Wow Butch, you life seems to have a lot of similarities to what I went through, but just a few years behind.
Mr. Foo was a second father to me. Bernie was boarding at Kamehameha and my dad worked for the Government overseas when I was still in elem school. I spent many days and nights with Timmy, Troy and Tenneson. We’d wash pans and help make the dough for the next day. Then on the really big holidays, like Thanksgiving, I’d help them make all the pies. We’d be pressing pie pans for hours. During the summers, we’d go in and work, then go to the beach, then come back for the afternoon bread and wash more pans. You can get spoiled when the pastry you eat is right out of the oven. Especially the hot french rolls and then you take that big paint brush he had sitting in butter and you slap that on.
Timmy went to Pohakea Elem, and I went to Ewa Beach Elem. David Arioli was my best friend from school, and Tim was my best friend after school. As time went by, I gravitated to the ocean and Timmy just didn’t get hooked like the rest of us.
I remember surfing in town one sumer day with Joey Gaynor and David Arioli. The bowl was like 6 feet and Reno was out there looking just like the magazines. I also love the way Reno surfed. Being a small kid, it was easy to emulate his style. We surfed rock piles that day, then came home and surfed shark country. That’s was when I had my second board from Issac Tanaka a 5’6" round pin. Joey, Scott Kauihou, and Corey were all good switch foots, so I followed them and learned to surf both ways.
Bernie and I both got boards from Gooney, “Hallelujah Sun Boards”. I sold mine to Troy Foo after using it about a year. Mr. Foo told that one day he got a call from the military police to come get his son. Troy used to take his boat out the to mouth of Pearl Harbor and surf the waves off the channel all by himself. One day he decided to go onto the rocks and get warmed up. He fell asleep and the military police came out and arrested him. After they got Troy, they had to get another boat and go back for Troy’s boat. The Foo’s loved to hunt and fish, and both Troy and Tenneson had nice boats. I think Troy moved to Colorado. Too bad the boys didn’t want to take over the bakery, but I guess it was pretty hard work. Do you remember seeing all the Wild Turkey?
Debbie was also a good friend during that time. She was “one of the boys” and fought her way to getting set waves like all the rest of us. I haven’t seen her since she quit being a lifeguard to become a fireman.
One night I was at the cannery with the younger Ayala brother and one of the Hasegawa brothers. We were all working on the same line trimming pineapple. It was a classic group of bad news bears boys and one spoiled kid who was friend with the old lady supervisors. We had to constantly pick up his slack and they were on us all day. Well at the lunch break the 3 of us went to the office and told them we quit and walked out. I think we lasted about a month or a little over before we just exploded that night.
Funny you say Capehart I haven’t heard that for decades. Wasn’t that the Iriquois Point station, next to the small PX? I remember the long gas lines there when the oil crisis was maxed out.
I was able to get on base until they realized my ID card was expired and I was over 20. After that it was long walks from shark country. That was OK since my dad was down at the beach with my uncles having a good time. I used to get hassled by the lifeguards and I’d just tell them F off, I’m hawaiian and I can surf anywhere I want. I was always ready to make a bee line for the beach or paddle all the way back towards tree stumps if I had too.
Marshall Crum was working for Downing in the 80’s. Kainoa and I are classmates, so I would try to get boards from them whenever the price was right. I remember him being there around the time they made the bong fin boards. Marshall seemed to like wider tailed boards even with a single fin. Now when I think of it it seemed like they do look similar to McCoy’s boards, but with a round tail.
Aloha.
