Surfing for us was always a family sport. We grew up in Hermosa Beach in the 50s and 60s, which at that time was Surf City. Dale Velzy had a shop there, and Dewey Weber worked in the shop in the wintertime, and in the summertime, he was the lifeguard at the end of our street. 

My dad made our first surfboards out of redwood and balsa. He didn't push us into waves or anything. He never carried our boards for us. We had to do it all ourselves. 

When foam came in, my dad made our first foam boards. And then Dewey said, ‘Hey, I'll make you guys any size, any shape, anything you want for $83.50.’

So we went to our dad and said, “Dad, can we get one of Dewey's boards!? He said, “Go save your money.” So we saved up, and my brother and I each bought our first production surfboard. 

When the surf teams came into favor, I was asked to join the Hap Jacobs surf team. And I was in the Windansea Surf Club, which was really prestigious back in the day. 

I think my first contest was in 1960; I got second! 

And so we started getting free boards — we got several boards from Dewey. And from Bing, who was our neighbor. He’s still alive, and he’s just a bitchin’ guy. 

We used to go down to camp at San Onofre. We would pack up on Friday afternoon, when my dad got home from work. We would go down in our station wagon, and my dad had built a box on the back of it, and it had our ice chest, and a Coleman stove, we had everything just packed in there. And my mom and dad slept in the back with my brother in between. I slept on the front seat. Then he outgrew the back and, yeah, he moved to the floorboards, and I moved outside. 

And then eventually we moved on and got this van that was cool. My dad built it all out as a camper. This is before Winnebagos or any other kind of stuff. 

San Onofre back then was like a kid's nirvana. We’d just go down there and we could run anywhere we wanted to. 

At the time, surfing was kind of a fringe thing. Back then, surfers were very much pooh-poohed because of Hollywood's depiction of them: “They're just a bunch of bums.” But there were a lot of professional people down there, just great people from all walks of life.

I remember there was a chemistry professor from UCLA, Dr. Don Cram was his name, and everybody at the beach knew him as “Crambo.” And he loved it. Well, he ended up winning a Nobel Prize for some sort of molecular discovery! And here's this guy, he's just a surfer, you know, he won a Nobel Prize

When you get down to the beach, it’s a real equalizer; there's no hierarchy down there.

We were members of the San Onofre Surf Club. My dad was one of the original members. He was the president of the club when it went from being private to public. In fact, he's the one that kept Trestles open; he insisted that that be part of the state park.

My dad was an engineer, and I was an architectural major in school, and ended up working for an architect in Newport Beach. And a couple friends of mine got the license to do Quicksilver. They said, ‘Hey, we want you to be our sales rep.’ I said, ‘Well, I got a wife and a kid. I'll try and go out and sell in the afternoon when I get done working. So I tried to go out and sell more in the afternoon. But eventually I said, ‘Look, I don't think I can do it justice. I think you need to get somebody out there full-time. And so they said, ‘Well, hang in there. We got this wetsuit brand that's our neighbor in Australia. We're gonna recommend you do that. So about a month later, the guys from Rip Curl showed up. So I started Rip Curl in the US. 

You meet so many different people through surfing. I mean, I constantly ask people, ‘Where are you from? And you meet people from all over the world. I know a guy that comes out a couple times a year to San Onofre, and he's from Switzerland. He's a hockey agent! He had the number one draft pick this year in hockey.

Surfing is like a giant fraternity. And you meet people, I've met people from all over the world, and we're all kind of interconnected somehow. No matter where I go, I always kind of know somebody, so I never feel like I'm out of place.

Wisdom. That was kind of the thing with Old Guys rule. It started kind of by accident. My dad and two of his friends were known as the three wise men down at San Onofre. And as we were growing up, we were always asking for advice. My dad was the president of an electronics firm, and one of the guys was a professor at UCI, and the other was a real successful stock broker. And so we were asking them how to invest, how to buy a house, where to sit in the lineup or whatever.

And so I have a friend that makes stickers. I said, “Make me a sticker that says, Old Guys Rule, with a little surfboard running through it.” He gave me about 20 of them and I put one on my car and on my dad's car. I gave them all away. And one of my dealers was walking out after an appointment one day up in the South Bay, and we walked by my car, and he goes, ‘Hey, where'd you get that sticker?’ And I said, ‘I had it made. And he goes, I'll buy 100 of them off you. I'm gonna sell them at the store and give it all my friends.’ I said, ‘Do you think you could sell some T shirts? He goes, ‘Yeah, do some T shirts.’

So we did three surf shirts out of the gate, and it just took off, really. And I thought, not everybody's dad surfs, but these older guys are really knowledgeable. You know, the fishermen can go, ‘Hey, the birds are over there, let's go fish over there.’ And the old golfer goes, ‘Hey, the wind's coming across this way. I’m gonna hook my shot like this.’ The car guy, the old guy, can just listen to an engine and just go, ‘Oh, you just need to adjust this.’

And the young guys are just going, ‘God, I couldn't figure that out, you know. It's wisdom that, as older guys, we are now sharing with the younger people.’

Having surfed at San Onofre for so long, I have an advantage, because I know the breaks, and I know the swell directions. People are always asking, ‘Where should we go out? When should we go out?” They're always kind of watching me to see where I go.’ 

When San Onofre gets big, it looks really messy from the beach, and it's really hard for most people that don't surf there very often to know when and where to paddle out. Whereas I can paddle out without getting my hair wet. I just know where the channels are and stuff like that. 

There’s a young woman I see down there, Avalon Gall, she’s 21 and she's just a beautiful surfer. She really has a smooth style, and she's always fun to watch out in the water; she's always real graceful. 

She was surfing in the US Open at Huntington and I'd given her some advice right before the contest. I said, ‘Do you go out and surf before your heat?’ And she goes, ‘No, I never do.’ I said, ‘You might want to start doing that. Just go out and get your feet in the wax, you know, get the speed of the waves. Just catch a couple of waves. Just for 20 minutes or so.” 

And she ended up winning the event down there! And she actually got out of the water today and thanked me for the advice.  

I’m 76, and I feel pretty good. I’m hoping I’m still surfing at 80, like my dad. Surfing is still a main part of my life. If the waves are good, I'm going surfing. Surfing makes you feel young at heart!