Calvin "Tulie" Clark was born halfway through World War I, grew up in Palos Verdes, and rode a horse to school. He wasn't a founding member of the Palos Verdes Surf Club, as has been reported, but got voted in just a few months later, and was a club standout. Clark was a fireplug, short and jacked, with huge shoulders and jet-black hair. He paddled like a locomotive, back when paddling was nearly as much a part of the sport as riding waves. At 19, Clark beat the great Pete Peterson in a paddle race, and legend has it that he was the only surfer to ever do so.

Clark later became a successful real estate developer. He never learned to not say "Jap"—a habit left over from World War II, or just casual racism, who knows—and kept riding waves into his 80s. He died from complications related to Alzheimer's in 2010, at age 93, the second-longest-lasting PV Surf Club member.

Gabe Sullivan recorded this conversation in 1995, when Clark was 78, and as far as I know it's the only interview he ever did.

My father owned a butcher store and grocery, and my mother owned a bakery.

What kind of jobs did you have when you were young?

I did some lifeguarding for LA City and County. I helped my father—drove the delivery truck, raked sawdust in the butcher shop, things like that. Later on, for three years, I worked the night shift at General Motors. Quite a few surfers were there; Lorrin Harrison, Clark Lindbergh, EJ Oshier. We worked from 5:30 PM to 1:00 AM, so we had lots of time to surf.

I quit high school at 17, for three years. Then at 20 I went back and graduated from Venice High.

Palos Verdes, then Gardena. I had a dairy there. I took over some Jap farms. I took over a hothouse when the Japs were all evacuated out of Gardena during the war. After then I started in the building business, and I’ve been doing that ever since. Buying and selling land; buying houses, real estate, building houses. I used to have 45 people working for me, and I’ve built over 5,000 houses, from San Pedro to Sacramento, San Francisco, Watts, Hermosa Beach, all over the southern half of California. Anywhere they'd lend me money to build!

How old were you when you began surfing?

About 10. I learned to swim at the Redondo plunge, and it just went on from there.

Just a little ironing board; it was maybe four feet long. My mother got a new one, I guess, and I took the cloth off the old one and that’s what I learned on.

It was fine. I mean, all you did back then was go out to where the waves were breaking, turn around, and belly-ride in. You couldn’t stand up or anything. The board was only an inch thick. It was a wooden ironing board, is what it was.

Did your friends ride ironing boards too, or just you?

Oh yeah, it was quite the rage for a while because there wasn’t anything else. I mean, the lifeguards were building these great big solid redwood planks that weighed 90 pounds, and of course us kids, we couldn’t ride ‘em. They were just too heavy, too dangerous. Later I got a balsa board and then started making paddleboards. Have you seen California Surfriders, Doc Ball's book?

There's a picture in there, taken at Hermosa, where I’m coming off a wave with my right hand dragging in the water. That's on my 90-pound redwood board. Quite a thrill.

Did you have a preference for hollow boards or planks?

Both. I still got the 14-foot "wonderboard" that Doc Ball made me in 1932—that’s the one that I raced on and won all my trophies with.

Is that the board you used when you raced Pete Peterson?

Yes. I guess you know about him, how famous he was. He used to beat everyone until I decided to beat him, which I did on that board. I was 19.

But you also liked solid-wood boards, too?

That's right. I still got a Simmons board, an 11-foot balsa. And then I got a little Chuck Dent board, too, a nine-footer made of foam and fiberglass, which I'd use small surf.

What was cool during the 1930s and '40s? What kind of cars were you into?

The Model A, mostly. The convertible Ford Model A, with the rumble seat. You'd put the boards in the rumble seat. Doc Ball, I think he had a '31 Model A he used to tear around in. That’s what most of the fellas had. Or old Dodge sedans. Really old, even for back then, old cars with spoke wheels. Wooden spokes, with great big tires. Then we had a trailer, too, and we hauled the boards around in the trailer.

Oh, that was great! We had ukes and guitars, and one fella had a trumpet, and we used to have big luaus. After we’d surf, we’d go back to the beach and eat, then we’d play Hawaiian songs till midnight or so. Just Hawaiian music because that’s all we liked. We used to listen to this radio program called 

, it was broadcast out of Waikiki and hosted by a guy named Webley Edwards, and we'd all dream about going to Hawaii. We had big parties at Hermosa where we'd all wind up at a place called The Hut, dancing till 2:00 in the morning, then we'd roll out our sleeping bags on the beach and prop our boards up alongside so the wind wouldn’t bother us.

Well, this was during the Depression, you wore what you could afford. Dungarees, tennis shoes. You never saw anybody in a tie. Sport jackets and shirts now and then; pleated pants if you were going out; shoes with heels.

Not really, not with my crowd anyway. Nobody ever got too sauced or boozed up. We just played the ukes and the guitars and had a good time. Doc Ball would set up a camera and show his motion pictures from down at the Cove and that would go on for an hour or so. It was just a nice group of guys and gals. Nobody ever got out of hand, everybody was courteous, we were nice to each other.

Some did, yes. I have two or three pictures of myself and Mary Ann Hawkins going tandem. Then there was another girl, I don't know her full name—we called her Little Patti, she was 12, and she'd right on my shoulders.

How did girlfriends and parents react to you being a surfer?

It wasn't a big thing. People didn't seem to think much about it one way or the other.

When did that whole surf bum image come into play?

After the war. Things started to change, and it kind of evolved to where you had these little gangs on the beach, and they thought it was their place to surf, and other people weren't supposed to be there, and so on and so forth. But we never had any problems with those fellas. They always respected us and were glad to see us. We could surf anywhere we wanted. We went up to Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, County Line. And Malibu of course was terrific. You'd have those long shoulders at Malibu, and we'd all just ride side-by-side, put your arms around the other guy, maybe jump onto his board. Just a lot of fun.

That Simmons I told you about earlier. It’s 11 feet, and 22 inches wide, all balsa.

Just the Palos Verdes Surfing Club logo, and under that is my name.

Do you keep in touch with your old buddies?

We had a big PV Surf Club reunion about five years ago at San Clemente. Twenty-six fellas showed up. Pretty much everybody except Bob West, who got killed in the war, he got shot down in a P-38. But everybody else was there and they all looked terrific.

Not smoking, not much drinking, get the exercise. Swimming, surfing, walking. To this day, I’ve never been in the hospital, never had a broken bone, never had an operation. I've got everything I came into this world with. Surfing has a lot to do with that.

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