460

Nice. Yeah, so $55 to fly to L.A. It's a really good deal. It probably cost me $12 to drive across

00:29:15.460 - 00:29:21.500

the country. Right. Mm-hmm. And then you got there, and I had

00:29:21.500 - 00:29:30.480

one of my best friends from high school had been doing a bunch of other different things. And he'd come down here in the summertime

00:29:30.480 - 00:29:35.800

and work in the Hennies. Mm-hmm. Just for something to do. He used to work in the carnival circuit.

00:29:36.080 - 00:29:44.580

Mm-hmm. He had a thing where he just dropped paint and went around in a circle and dropped paint and made cool pictures.

00:29:44.760 - 00:29:50.760

And then he ended up getting a fun house. It was just a trailer. But that was towards the end of the

00:29:50.760 - 00:29:54.340

season. And he said, well, what are you going to do this winter? And I said, I'm going to Hawaii.

00:29:54.340 - 00:30:01.460

He said, sounds like a good idea. I'll meet you there. And I get this call from him. I read a letter from him.

00:30:01.600 - 00:30:06.660

And he said, well, I'm here. Where are you? And this was in September, and I was still working down here at the time.

00:30:06.700 - 00:30:14.120

Oh, my gosh. I'm working at the White Briar. I hadn't thought about going over there until, like, late October, early November because you want

00:30:14.120 - 00:30:17.880

to get there for the winter. And the winter is when the big waves come in. Mm-hmm.

00:30:19.080 - 00:30:21.540

In Hawaii? In Hawaii, yeah. Okay. On the North Shore.

00:30:21.540 - 00:30:32.340

That's what it was sort of famous for, the really big waves over there. And so I got over there, and I had an address where he was staying.

00:30:32.420 - 00:30:41.580

His brother was with him and another friend of his from the Cornwall Circuit. And I made friends with somebody on the plane whose dad was picking him up at

00:30:41.580 - 00:30:47.620

the airport. And he said, can we give him a ride? So they gave me a ride, dropped me

00:30:47.620 - 00:30:54.060

off. And what it was is they were living in a garage. And the garage had twin beds in it.

00:30:54.320 - 00:30:56.980

That was it. And a sink. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

00:30:57.240 - 00:31:06.900

And so they would take one of the mattresses off and put it on the floor. So I moved in there with them. But it was, you know, way too far

00:31:06.900 - 00:31:12.020

from the beach. Yeah. Way too far. So the next morning— How far was it?

00:31:12.120 - 00:31:20.600

Oh, I'd say a good 15 blocks. Okay. I mean, nobody had any cars. Right.

00:31:20.900 - 00:31:29.080

Yeah, I guess it was a long walk. Yeah, it was. So the next morning, our public transportation went down into Waikiki and started talking to people

00:31:29.080 - 00:31:33.200

around there. And they had an area in Waikiki that was pretty slummy, and it was called the jungle.

00:31:33.680 - 00:31:41.320

Mm-hmm. Yeah. But we could get a place down there. It had like a porch.

00:31:41.620 - 00:31:51.080

And then it had a bedroom. Mm-hmm. And it had a bathroom. And it had sort of like a kitchenette

00:31:51.080 - 00:32:01.720

right off on the side of the porch. And we could get that for $125 a month. Now, that was one block from the ocean,

00:32:01.720 - 00:32:07.620

one-half block from the ocean. Mm-hmm. And it had no windows in it. I mean, it had no glass.

00:32:07.720 - 00:32:12.220

It had windows, but no glass, just screens. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That was all it was.

00:32:12.220 - 00:32:19.160

So, you know, that was pretty good. And same deal there. It was a double bed, and then there was supposedly a sofa, which was really just

00:32:19.160 - 00:32:25.380

a single bed, and we took that all. So three of you stayed there? Yeah, so the three of us stayed there. And you loved it?

00:32:25.480 - 00:32:31.460

I loved it. Okay. And until the North Shore came, when the surf kicked up on the North Shore.

00:32:31.760 - 00:32:39.940

Yeah. I headed up there to ride that. So I was living with a couple guys up there.

00:32:40.600 - 00:32:51.600

There was a guy that I met. He had been photographed in film riding the pipeline. Mm-hmm.

00:32:51.740 - 00:33:01.740

And it was a pretty nice shot, you know, a wave coming over him like this. And Coors used it in a commercial. So they had to pay him the rights

00:33:01.740 - 00:33:08.460

for something like that. So he got $5,000 for that. Okay. He bought a mold that you could blow

00:33:08.460 - 00:33:15.600

foam in that would make surfboard foam, and then he started making his own boards. Okay. And I knew how to glass.

00:33:15.940 - 00:33:22.120

Okay. So he said, well, you get up here, he said if you do the glassing for me, I could put more boards out.

00:33:22.480 - 00:33:29.660

His name was Steve Gaines, and the boards were surfboards Pacific, which became a fairly big brand. Mm-hmm.

00:33:29.940 - 00:33:39.720

Okay, so I would do the glassing there. Well, he found a place for me to stay up there, and it was on the beach, on the beach, okay?

00:33:40.180 - 00:33:49.880

Two bedrooms in a place called Chun's Reef. So it went Waimea Bay. That was a big, famous surfing beach. That's where the biggest waves come in.

00:33:49.980 - 00:33:58.880

Mm-hmm. And it goes Iwakai, Wanikai, Pupukea, Chun's Reef, Pipeline, Sunset Beach. Sunset Beach, Pipeline, Waimea Bay.

00:33:59.260 - 00:34:05.640

Mm-hmm. And I'm right along there. $15 a month. On the beach.

00:34:05.980 - 00:34:10.580

Crazy. Yeah, it was. Then I got another person to split it with me because it had two bedrooms.

00:34:11.380 - 00:34:20.680

So now we're down to $7.50. Now it was also like a shack that supposedly looked like a garage out in the front of the property.

00:34:22.260 - 00:34:31.720

And it just had dirt on the bottom, but in theory it was a garage. It had an extension cord that came out of the house and into there, and that's

00:34:31.720 - 00:34:39.020

how the light went on in there. Well, there was another guy up there, and he was living out of a VW van. Mm-hmm.

00:34:39.300 - 00:34:46.340

And so he said, you know, if he could get electricity, living would be a little bit nicer in the van if he could plug it in.

00:34:46.860 - 00:34:53.740

So his name was Mike Turkington. So he paid us $5 for that a month. So now you're living up on the North

00:34:53.740 - 00:34:57.720

Shore on the beach. He paid you $5. Yeah, so now it's all part of the $15.

00:34:57.860 - 00:35:01.060

Right. So now we're living for $5 a month on the beach. That's awesome.

00:35:01.240 - 00:35:06.860

I know, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And what it really turned out was that

00:35:06.860 - 00:35:16.680

the house over there, this was a summer home for the people who lived, let's say, on the South Shore, Honolulu, Waikiki, stuff like that.

00:35:17.020 - 00:35:25.840

And you were really more or less, we didn't realize, but we were really more or less just house-sitting the house. Some other surf bums over there didn't just...

00:35:25.840 - 00:35:33.340

Move in. Yeah, crash into another place. Yeah. But, yeah, that's, that's what I say way

00:35:33.340 - 00:35:36.800

back then. Yeah. So how long were you in Hawaii? Four years.

00:35:37.720 - 00:35:41.940

Four years. I know you wonder, well, why'd you come back? Yeah, why'd you come back?

00:35:41.940 - 00:35:46.740

Yeah. All right. You had to come back because, you know, you had to make money.

00:35:47.260 - 00:35:50.440

Okay. Yeah. So you could live on the beach in Hawaii.

00:35:52.040 - 00:36:01.060

Right? Yeah. Yeah, what was I thinking? But, I mean, I had a college education,

00:36:01.260 - 00:36:06.580

you know, I had to get on with my career. My oldest daughter was born over there. Okay.

00:36:06.840 - 00:36:11.500

You know, it was just, no, no, no, I got to... So you grew out of it a little bit.

00:36:11.680 - 00:36:15.880

I got to make money. Yeah, okay. Yes, like I said, so I could live on the beach in Hawaii.

00:36:16.140 - 00:36:25.260

Right. So did you come back to Stone Harbor? Well, no, I came back to Pennsylvania. My parents had a place in Stone Harbor.

00:36:25.600 - 00:36:34.500

Right. Yeah, and then we would come down on, not every weekend, but on the weekends when we could.

00:36:35.180 - 00:36:44.900

And then eventually they started renting down here for a couple weeks in the summer, so it all started that way. So what did you actually do as a

00:36:44.900 - 00:36:51.320

career? I was, I ran some hedge funds. I had some hedge funds, kind of like mutual funds.

00:36:51.460 - 00:36:56.460

That'll work. Yeah. To make some money. Early on, yeah, before there were a lot

00:36:56.460 - 00:37:01.620

of them. Another guy I went to Notre Dame with myself, we started the fourth hedge fund in the country.

00:37:02.100 - 00:37:10.980

Okay. Yeah, once again, not knowing what you're doing. Those two things, like, don't mesh in my mind.

00:37:10.980 - 00:37:23.960

Exactly. Like surfer, itinerant lifestyle, and hedge fund manager. I tell my children, I mean, they're old and well, but it's like, get the piece

00:37:23.960 - 00:37:30.840

of paper. Get that piece of paper. Now go do something that you want to do.

00:37:30.980 - 00:37:40.360

Don't start working right away, because you'll never live any cheaper than you are right now. I sold a piece of graffiti one time up in New York City.

00:37:41.940 - 00:37:51.900

My roommate and myself fund in for St. Patrick's Day, from Notre Dame. And we were wandering around, kind of lost, didn't know where we were going.

00:37:52.020 - 00:38:00.340

And we sold this graffiti and it said, you can sleep in your car, but you can't drive your apartment. And it's so revealing.

00:38:00.940 - 00:38:05.280

It is. I mean, if you have a car, you have an apartment. You have shelter.

00:38:05.560 - 00:38:09.080

I wish somebody told me this before I got a real job. See? I know.

00:38:09.280 - 00:38:14.900

And that's what I'm saying. So there's a period there where you just can't live any cheaper. I think of how cheap I lived.

00:38:15.140 - 00:38:23.840

Right. You were never poor, you just never had any money. Let me see who just came in.

00:38:25.400 - 00:39:02.380

I'm really starting to ramble now. Hi, how are you? Yeah. And I used to work for Dr. Garcia,

00:39:02.640 - 00:39:27.940

so... I think you did, yeah. No, no, no, it's perfect for you to just talk about whatever, you know, comes to

00:39:27.940 - 00:39:33.700

mind. Yeah, it was great. I learned a lot about Sun Library and about, you know, the safety community.

00:39:33.700 - 00:39:41.300

Okay. I don't have one more to say yet. Not on tape? No, not on tape, but still.

00:39:41.500 - 00:39:49.880

Okay. Okay. Yeah. That is really interesting.

00:39:54.060 - 00:39:58.180

Say hi to John. Tell John I said hi. I will.