JOINING THE RED JACKETS

THE RED JACKETS
That’s me on the far right.  Santa Monica beach, 1965.

As best as I can recall it was around March 1963. The Dewey Weber Competition Team try-outs were held on the south side of the jetty at DW beach in Westchester. I got second place. George Szigeti got first. Only first place was chosen for the team. Nonetheless, I was determined to get on the team and felt I deserved to be on the team. So, I hitched to the new Dewey Weber A-frame surf shop on Lincoln Boulevard in Santa Monica. It was the first of the week and no one was around. When I entered, Dewey was behind the counter at the back end of the showroom. He greeted me with, “Hey kid, how are you?” I said, “Dewey, please let me be on the team?” He said, “Okay kid.” And then he asked me what my waist size was for the team trunks, and then the jacket size. I wasn’t sure. He looked me over and estimated my jacket size and wrote down the measurement. Then he said, “Go ahead and pick out a surfboard.” My heart raced. I was so excited to get a sponsored Dewey Weber surfboard, totally for free. It made me feel like I was fully entering the professional world of surfing. Beautiful, shiny surfboards stood beside each other along the walls. More filled the two rows of racks occupying the middle of the floor. There must have been at least a hundred surfboards.

I walked over to the boards in the rack near the counter. Dewey hung back till I started checking out the candy apple transparent red one that just stood out.  Just like one I had seen that caught my eye at Malibu.  So, as I started to look it over intensely Dewey walked over to me from behind the counter and asked, “What do you think?” I said, “I’m not sure how long I should go?”  He said, “Well, I ride a ten two.”  He was five foot seven inches tall, about an inch shorter than me.  The red one was nine eight.  He pulled it out from the rack and stood it up between us. “You like this one?”  My eyes must have sparkled.  “Yeah,” he said, “I think this is a good one for you to start working on.”  Then he added, “From now on I want you to keep track of all the measurements:  The length, the width, the thickness, the nose width a foot back and the tail width a foot forward.  Okay?”  I said “yeah.”  “And then, when you get your next board, we’ll want to know how you want to adjust those measurements to suit your style? Okay?”  Then I said, “So, I can have this board?”  He said, “Yeah.”  And, that was that, the beginning of a career as a contest surfer, test riding new Dewey Weber sponsored surfboards on the Dewey Weber Competition Team, otherwise known as “The Red Jackets.”  I was elated.  As I carried my new Dewey Weber surfboard out he said, “We’ll have your trunks and jacket ready next week.  Also, you should join the California Surf Syndicate.  It’s a new club being formed.  Jackie and Iggy are in it.”