Late 60’ and into the 70’s Tom did some college, got into Real Estate, and I think he continued surfing, unlike myself who never transitioned to the short boards. We really did not see each other much during those yeasr…but he did help me buy my frist house in San Pedro in 1975. A few years later we bought an apt building together and around that time, Tom’s daughter was born…same year my 2nd son was born(1982…)Geez…I lost some years along the way.
Our investment together got screwed up somehow and there was lots of wrangling…and bad feelings and legal threats and finally a sale. By then, Tom and wife had realized that their daughter was severly disabled. Sometime after that a divorce.
The thing that always led to reconcilliation was surfing. Tom encouraged me to get a board and in 1983 I bought a Becker(longboard) and rode my first wave(since maybe 1969 or 70) at Santa Rosalilita in Baja, Hooked immediiately and shortly thereafter Tom encouraged me to get a Liddle…I still lived in Pedro…Tom in Redondo…and I would see him at Malibu whenever I went up there…
He was an absolute finatic with his boards…He got into riding the Liddle hulls and longboards. He would spend hours fiddeling with the fins…refoiling…one fin behind the other…all kinds of tinkering. Paul Gross and him hooked up and Tom was basically the test pilot along with Paul. They set out to build the best Malibu longboard and judging from what I saw, Tom sat the deepest at first point, and many might agree, that he rode the place better than anyone. It always amused me that Tom would not wax the nose of his boards…for some reason nose riding was a no-no…although from what I saw in the 60’s in Hermosa…he could nose ride with ease. Ask Dane Peterson or Josh Farborough or Dylan Jones about Tommy Trim…He was an influence of all of them.
I moved out of Pedro in 1989…in the Santa Monicas and Malibu was nearly a daily event for me. BTW it was Tom who told me about the place I moved to…
In 1993…he finally go me on a Paul Gross…9-4 I think and I got the hull addiction and had Paul build me a lot of boards and Tom would tune them for me…He would take a board and start to paddle out and often he would take a few strokes and come back and say you have the wrong size fin in the board…maybe change it from a 91/2 inch to 9 or ? It might take him a half hour or more and he would move the fin around and the last adjustment could be the width of a razor blade…but I swear the boards would be so dialed…He was an idiot savant on this stuff…
But…when you went up to the car with him to get a fin or a screw driver…after locking the car…he would obsess over locking the doors…might check them 4 or 5 times…start to walk away and then go back to check again!!
We would laugh and tease…but he could not help himself…Obsessive with the fins…with the locks…
Hasta Luego…gonna see if I can get a wave before I go see Tom…
This pic from Sept. 2009…Palos Verdes Cove…relaxing on a beautiful day on the Mayors bench…A few days later we got Tom to paddle out at Malibu…it was the last time he was on a surfboard…he was showing many signs of the dementia at this time…