Don Machado spoke to Fred Hemmings on October 5, 1985, for the Outrigger Canoe Club's oral history series. The transcript below has been shortened and edited; a full version can be read 

I was born on January 9, 1945, here in Honolulu at Kapiolani Maternity Hospital. It is my good fortune to have been raised in Honolulu. I have lived my entire life as a resident of the State of Hawaii. When I was a young boy, I lived in Kahala, [back when] it was pig and flower farms. The only paved roads were Kahala, Aukai, and Kealaolu Avenues. Farmers Road was just that, a farmers’ road. Our family lived at 4746 Farmers Road on a two-acre lot leased from Bishop Estate by my grandfather, Arthur Freitas. My mother’s maiden name was Lillian Bernice Freitas. She was fourth-generation Portuguese in Hawaii.

My father’s mother and father came from New York City when my father was an eight-year-old boy, and my grandfather on my father’s side was with the Navy. He was with one of the first airplane squadrons stationed at Pearl Harbor. My father’s family is predominantly English and Irish with a little bit of French and Indian ancestry. He arrived in the Islands with his father and mother and sister in 1924. My father attended Roosevelt High School and played football there and went on to attend the University of Hawaii, and my mother, of course, as with many young Portuguese ladies was a graduate of Sacred Hearts Academy.

My school career began at Star of the Sea School in the Kahala area. Back then the church was an old wooden barn-like structure. It was near the junction of what is now Kilauea and Waialae. I went up to fifth grade at Star of the Sea and then went to Punahou [and] graduated in 1965. I attended a semester at the University of Hawaii and then decided to go into business.

I spent the days of my youth on the beach at Waikiki. It was natural to become involved as a very young boy in both canoe paddling and surfing. In high school, I played on the varsity football team. I was lucky enough to be on one of the league championship football teams from Punahou, in the old ILH League.

On defense, I played linebacker; on offense, I played center. I centered the ball to who I consider one of Hawaii’s all-time greatest football players, a young man named Charlie Wedemeyer. He was our quarterback. Charlie Wedemeyer, Stuart Wolfe, and I were co-captains of the team. We played at the old stadium at Isenberg and King Streets. I’ll never forget on Turkey Day in 1964 we ran into the stadium with 25,000 spectators. Punahou played Kamehameha School for the ILH championship, we beat them 20-6. Good memories to last a lifetime.

My dad joined the Outrigger Canoe Club in 1927 when he was 12 years old. He surfed and paddled. He has pictures of himself on the Junior Men’s Championship team. He still has a paddle that they used when they raced in Hilo Bay back in the '30s.

My dad always worried about all of his kids’ safety in the water. He made me a safety vest, a little plastic floater. It was like a football that tied around my waist. It was really embarrassing. I guess I was four or five years old. When I was eight, I used to play in the surf down by what they called then Baby’s, in front of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Also when I was eight, my father finally got me my first surfboard which was an old hollow board. Because he was so worried about us in the ocean he painted it orange. He figured he could spot me better. That was in 1954.

I grew up surfing. I was restricted to Baby surf when I was eight, but I’d sneak out to the Canoe surf. There was a real pecking order in the surf. The old-timers used to sit outside on the big long boards. They’d catch a wave and come sliding into the Blowhole area and yell “coming down.” If the kids didn’t get out of the way, they’d get run over and disciplined. Looking back on it now I find it was refreshing that there was a more orderly environment in the surf. Things get pretty hectic now with people running all over each other. There doesn’t seem to be any respect for the older surfers who have paid their dues.

I first competed in the Makaha International Surfing Championship in 1958–I was 12 years old. Eventually I won the Makaha event a few times. In 1963, at age 17, I won the Junior title and followed it up the next year at age 18 by winning the Senior event. My competitive surfing career culminated in 1968 by winning the World Surfing Championship, in Puerto Rico. There was no professional surfing then so I never competed professionally.

During my surfing career I had the opportunity to travel to Tahiti, California, Texas, the East Coast, and made frequent trips to Peru. I made very strong friendships in Peru which still endure to this day.

Incidentally, Peru is a fascinating place. Club Waikiki in Peru is actually patterned after the Outrigger Canoe Club. Carlos Dogny founded Club Waikiki in 1941 after visiting the Outrigger. Club Waikiki is on the coast of Lima in a neighborhood called Miraflores. Club members are mostly the aristocracy and are the more affluent business people of the country. Club Waikiki is their beach club. They spend their afternoon time playing 

, which is a net ball game; they paddle, and they surf. Club Waikiki is very much a dining and social club also.

I’ll never forget when I first went to Peru as a 17-year-old, I was very taken by the poverty. You don’t see the overt poverty in the United States that you see there–you see some poor people nowadays, but you don’t see thousands of people living in cardboard shacks. I’ll never forget that they had beachboys at Club Waikiki [whose job was] to catch the surfer’s boards [before hitting the rocks] and take them back out to them. I thought, gee, how extravagant having beachboys take the boards back out. It was like having surf caddies. It was really amazing—it kind of makes sense and saves a lot of repair work.

As early as 1951 or 1952 when I was five or six years old I can remember vividly the Outrigger Canoe Club–the old Club. At the front desk was Malia, and of course Eva Pomroy was there. You’d get your locker key there at the telephone switchboard that Eva or Malia would be manning. Right outside the lobby, the Club opened up to a large area where there was a grass sitting area. The volleyball courts, of course, were very prominent in the old Club. The old wooden surfboard lockers were on the side of the Club with a clear pass to the ocean.

The upstairs was the dining area and the kitchen. The Outrigger was extremely functional in its design. It had the dining area on the second floor and the Hau Terrace was off in the corner of the Club. Under the dining area and right on the beach was where the canoes were stored. The Club was very functionally designed in the sense of the word that all the athletic and watersports equipment were on the beach. The beach frontage was devoted to water sports. I have fond memories of the old Outrigger, the old site before we moved in 1964.

The design in the new Club is not quite as functional. The beach frontage now is all social, drinking and dining, and it seems ironic that the surfboards and the canoes are kept out by the street and you have to walk through the social area to get the water sports equipment to the water. It inconveniences the social people and it certainly is difficult for the sportsmen and women. It could be changed.

As kids we also used to hang around right outside the Club where most of the Hui Nalu Gang was. There was a hau tree and we used to sit out there and talk about surfing. When I was ten, my grandmother, Tutu Bessie, my father’s mother, as a birthday present paid for my membership. She paid for my initiation which was BIG. I was so proud that I had my little card that said I was a member of the Outrigger Canoe Club. January 1955 was when I became a member, so I am in my 30th year of membership at the Outrigger.

I was always extremely impressed by some of the more Hawaiian members of the Outrigger. I am terribly fascinated with Hawaiian history and Hawaiiana. I’ve read many Hawaiian history books. As a young boy I was fascinated by Duke Kahanamoku – the regal way he carried himself, his sense of dignity and his sense of self-worth and confidence. I sure wish that the modern Hawaiian kids we sometimes hear about in these troubled areas would have some of the self-confidence and dignity of Duke.

It is gratifying to have known all these old classic beachboys. They were an epic part of Waikiki’s history: Panama, Chick, Turkey, Sally Hale, and all the gentlemen who worked at the Outrigger beach service. They were characters beyond description. Their lives and their role in the Outrigger and Waikiki history is major. I can also remember some of the older dignitaries of the Outrigger, the Board of Directors, and community leaders. Dignity is missing in some of these young kids nowadays. It is what I think is causing some of our problems. Their own sense of self-worth has somehow been diminished.

As a youth, I spent a good portion of my weekends at the Club. My parents were fairly strict so during the week we weren’t allowed to go to the beach. We’d come home from school and do yard work or play.

I come from a big family—five brothers and sisters. My older sister Cynthia was a champion surfer at Makaha. My older brother Mark was likewise a very successful surfer and canoe paddler. And then my younger sister Maria did a little bit of surfing and she also did some canoe paddling. My younger brother Aka is very active. He is more the adventurer of the family. He has ridden some 20-foot waves on the North Shore in a canoe. I have a younger sister Heidi who has also been a paddler and surfer, so we all have a surfing and canoe paddling background. For instance, my brother and I have seven Molokai Canoe Race victories for the Outrigger.

I remember as young boys we would tell our parents we were going to spend the night at a friend’s house, and we used to sneak down and sleep under the canoes at the Outrigger. We would get up early and go surfing before the sun came up. My mother was a very staunch Catholic and so on Sundays I would have to go to church and occasionally I would drag some of my non-Catholic friends to church before we went surfing—I never did convert them. I was worried they would convert me to their heathen lifestyles, surfing before church.

I had the honor of going on numerous goodwill tours with Duke Kahanamoku. Back in the 1960s, Kimo McVay opened Duke Kahanamoku’s nightclub. He was working with Duke promotionally and he also started the Duke Kahanamoku Surf Club. We were brought on board as young surfers: me, Joey Caball, Paul Strauch, and Butch Van Artsdalen. The four of us became Duke’s surf team. Paul and I eventually traveled with Duke on promotional tours. We went to Southern California and other areas to promote Hawaii. Back then Don Ho was just starting his career at Duke Kahanamoku’s night club under the management of Kimo McVay, so the Duke his surf team traveled with Don Ho to his opening engagement at the Coconut Grove at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Those were very exciting times. We were in Hollywood and traveling with Duke. I have some very, very fond memories of Duke. I think that the great lesson I learned from him was to consider the broader picture of life. We used to have great times together.

Hawaiians are famous sleepers. I don’t care what anybody says, there are ethnic stereotypes and there are certain things that are natural to certain cultures that are known. We Portuguese are extremely articulate, which is another way of saying we talk too much.

Anyway, I think many old-style Hawaiians are so relaxed that they are great sleepers. I have Hawaiian friends who can sleep anywhere, anytime. What happened was we’d go to some meeting or to a banquet or some kind of event [and] I was always sitting next to him because he was getting old. We’d sit down to eat and he’d get excited because he’d see all the younger guys, especially myself, ordering a lot and he’d order a lot. I’d always get the part of the steak he couldn’t finish. Then he’d be sitting at this table and, night or day, he’d put on his sunglasses and just nod off and go to sleep – at the table! I used to admire that. You know, these guys would be sitting around talking about all this high falutin’ big deal stuff and Duke would be at the end of the table sleeping.

In the '60s, the sport of surfing was going through some rough times. There was LSD, and drugs were in vogue, and surfing got caught up in it All the guys were wearing Nehru jackets and had beads. Mysticism, LSD, marijuana, and [anything] anti-American was “in.” It was all this whole mental aberration that some youths were going through and surfing really got caught up in it. Well, I was just the opposite. When I went to Puerto Rico for the 1968 World Championships, I didn’t fit the mentality of the sport then. I was very much a rebel with my peers. I was short-haired and very straight, very pro-American and anti-drugs. I went to Puerto Rico representing Hawaii and the Outrigger Canoe. Club. The Outrigger gave me a bright blue blazer with the club emblem on it, and I was very proud of that. I wore the blazer and a tie to every official function. I felt like an IBM salesman at a Cheech and Chong convention amongst all these guru-like surfers. I was a conservative rebel, and I went out and I used tactics of good aggressive athletic competition. In preparation for the contest, I didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, I ran on the beach every morning. I paddled, I got myself in good physical shape. I wanted to win the event.

It set the surfing world on its ear because all the favored in-crowd guys, the glamor boys of the sport, had been beaten. It was an interesting situation.

Later I began my business of developing and promoting sports and surfing competitions. Here in Hawaii we created and produced the first major professional surfing contests. We negotiated contracts with ABC and NBC to cover some of these competitions. The sport has matured considerably. I am very proud to say that most of the top surfers today, because of the development of professional surfing, are pretty responsible, well-trained, and well-motivated athletes. The cult image has faded.

Now that we’re getting into general philosophy, one of the things that I despise most is someone who does something that is injurious to themselves and says, “Well, that is my right and I’m hurting nobody.” When you live in a structured organized society you have a responsibility to yourself and to society to try and be a constructive member of society. When an individual does something to injure himself, or abuse himself, ultimately they abuse society. They ultimately abuse the people who love them, the people who care in many instances in the case of drug abusers, you ultimately become a ward of society. Too many of the people that I knew in the late '60s and '70s who indulged in drugs – some of them were members of the Club, ultimately died of drug abuse, and others are now not totally functioning people in our society. They’ve become problems.

I like to run in the mountains and in the areas of Hawaii that are not quite developed [so], you get a feel for and see many of the ancient parts of Hawaii that you don’t see nowadays.

This is a funny athletic story. In 1974 I was [at the Club], sitting on the Hau Terrace on a Friday evening with a comrade of mine, Bruce Ames. This was before jogging and marathon running became popular. Bruce and I were each drinking a Heineken. We actually drank several Heinekens and we were feeling very happy about life. You have to understand that Bruce and I have always been very competitive. Bruce said, “Say, I read in the paper they are going to have one of these things called a marathon race Sunday morning.” I said, “Yeah?” He says, “Yeah, it’s this race and you run 26 miles, it’s crazy,” I said, “Bruce, I bet I could beat you in one of those things.” And he said, “No, you couldn’t.” I’ll never forget, I said, “Okay, let’s race it then.” So we went down and entered and on Sunday morning [there we were at] the second Honolulu Marathon. Nobody I knew had ever run one before. I didn’t even know what a marathon was.

[Before it started] I remember saying to myself, “Gee, maybe we did the wrong thing here. It’s a pretty long way.” But I thought I’d know what would happen. Bruce would get tired, concede, and I'd win the bet and we’d end up at the Outrigger for breakfast. So [there we were] at the Aloha Tower where the race started. There were only about 300 people in the race; I thought that was a lot of people, [and] of course there were all these long skinny guys. There Bruce Ames and I were at the starting line with Heineken still on our breath. We began running down Ala Moana Boulevard. I was hoping Bruce would give up early, but next thing I knew we were at Hawaii Kai and by that time we’d run more than half the race – about 13 miles. I’d opened up a large gap on Bruce and his girlfriend drives up in the car, and she said, “Fred, do you want to give up and get in the car and we’ll go back and pick Bruce up? This is crazy, you guys shouldn’t continue.” I knew that Bruce, being the clever lawyer he is, was trying to bait me into giving up so he could claim that he won the race. I said, “That’s a great idea. Go pick Bruce up, then come get me and we’ll go.” She never came back. I limped across the finish line. It took me four-and-a-half hours and it took Bruce six-and-a-half hours. That was our first marathon.

I enjoy big waves, marathon paddling, and running in the mountains. Just the other day [my friend] Tommy Holmes and I were drawing up an agreement to make a bet, and we are going to call it “Death Dual 2020.” In the year 2020, both Tommy Holmes and I both, God willing, will be 75 years old and we are making a bet on three different athletic events for the year 2020. They’ll all happen here at the Outrigger. First will be a one-mile canoe paddle, then a one-mile swim, then a one-mile jog. We are going to set up a trust fund, and we are each going to put a minimum of $100 a year into it. We hope to have a large fund. We will set up an athletic scholarship at Punahou which will be endowed by this bet. Whoever wins in 2020, the scholarship will be named in his honor. If either Tommy or I don't make it to 2020, the other person automatically wins. I think competition is something to be enjoyed and carried throughout your life and I hope when I am 75 years old to be jogging, paddling, canoe surfing, and on and on.

[Note: Tommy Holmes died of a heart attack in 1993, while paddling a canoe, eight years after this interview was recorded.]

Photos: Jeff Divine, Don James, Doug Friske, Dave Singletary

FRED HEMMINGS – IN HIS OWN WORDS

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