Chapter: 2
Gliding Return
- A Fine Little Revival
- Jack London Loves Purple
- California: The New Frontier
- Beachboy Life
- Duke Kahanamoku
- Surf Shooting Down Under
- The Bronzed Islander Shows How
- Surfing in the Jazz Age
- Tom Blake Redesigns the Sport
- What Depression?
- When Clubbies Ruled Australia
- Surfboard as Woodcraft
- Palos Verdes Surfing Club
- San Onofre: the Nearest Faraway Place
- Riding the Hot Curl
- Enter Makaha
- Death at Waimea
- The Overwhelming North Shore
What Depression?
San Onofre, 1938
Whitey Harrison, 1935. Photo: Doc Ball
LA surfers with lobsters, 1936
Mary Ann Hawkins. Photo: Doc Ball
California, 1936
Surfers in the 1930s already knew how to live on the cheap: they made their own boards, pulled lobsters from the sea, and could build an evening's entertainment around a ukulele, a guitar, and a passed-around bottle of jug wine.
The Depression did good things for surfing in America. Being poor on the beach in Southern California was a lot better than being poor in the Nebraska plains or on a New York street corner—or anywhere else in the country, for that matter. Surfers were already familiar with living on the cheap: they made their own trunks and surfboards, pulled lobsters and abalone from the sea, gathered wood for th...
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