Oral History - Talking Story About Boards and Breaks

A Local's Local in the 1920's and Pioneer of California Surfing Stops by the Surfing Heritage Foundation and Reminisces About Good Ol' Times

As word about the Surfing Heritage Foundation's oral history project spreads on the coconut wireless, some surprising and amazing subjects have been coming forward to offer their tales of surfing "back in the day." A case in point occurred in mid-March when 97-year-old Richard "Dick" Huffman came by the Foundation, brought in by his son, to see the old boards on display and reminisce about surfing at Corona Del Mar in the mid- to late 1920s!

Now Dick Huffman was never a famous surfer, didn't belong to the surf club formed there in 1928, and didn't compete in the Pacific Coast Surfriding Championships, the first of which was won by Tom Blake and later became dominated by Pete Peterson. But Huffman remembered meeting Duke Kahanamoku at his local surf spot, and he was clearly moved by seeing some of the old redwood planks in the SHF collection. So much so, in fact, that he started chortling and giggling while running his hands over some of the boards that were "just like the ones we used to ride." Asked where he got his surfboards back in those pioneering days, Huffman was deadpan and matter-of-fact: "Well, we just got the redwood and made 'em ourselves, with drawknives, right there on the beach."

Huffman's stories were fascinating, of course, but when asked about some of the now famous pioneers who used to surf at Corona Del Mar-one of the first surf enclaves on the West Coast-he was nonplussed. "I didn't know any of those guys," he said. "I lived there; they were all out-of-towners or inlanders who came down from Fullerton. They came down, rode some waves, had their little beach party or whatever, and then they left. I didn't mix with them." See, even back in the 1920s, locals ruled!

Seriously, though, this was a special oral history interview precisely because Dick Huffman, just by being a surfer in the 1920s, was a pioneer in his own right, but just never knew it. It is his story, and others like them, that allows the oral history mission to add depth, nuance, and texture to the rich tapestry of surfing's colorful past.

On another note: the Oral History Committee's cassette tape deck recently broke and we desperately need another to continue our work of converting old analog interview tapes to digital files for the archive. Anyone who has upgraded their sound system to CDs or iPods may have a cassette deck not being used but still in working order. Might we suggest donating it to our cause? It sure would be a great assistance to our work.