More than a feeling

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

Every so often, I read a story that brings a rush of nostalgia

through the otherwise empty pages of my mind.

That’s what happened last week when I learned in this newspaper

and the Los Angeles Times that some Surf City locals are bringing

back a storied tradition to their hometown -- movie-house screenings

of surf films.

As a wee lad in the 1970s, surfing was my life.

On the weekends, my mom and dad would drop me and my little

brother off at the pier, where we would hobble down to the beach,

boards secured under our arms, and surf the entire day from dawn to

dusk, taking a break about noon to scrape up a dollar for lunch.

Yeah -- a dollar. Because for 99 cents, you could get three

hamburgers from Piggy’s, which later became Wimpi’s burger stand. And

if we had a lot of money, we’d be able to buy a banana shake or maybe

an ice cream sandwich from El Don’s liquor.

We used words like gremmie and grommet, kooks and quacks, off the

lips, bottom turns, slashbacks, head dips and good grinds. And the

ultimate of all words -- stoked.

And Huntington Beach was our nirvana.

Most folks would never recognize the Downtown Huntington Beach of

yesterday. Surf shops were everywhere. Young sidewalk surfers on

wooden skateboards, some with clay wheels, slalomed in and out of

pedestrians with no one to hassle us.

The Golden Bear was booking big-time acts like, oh, I don’t know,

Jethro Tull or something. The pier had wooden pilings with the End

Cafe instead of Ruby’s. The Op-Pro surf contest or the G-Shock or

whatever it’s called now had not even been thought up yet. Jack’s

Surfboard shop was a ramshackle brick building with apartments on top

and there was hardly a parking meter to be found.

And of course, the crown jewel of it all, for surfers like myself

at least, was the Surf Theatre on 5th Street, just up the street from

Wimpi’s.

It was here that my mom and dad, or some big sister we would con

into giving us a ride, would again haul me and my brother -- and a

maybe a few friends -- decked out in our Kanvas by Katin shorts,

Van’s deck shoes and Randy Lewis Surfboards T-shirts and sun-drenched

shoulder length locks, down to the theater to watch our celluloid

heroes from Hawaii, Australia and South Africa rip and shred on waves

that we could only dream of.

It was pure magic.

Except for “Five Summer Stories,” I can’t think of any of the

movie names, but I can remember the surfing and the surfers. There

was Gerry Lopez at Banzai Pipeline, and other Hawaiians named Larry

Berteleman, Buttons, Jeff Hamilton and Eddie Aiku.

From South Africa, we were treated to phenom Shaun Thomson ride

tube after tube, and from Down Under, Mark Richards skated on the

waves with a new thing called a twin fin.

The Australians were especially big in those days, guys like

Rabbit Bartholomew and the Bronzed Aussies Ian Cairns, Cheyne Horan

and P.T., otherwise known as Peter Townsend, who later made his home

in Huntington Beach.

The films were, um, masterpieces of cinematography.

OK, well maybe that’s a little much, but they were so epic, dude.

A large screen would show a guy pulling into a tube ride to the

hoots and screams of the audience, made up largely of teens dressed

remarkably similar to my brother and me.

A staple of every movie was an obligatory California sequence to

go with all the exotic shots from Hawaii and Australia, and maybe

Fiji, to keep the home-grown crowd happy. California had its share of

hot surfers, too, like Chris O’Rourke, Joey Buran, local ripper Bud

Llamas and old-timers like Corky Carroll and Chuck Dent.

Of course, there was also usually a skateboard scene that featured

Jay Adams, Tony Alva and the rest of the Dogtown crew clicking the

tiles in some dried-out swimming pool.

Finally, there was always a comedy bit to go with each and every

movie, with sophomoric stunts and goofy jokes that always got the

crowd laughing. I remember one particular clip in which a guy with a

paddleboard, swim goggles and an old beat-up wetsuit was standing at

what looked like the Huntington Beach cliffs. He gazed down the beach

at two young girls in bikinis and mumbled something like “hmmm ...

beach bunnies.” He then proceeded to rub Sex Wax (yes, there is such

a product, but it’s only good for waxing boards) underneath his

armpits.

He instantly became irresistible to the girls.

Goofy as that sounds, I can tell you, the Surf Theatre roared with

laughter.

So popular were the surf movies that preachers would hang out in

front of the theaters to pass out pamphlets warning of eternal

damnation. I remember keeping one for years that had the simple

message “Don’t let surfing be your God.”

The movies made such an impression on me that my best friend Mike

and I begged our parents for a Super 8 movie camera one year and

proceeded to create our own film. We even decided at that time to

become filmmakers, signing up for classes in high school.

By the time we finished our senior year of high school, we

finished our movie and named it “More Than a Feeling,” after the

popular 1970s song by the pop group Boston. To this day, we talk

about that movie and all the fun we had making it.

So yeah, I was pretty pumped to hear about the revival of the

old-style surf screenings, even if they can’t happen at the old Surf

Theatre, torn down in the name of progress in 1989.

Now, if I could only fit into my old Windansea T-shirt.

* TONY DODERO is the editor. He can be reached via e-mail at

tony.dodero@latimes.com or by phone at (949) 574-4258.