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 their own fires, and could build an evening’s entertainment around a ukulele, a guitar, and a passe...
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 Surf Club /
- San Onofre: the Nearest Faraway Place /
- Riding the Hot Curl /
- Enter Makaha /
- Death at Waimea /
- The Overwhelming North Shore /
What Depression?
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.