Join Brad from Thank You Surfing and Christian from First Surf Shop Division Wynwood as they chat with special guest Terry ‘TQ’ Quinlan. They dive into the rich history of surfing in Miami, reminiscing about the early days, notable surfers, and the evolution of the surf culture down south. From the impact of the Whitman brothers on East Coast surfing to colorful stories of localism and ground swells, this discussion is a treasure trove of Miami’s surf history.
This episode includes:
Weekly Local Happenings
- Island Water Sports paddle-out for Stoneman Douglas High
Surf Report/Forecast - Tradeswell fading
- Pattern change back to Winter
- North swell on the way?
Learning to Surf - Terry Quinlan
- 1960’s in Miami
Miami Surf History - Surf shops in Miami 1950’s through today
- Surf Origins: Whitman Family
- Localism
++ South Beach vs. Haulover
++ The heavy crowds of the 1960’s
++ And, much, much more!
Timecodes
00:00 Introduction and Greetings
00:24 Weekly Recap and Special Guests
02:03 Local Events and Community News
02:41 Surfing Culture and Memorial Paddle Out
05:49 Retail Updates and Upcoming Activities
07:08 Weather Patterns and Surf Forecast
09:26 Surfing History and Personal Stories
23:38 Surf Shops and Localism
29:18 Crowded Peaks and Localism
30:05 The Mike Rieman Story
32:36 Larry Salem: The Eccentric Surfer
34:46 The Whitmans’ Innovations
36:15 Surfing in the Bahamas
43:15 Changes in Miami Beach Surf Culture
46:47 Surfing Through the Decades
52:22 The Evolution of Surfing
52:41 Conclusion and Future Guests
Transcript
[00:00:00] Brad: Okay. Work. Alright, we are live.[00:00:05] Chris: Quiet on the set. Quiet Just kidding. You guys are counting. Yeah, we’re closed anyway. There’s no one on set. Oh, hello everyone. I’m Christian dog. I see our first serve shop division. Windwood. I’m doing this backwards ’cause normally Bradley does this. I do.
[00:00:22] Brad: Do
[00:00:22] Chris: we?
[00:00:23] Brad: I dunno how we do it.
[00:00:24] Brad: Uh, I’m Brad from Thank You Surfing and we’ve got a special guest here today, Terry tq Quinlan. Thank you. You’re welcome. It’s uh, February 23rd, this is episode number 7, which means that we’ve done this 7 weeks in a row. 7 weeks in a row. Can you believe that? You got tired of me yet? Not quite yet. But I did have that one reprieve while you were sick.
[00:00:46] Chris: Oh.
[00:00:47] Brad: I think we might need to like schedule those in for our own mental health. Absolutely. Cause I’m a lot. And as a matter of fact, you got a lot of views. Turns out people want to hear what a nuke has to say. Really?
[00:00:58] Chris: Yeah. [00:01:00] I think she might be better at it than you. Probably. It’s not that hard. But you know, you know, having that, you know, different kind of person and energy in here.
[00:01:13] Brad: Yeah, no, it was, it was, it was cool. And, um, doing it with Santi, uh, last week. How’d that go in comparison? I think just having just, well, that was a. Having me and you and Sandy, but then with the nuke was a little bit different, but I think it’s like having a different perspective having like Just people mix it up.
[00:01:32] Brad: It is it’s pretty cool
[00:01:35] Chris: TQ have you ever done this before?
[00:01:36] Terry: Not at all. All right, I should do a demographic study and see who’s the Heavyweight who’s the lightweight. I
[00:01:42] Brad: have done the demographic study and I can tell you where all of our audience lies I’m not surprised and We’re pretty much all over the map just like the lineup pretty much Yeah, just like me usually.
[00:01:55] Brad: For sure. Well, luckily we do have an agenda to keep us on track. Thank [00:02:00] you for being that agenda. I am, uh, quite organized. So, local happenings. Uh, we’ve got some things going on this week. Uh, and this weekend.
[00:02:11] Chris: Yes, tomorrow being Saturday. Tomorrow, Saturday, yes. But then there’s Sunday that follows it, of which there is a paddle out.
[00:02:18] Chris: For the, um, memorial for the kids that passed away and were killed, uh, at the Douglas Memorial, at the Douglas High School, sorry. Totally butchered that. My apologies. But, uh, if you want some more information, it’s on Sunday. Starts around 12 ish, uh, in Deerfield. Check out Island Water Sports Instagram and you’ll get a lot more information on there
[00:02:38] Brad: for that.
[00:02:38] Brad: Yeah, so I thought it was pretty interesting that they’re doing a paddle out. I think that there’s a, um, you know, like as a surfer, um, you know what that is. But as like a member of the community, I don’t think you necessarily understand what even happens at a paddle out and, and why it can be so helpful to help people kind of grieve and heal.
[00:02:58] Brad: And I mean, as [00:03:00] surfers, we’re very lucky to know that going into the ocean helps. And we don’t understand why necessarily, but you know, when you get out of the water, you’re a lot happier than when you were in the water.
[00:03:08] Chris: Right. Some sort of natural connection in the ocean and wherever somebody goes after they’ve passed, it’s maybe that connection that You can speak to them, you know,
[00:03:18] Brad: I don’t know.
[00:03:18] Brad: I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s a very special thing to do a paddle out. And I know, um, you know, here when we did the paddle out, um, for, for Tony, and it was,
[00:03:28] Chris: it was impressive. It was a
[00:03:30] Brad: very moving experience.
[00:03:31] Chris: I found that after that, almost the whole surf community that was here, those that had been here for a long time and those that are kind of transplants and those that maybe just got into surfing might have been here, lived here their whole lives.
[00:03:42] Chris: It was, everyone got to see how big the surf community really is because Miami’s not really known for surf. We’re not like a huge surf town and we haven’t been right for since forever. And most people come here and what do they say? Oh, waves in Miami. Really? Um, and it’s true. And we really have a lot of people that are really dedicated and they’re really [00:04:00] hungry and they really love the sport and love everything that it, that involves with it from community and everything else.
[00:04:05] Chris: And it was impressive. We have like 300 people in the water. on the shore. Yeah, it was, yeah, it was pretty crazy. So, um, and you don’t have to be surfing all the time, you know, to, to feel that love and that energy and whatnot. I think that’s what people felt by being there, that energy that we all share, um, for the love of a person that we’re celebrating,
[00:04:26] Brad: but that speaks volumes for who he was to have that many people around.
[00:04:29] Brad: Absolutely. It was, it was a huge outpouring of love and respect for who that guy was. And I guess, yeah, They just came out,
[00:04:37] Chris: right? And it’s amazing to see these, just the, the collection of people that are getting together because of that horrible tragedy and where they want to see a better life and a better tomorrow come from.
[00:04:51] Chris: Um, and so I hope, you know, it’s such a sad thing that we’re having to memorialize and celebrate these kids lives [00:05:00] before this happened, but, um, it’s happening on Sunday, uh, Deerfield. Starts around 12 ish. Check out Highland Water Sports Instagram. You’ll be able to get some more information on that. And, uh, you know, as sad as it is Everyone will come together and
[00:05:13] Brad: it’ll be a big community event.
[00:05:15] Brad: And I’m sure a lot of people will understand surfing a little bit more. Will understand themselves a little bit more. And maybe will start to heal a little bit from what they’ve gone through. I mean, it’s a terrific tragedy.
[00:05:27] Chris: It’s crazy. Um, uh, apparently I didn’t change that.
[00:05:38] Chris: And we’re still, we’re back. Sorry about that little brief break. Caroline, I’ll call you. Moving on past that. Um, not much going on here for activities here at the shop, both at first as well as division. Um, kind of mellow, but it’s been busy. I think that’s That’s a [00:06:00] good thing. I think so. You, you are in retail, right?
[00:06:02] Chris: So you want it? Uh, no, it’s been pretty steady. We’ve had the boat show that was just here and, uh, from that we have the food and wine festival that’s in town. So, yeah,
[00:06:11] Brad: some good
[00:06:11] Chris: things going on there. Very busy with
[00:06:12] Brad: that. Um, we’re in the middle of the season here at Miami
[00:06:14] Chris: Beach, so. We’re coming right through that.
[00:06:17] Chris: Yeah, it’s exciting. Um, pass out. Thank you, surfing. Anything going on?
[00:06:21] Brad: Yeah, we, well, we prototyped these mugs. So these are kind of the cool. You guys can let us know what you think about these things. And, um, also we’re putting together a email newsletter, because as Terry mentioned to us earlier, not everybody is on social media.
[00:06:39] Brad: Some people prefer to get things via email.
[00:06:42] Chris: Terry, you’re not on social media? No Instagram for you? You’re not Snapchatting? He is now. He is now. You are
[00:06:47] Brad: currently on Instagram and on Facebook. Dinosaur, buddy. But, uh Part of me wants to get
[00:06:53] Chris: off.
[00:06:54] Brad: So we got that at the bottom of thankyousurfing. com. You can sign up for email newsletter.
[00:06:59] Brad: I think [00:07:00] we’re probably going to launch that maybe like the next month or so.
[00:07:03] Terry: But in the
[00:07:03] Brad: meantime, um, it’ll be a wave that I could, you know, get in contact with you guys. And we’ve had
[00:07:07] Chris: waves this
[00:07:08] Brad: past week.
[00:07:09] Chris: Woof.
[00:07:10] Brad: Little wind chop, depending on the tide,
[00:07:13] Chris: it’s kind of fun. Yeah, it’s been really fun. And a couple of man wars out there.
[00:07:18] Chris: It’s the time of year. That’s that time of year. Um, As of today, it looked like the wind was kind of laying down a little bit.
[00:07:25] Brad: Yes. This is like, uh, good news, bad news, or bad news, good news? I guess bad news first. Yeah. Um, so the bad news is that this run of trade swell that we’ve had is coming to an end for down here.
[00:07:39] Brad: Uh, the good news is that that indicates that the high pressure system that we had that was fueling all this is starting to move out to the east, southeast and dissipate. Which should allow for more storms to come south, uh, which will bring them into our swell window. So, looking like we could start to see cold fronts coming back through.
[00:07:58] Brad: The first one, [00:08:00] maybe the middle of next week, bringing in some So that wonderful
[00:08:03] Chris: winter weather that we thought we missed, we still have a chance.
[00:08:05] Brad: Got a small chance. Small chance at, um, more of a Drier. I’m looking at this more from a surf perspective. Um, so I’m saying that we’ve got more chance for waves and it’s going to be more winter light pattern.
[00:08:21] Brad: How far those cold fronts make it. I don’t really care. Frankly, if it’s 85 degrees and pumping more swell, uh, and then, you know, after, uh, in the middle of next week, where we should see the pattern start to shift and get some Northeast wind swell or something, uh, Maybe 10 to 14 days out, we’re looking at a bunch of loads potentially moving off the coast, uh, in the mid Atlantic, which is right in our window.
[00:08:49] Brad: So, um, it’s Crossing our
[00:08:51] Chris: fingers?
[00:08:52] Brad: Yeah, definitely crossing our fingers. It’s a good change. If you want to cheer for winter, this is your chance. [00:09:00] Last shot? Yeah, I mean, we’ve had, uh, good cold front swells here as late as like the middle of May. Um, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility to get them that late, but Typically, we’re kind of ending our season in March, coming up April.
[00:09:13] Brad: Right,
[00:09:14] Chris: right.
[00:09:14] Brad: Um, so. So, Terry. Back into winter for a little bit.
[00:09:18] Chris: Got to ask you a question, because it kind of like, I heard you say March, like, you know, yes. It’s something you’ve followed years over years and years. When did you start surfing? What year and where? How old were you? I
[00:09:31] Terry: was probably around 12.
[00:09:34] Terry: I’m going to say 1961. Okay. Somewhere. by a long time friend of mine that still surfs actively. And, uh, I didn’t even have a board. And, uh, I actually bought my first surfboard in Dudley Whitman’s front yard from his daughter, Renee, who I was infatuated with. She was 16 years old. Maybe we should give a little
[00:09:56] Brad: bit of background on the Whitmans.
[00:09:57] Brad: Just so people have some context. That
[00:09:59] Terry: was [00:10:00] my first, my first encounter with Dudley because Dudley actually came out to supervise the sail.
[00:10:06] Chris: And the Whitmans are
[00:10:08] Terry: Well, Dudley Whitman and his brother Bill brought surfing to Florida and to the East Coast. They were friends of Tom Blake and other legendary surfers.
[00:10:16] Terry: And, uh, they had gone to the islands from way back in the days of World War II. They were, actually, Dudley was a pilot. He was flying cargo planes back and forth during the war. It’s crazy. And, uh, that’s how they got introduced to Hawaii. And they actually met the Duke. There’s all kinds of stories that are attached to it.
[00:10:37] Terry: How they were accepted because it was Bill’s surfboards that he was building handcrafted wood, wood surfboards like this table, but they didn’t use nails. Bill was using dowels to put the boards together and they were hollow. So they were much lighter than the Hawaiian boards. And that was the intro to, to get them sort of bonded to the, to the Hawaiian guys surfing.
[00:10:58] Terry: And they [00:11:00] knew Tom Blake from California and they just brought surfing to the East Coast. and in particular Florida because they came, they came here and they actually lived in the early days. They were somewhere around the 30 thirties block. Mm-hmm . On one of the side roads. Uhhuh . And uh, my, as I said, my, my first encounter with Dudley was in that front yard buying Renee’s board.
[00:11:25] Terry: I would’ve bought anything from her that day ’cause she was really, really so cute.
[00:11:29] Chris: But, uh, I mean, does Renee know that? Did know that Renee knows that Renee and I are still friends, just in case you watch Drinking Outta A Frame. Renee and I are still friends.
[00:11:37] Terry: Uh, I’ve actually, I’ve actually run into her a couple of functions.
[00:11:41] Terry: One was the, uh, the huge surf archives that they did up in Boca a few years ago. Mm-hmm . Oh, cool. Her and her family were, were all there and Renee and I talked about the board and all of our, our old history and so forth and so on. So that was how I met Dudley and. Um, so that was your first board. That was my first [00:12:00] report was Rene, Rene Whitman’s board.
[00:12:02] Chris: Referring back to kind of where I started the conversation in regards to hearing Brad say about, you know, weather patterns coming to March and you saying yes, you know, is it crazy? Is it amazing to you? How? where technologies come to be able to forecast and understand that. And then how much of it is just like in your elbow?
[00:12:19] Chris: Like you just know you just over years and years and years. You’re just like, okay, we’re expecting. Well,
[00:12:24] Terry: I actually think in the old days it was easier to tell when there was actually going to be a true north swell, a ground swell, not so much a refraction. Why is that? Well, I just sort of went over this with Brad a little earlier that I have my own sort of theories of why there was more waves back then that were real waves.
[00:12:41] Terry: And one is that there’s more inlets that go out into the ocean and, and as the tide pulls out, all that water’s rushing through all these inlets mm-hmm . And as the swells keep coming south, they get degraded coming through the inlets. Along, along with, along with the islands. Right. That are out front, as we all know.
[00:12:58] Terry: And then the, the [00:13:00] dredging that they did in the early seventies, the beginning of the dredging where they pump all this, it wasn’t even sand, it was like limestone almost. , I mean, off the bottom of the ocean, 20 miles out. And they hit, they threw these huge pipes all the way to the beach, and they pumped all this stuff in that covered up all the natural reefs that were all right offshore here.
[00:13:20] Terry: And in my eyes, they, they ruined a lot of the, the breaks along with the reefs that right. We had all this tropical fish floating around, so forth and so on. But they also changed the bottom of the ocean where they were dredging. And so that factored into. How the waves came in compared to what they used to do.
[00:13:38] Terry: Yeah, it changed everything. So, spots like 21st Street that was the premier spot in Miami at that time, very similar to Reef Road, the way that it broke, um, is totally gone compared to what it used to be. I’ve heard stories that it’s back a little bit, but whatever I’ve looked at, it never looks like those days.
[00:13:57] Terry: Right. But, [00:14:00] in March, there was always still North Swell. And in the dead of winter, we used to get probably two real north swells a week. Right. That was sort of the pattern in, in the sixties.
[00:14:10] Brad: You guys hear that in the sixties? Two north swells a week. A week. That would make this like a real surf spot.
[00:14:16] Terry: Well, I mean, it was limited.
[00:14:17] Terry: It was only for a few months. You know, I,
[00:14:19] Brad: I’ll take it
[00:14:21] Terry: offering,
[00:14:22] Brad: because I
[00:14:22] Terry: don’t take it down, sign my
[00:14:24] Brad: name
[00:14:24] Terry: right
[00:14:25] Brad: here. There’s guys that I, there’s
[00:14:28] Terry: guys that I grew up with that would actually say that. That’s the truth. That’s the way it used to be. Richard Carmel would be one of them that would verify that.
[00:14:36] Terry: We’ve talked about that many times. That the north swells were more frequent and they were real ground swells. They weren’t the refractions. Right. I’ve heard this. And it’s a big difference in just the way the waves look when they would come in.
[00:14:50] Chris: What are your thoughts on the inlet theory in regards to sucking away some of the energy of a lot of the swell coming down?
[00:14:57] Brad: Oh yeah. I mean, it has to happen. Right. [00:15:00] It’s interesting. Right. So you, and you can’t be wrong about that idea. I have never even considered it. I never, I mean, those inlets as far as I’ve been around have always been there, so it wasn’t a consideration. Now, I will tell you that I use inlets, you know, to my advantage, and I’ll say that certain spots pull in more swell because you’re closer to the inlet, because there’s deeper water offshore because of dredging, um, and you know, also the fact of like getting out of the wind and stuff.
[00:15:27] Brad: Right. You can go to the north side or the south side, depending on. But as far as it, you know, weakening a groundswell as it heads south, especially on an outgoing tide like you were describing, I mean, if you look at my report every day, you can see depending on what the tide is doing, you know, the, uh, government cut and on the outgoing tide, there’s definitely a discoloration between the ocean water and what’s coming out of the cut.
[00:15:51] Brad: And that is enough flow for sure to change the way a wave is coming at the shore. And so you multiply that by how many inlets there are [00:16:00] moving north and, um, yeah, they’d be hard to ignore that factor. Yeah, I
[00:16:04] Terry: mean, what I’m talking about is real ground swells, not the trade, not the trade wind refraction swells like you would get now.
[00:16:10] Terry: Like where Hollowbird Jetty would actually, if the wind was out in the southeast and it’s pulling 15 or 20 or even more southerly, that that wave is actually going to be better. Correct. It works both ways. Right. But, but an actual true ground swell, totally different animal.
[00:16:24] Brad: Yeah, no, I totally agree with you.
[00:16:25] Brad: Um, I’ve never considered it. So that’s my theory.
[00:16:28] Chris: It’s a pretty good theory to make.
[00:16:30] Brad: Um, all right. Well, I’ve got a bunch of like little experiments that I need to test.
[00:16:37] Chris: Just, you just threw that brain into like, it’s like wormhole. I don’t even know how to finish this. It’s like, oh, it’s a lifelong story.
[00:16:44] Chris: I’ll let you know when I die.
[00:16:47] Terry: So where did
[00:16:47] Chris: you first started surfing then? Like what beach was it? I,
[00:16:50] Terry: uh, I started surfing with a longtime friend of mine, AJ Roberts. And, uh, we grew up in Surfside, and I started surfing right there at 96th Street. And as I was telling Brad [00:17:00] earlier, I didn’t even have a The first year I didn’t even have a board, so we were just dragging this 35 pound surfboard house, which he actually bought from the shop that was right over here, right across the street.
[00:17:12] Terry: Wow. We’re here in South Beach in Miami, Texas. Back in the day. Just so you guys know. And, uh, we used to carry it right there to 96th Street, and then we started surfing right there. And the guy that ran the pool deck for the Nichols apartment apartment building, which was right there on the corner of 94th and Collins.
[00:17:28] Terry: Took a shine to my mom and gave me a job as a, as a pool boy to throw out pads, which to me was the greatest thing in the world because I was right there on the beach. I had a place to keep Renee’s board when I finally bought it. And, you know, life was good. That’s where we, that’s where we started, sir.
[00:17:44] Chris: Were there a lot of surfers up in that area back then?
[00:17:47] Terry: There was a few. Actually, the guys that surfed there that we knew were, were the two kids that played in the, uh, TV series, Flipper.
[00:17:56] Brad: Really? Oh, I remember that show. Yeah,
[00:17:58] Terry: those two guys. Yeah, [00:18:00] that was filmed down there. That’s right. They were surfers and there, and there was, there was a couple of other kids that they were friendly with.
[00:18:05] Terry: They were all from Bell Harbor and they used to surf there. So there was like five or six of us surfing.
[00:18:10] Chris: I mean, at this point, Was there about Harbor shops yet? No, there was actually so the Whitman’s where were the Whitman’s at? And for those that may not know the Whitman’s had started to bow Harbor shops kind of old school Miami Beach family that and again brought surfing to the East Coast Well,
[00:18:24] Terry: I’ll give you just a little bit of history with the Whitman’s in the shopping mall Originally, there was a Sinclair gas station on the corner of 96 and Harding Avenue right where it blends in from Collins, you know where it begins and they Couldn’t get enough of financing from the banks back in those days to build the shops.
[00:18:45] Terry: Nobody believed, nobody believed in the philosophy that Stan Whitman came up with.
[00:18:49] Chris: Which was like a mall?
[00:18:50] Terry: Well, a high end mall. Yeah. Oh. To bring in, like, really, you know, call brand stores, like really big name stuff that, you know, now is like, like, cheesecake [00:19:00] down here. Right. It’s carbon. The originator of the
[00:19:01] Brad: mall, Morris Lapidus, built, uh, Fat Blue.
[00:19:05] Brad: Yes, he did. Or designed Fat Blue. Right, right. Morris Lapidus. And, uh, a lot of malls going on out of Miami.
[00:19:12] Terry: They, they put up their own money along with one other business partner, which I don’t know who that was. And the rest is sort of history. Okay. And,
[00:19:20] Chris: I mean, was there a demand for high end? I mean, was, I mean, I know that this is, I mean, so this is what, like the 40s, 50s at this point?
[00:19:26] Terry: No, the vault was finished in 1966.
[00:19:29] Chris: Okay. So, I mean, I’m guessing that, I mean, the Brat Pack was here. There’s a lot of, like, Miami Beach at that time seemed like it was very just. Was it a little bit more high end, as far as who was coming here and spending money?
[00:19:41] Terry: There was a different crowd, and actually that’s what got me here, was because my mother was a singer, and she got a club date to go play in the fountain group back in the heyday, when Sinatra and Sammy Davis and Jackie Gleason and all these other major stars were, you know, in and out of the doors there.
[00:19:58] Terry: And she was so [00:20:00] enamored with this whole sort of lifestyle, that when my parents split up, that was it. We moved, and that’s how we wound up on this. And so yeah, there was there was a different different kind of crowd that was a very wealthy high end It was very seasonal right after April. You could roll a bowling down bowling ball down Collins Avenue and not hit anything Wow
[00:20:20] Chris: until
[00:20:22] Terry: December no, it would last till March or so April Maybe, you know,
[00:20:27] Chris: no, but from April until when would it start to pick back up again?
[00:20:30] Chris: Oh, it was
[00:20:31] Terry: basically the season was from like November like after after Thanksgiving, you know, so let’s say mid April for the most part Right and people would a lot of people would check in for three or four months. They wouldn’t leave They wouldn’t come here for ten days or two weeks, right? They would literally stay at places like the Nichols apartments or the Seabrook Hotel Which was another small bungalow that Surfside that I was familiar with.
[00:20:55] Chris: Like Air B& B before Air B& B? [00:21:00] Yeah.
[00:21:00] Terry: I
[00:21:00] Chris: definitely had it figured out. It seems like a pretty good plan. Yeah, it was all short term leasing. So, uh, that
[00:21:05] Terry: was how I started surfing. And then, uh, My friend AJ and I, we used to go to Challenger Surf Shop every afternoon after school. Alright, so where
[00:21:15] Brad: is Challenger and what is that?
[00:21:17] Terry: Challenger Surf Shop was owned by Dudley Whitman. Okay. But he also had a marina there as well. But he was very good friends with Hobie Alton. He was personal friends with Hobie, and he carried all exclusively Hobie surfboards.
[00:21:29] Chris: Challenger was on 135th
[00:21:31] Terry: and Biscayne Boulevard, which Challenger
[00:21:34] Chris: Marina is technically still there but it’s now called, what is it, JMAC?
[00:21:39] Chris: What’s the one on the Marina on 133rd, Keystone. Keystone Marina. That
[00:21:43] Terry: could be it. Yeah,
[00:21:43] Chris: well it’s TNT. Keystone and TNT. And
[00:21:45] Terry: uh, so Jay and I used to go in there every day after school if we weren’t surfing or skipping school. And we would drool over the boards and put our fingerprints over everything. And Dudley used to walk in and out and he’d see us there every day.
[00:21:57] Terry: And at some point, [00:22:00] um, he just offered me the job to run the, run the, run the surf shop. Get out. So,
[00:22:07] Brad: I mean. So wait, did you hang out in a surf shop long enough? Did you just wind up running it? Well, I mean, it’s sort of, I mean. Or you just taught one. My introduction, my introduction
[00:22:14] Terry: to it was A, because I bought the board in his front yard from Rene.
[00:22:18] Terry: And, and, um. There was other guys that worked in the store, and we were just kids, so, you know, you know, we were just kids being kids, and we were so consumed with surfing, and so passionate about it, and, and, it was so close to where we were, that we used to just go in there every afternoon, and kind of hang for 20 minutes, and, you know, try to figure out a way to buy a board, you know, with no money, and, and,
[00:22:42] Chris: Were surf shops?
[00:22:43] Chris: Busy back then. I mean, well, I know it seemed like maybe the model was different. Like now you come in here and it’s mostly clothing and we got some surfboards. Well, the interesting
[00:22:51] Terry: thing is, is that it kind of went from when Dudley first opened the, opened the store. Uh, there was two guys in front of me that ran it ahead of me, so he [00:23:00] actually had guys in there that were running the surf shop.
[00:23:02] Terry: Probably my best guesstimate would be from the fifties. There was a guy by the name of John r John, what shop opened in the fifties. I’m gonna say in the fifties. And John Rank was a, wound up going to Vietnam as a helicopter pilot, and he’s still friendly with Dudley until the day Dud died. And another guy by the name of David Exley, who ran the shop previous to when I was there.
[00:23:24] Terry: And so, when I came in, surfing had just started to really explode. In other words, it was just coming up, but to answer your question directly, surf shops were very, very competitive. Bird Surf Shop originally was down the street from me in the old Wax Museum. The building is still there. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it.
[00:23:47] Terry: It sort of looks like a little castle. It looks like a little castle. Actually, they may have taken it down by now, come to think of it. But Bird sold it to the Mann Brothers, that location, Paul and Mike Mann. And then Mike Mann, [00:24:00] of course, moved to Sunny Isles. And eventually now he’s up in Melbourne with the Longboard House.
[00:24:05] Terry: Mike Mann, who owns a longboard.
[00:24:07] Brad: Really? That stuff, blowin my mind. Wait, so the longboard house originated out
[00:24:13] Chris: of buying Bird Surf Shop? Well,
[00:24:14] Terry: in other words, his brother, Paul, was the one that ran that particular store. And Mike was in Sunny Isles at the time. And then Bird moved to Sunny Isles. That was the first major move that he made.
[00:24:27] Terry: But, Paul Mann and I were bitter. I would say, putting it politely, competitors on how we sold surfboards. Scott Payne Island Water Sports. There wasn’t any of this, you know, sort of good vibe. I know, why are we so nice to each other? In fact, one story that I can give you. Mitch from Fritz’s, I’m
[00:24:49] Chris: coming after you!
[00:24:50] Chris: Rollerblades, you know. One story I can
[00:24:52] Terry: give you is, uh, when I brought back the first twin fins from California from Hobie Surfboards. Paul Mann had [00:25:00] actually paid for me to go to California to get rid of me.
[00:25:04] Chris: No
[00:25:04] Terry: way. I swear, he paid my airfare to go to California under the condition that I wasn’t coming back.
[00:25:09] Chris: Right, because what are you, he’s probably baiting you with like a golden caveat, like you’re going to be in California. You should like this. But my
[00:25:13] Terry: intention was I was going to stay with Hobie Surfboards out there. And, and Jim Galoon, who ran the factory, had already given me a job in the factory. Which is, there’s a bunch of stories attached to that.
[00:25:24] Terry: But, um, I couldn’t take the cold. So by, by November I, I came back, I came back to Miami and I brought the first twin fin that Terry Martin shaped for me. And it was a big north swell that hit 21st Street and I had the twin fin and I sold 20 boards the first week I was back. And Paul was mildly upset to say the, to say the least.
[00:25:46] Terry: Was, was
[00:25:47] Chris: there a good margin on sandboards back then or was it still, yeah? It was the same, it was the same. Still shitty. Yeah,
[00:25:51] Terry: it was ugly. So, yeah. Incredible. So that was. Paul Mann. And now when I see Mike, you know, when I go to Longboard House, I go in to visit him every once in [00:26:00] a while. We kind of rehash some of the, the older, uh,
[00:26:02] Chris: Oh, great.
[00:26:03] Chris: I didn’t know that. I went to Longboard House. That’s kind of cool. I mean, those guys are staples.
[00:26:07] Terry: No, but his, his store up there is, is, I mean, it’s, it’s a magnet for surfing in it. It’s top notch. One of the favorite stores I’ve ever been in. Yeah. And Mike’s there almost every day. He shows up, you know, and whenever I’m down in Melbourne, I’ll, I’ll stick my head in or call him.
[00:26:25] Brad: it’s hard to go past that spot and not walk. Yeah, exactly. So I mean the amount of boards, the amount of equipment, it just, it’s like a whole nother level for the East coast.
[00:26:35] Chris: Was there such a, I know when I got into surfing and the, I guess late eighties or so, mid to late eighties, um, I, there’s such a big divide between South beach and hall over Harbor house.
[00:26:47] Chris: You know, and they used to call each other out. Was it like that back then? Or was it a little bit more camaraderie? Or was it that everyone just
[00:26:55] Terry: hated people that were coops? There was never, there was never really what I would call [00:27:00] camaraderie. Right. There was always heavy localism either down here or up there.
[00:27:04] Terry: And I could give you numerous examples of the localism that existed. Oh, I imagine. And, uh, when I started surfing, as I told you earlier, My friend Jay and I, we, we, we weren’t even old enough to drive, so we used to take the bus to come down here and watch the guys that were surfing, which was a small, hardcore clique of maybe 15 guys.
[00:27:25] Terry: And there was a kid by the name of Larry Salem. This was early 60s? This was probably 61 and 62. And, uh, Larry Salem was this really skinny, scrawny little kid that was probably the best small wave longboarder that I’ve ever seen to this day. He was probably on a, on a caliber of somebody like, Joel Tudor, in small ways, had tremendous style, tremendous talent, and he was just not a really nice, humble guy in the water.
[00:27:52] Terry: And he sort of had a VIP section rope around him when he surfed, because nobody would mess with him. He had this sort of [00:28:00] hardcore posse that kind of hung out with him, the bigger guys. And so nobody really messed with him, and if you happened to venture into his area You kind of knew it either really quickly from one of his guys or, or he would just shoot his board at you.
[00:28:16] Chris: Yeah, the spear
[00:28:17] Terry: chucking. The spear chucking.
[00:28:18] Chris: We don’t really see that these days. Like, there’s too much lawsuits out
[00:28:22] Terry: there. But it went on at Hollover when we discovered Hollover. I wasn’t the first guy that discovered it. There was five guys that were serving Hollover, meaning the jetty, right, before I got there.
[00:28:32] Terry: And they actually pulled me into it and those guys would literally, Once it started getting discovered, there was 20 guys, maybe, maybe 30 guys in the water. And in those days, there weren’t removable fins, and there was a couple guys that would literally, if you happened to be doing something that they didn’t like in the water, they would literally break your fin, right there on the spot, in the water, in the shore break, or throw your board into the rocks, which was Directly below the [00:29:00] wall because the water came all the way up to the wall.
[00:29:03] Terry: For those that
[00:29:04] Chris: don’t know, what Hoover used to look like back in the day was way different than now. There was hardly any beach, if at all. The only time there was maybe a beach was at like low tide for the most part. Correct.
[00:29:12] Brad: And otherwise,
[00:29:13] Chris: the jetty that is now pretty much all filled in with sand, there was a lot more of a, A longer length to it.
[00:29:18] Chris: Yes. So there’s a lot more peak. I mean, ’cause now you put 10 people on that peak, it’s crowded, it’s crazy. Right? ’cause it was just that. Right. That comes through and that next left that kind of bubbles up and goes into the jet, into the, um. Into the jetty. Um, but now it’s, I mean, back then there was a couple different peaks.
[00:29:33] Chris: Plus there was the pier.
[00:29:35] Terry: Yeah, the pier. The pier helped the break as well. Meaning Hoover’s jetty. Mm-hmm . It interacted with, with, with the way the , how far was the pier from
[00:29:43] Brad: there?
[00:29:43] Terry: Um, 200 yards. 200 yards maybe? Yeah. Couple hundred yards. Oh, get out. I didn’t realize it was appeared up there and then that got torn down in one of the major hurricanes.
[00:29:51] Terry: But as far as the localism that we were discussing, there was heavy localism there. There was heavy localism down here. And you were gonna get it
[00:29:59] Chris: wherever you went,
[00:29:59] Terry: [00:30:00] wherever you went, . And then, you know, 21st Street was always a, was a, was a great battleground. And, and the story that I’m gonna share with you tonight is of the Mike Rieman story.
[00:30:09] Terry: Oh. And, uh, Mike Rieman was kind of a, an oddball character surfing guy that didn’t really fit in with anybody. Uh um, um, I dunno if he does meds or not, but. He doesn’t fit in with a bunch of misfits. And he used to wear these, uh, like spandex Richard Simmons kind of suits in the water. Like bright colors, that was his outfit.
[00:30:32] Terry: And he was always very boisterous and loud and, you know, kind of an angry surfer in the water, no matter who was in the water. And he wasn’t, he wasn’t a guy that really commanded the respect that he was looking for.
[00:30:44] Chris: Was his skill net level not there to command that? No, no, no.
[00:30:48] Terry: You what the point That’s So what,
[00:30:50] Brad: what timeframe was this?
[00:30:51] Brad: Are we talking
[00:30:51] Terry: Uh, this is probably, I’m gonna guess say this is 68 or 69 Uhhuh. And, uh, there, there was some kids that used to serve Sunny Isles that they [00:31:00] were known as the Giles Brothers and the smallest of them, Gary used to kind of get beat up by his two older brothers. So he was a tough little kid and he used to serve 21st Street.
[00:31:09] Terry: So one day we’re out in the water and Gary Giles and Mike Reifman get into it, Reifman is probably built like Chris, you know, he’s a bigger guy, and Reifman of course singles out the smallest guy in the water, which happened to be Gary Giles, and uh, starts giving him a lot of lip in the water, trash talking, this and that and blah blah, and one thing leads to another, and Reifman says let’s take it up on the beach, and off they go, and Gary Giles walks up and finds a piece of essentially what was driftwood, and , you know, essentially like the size of about a two by two board and does a pirouette standing on the beach and swings the, the, the board around his body and smacks, Reifman.
[00:31:49] Terry: Right, right in the, in his face.
[00:31:50] Chris: Right in the kisser.
[00:31:51] Terry: Right in
[00:31:51] Terry: his right on his teeth. This was the only punch that was thrown in the, in the whole event
[00:31:55] Chris: Oh.
[00:31:56] Chris: How did that
[00:31:56] Chris: not knock him out?
[00:31:57] Terry: It did, it knocked his two . Well, it knocked [00:32:00] his two teeth
[00:32:00] Brad: out.
[00:32:00] Brad: Hadn’t gotten there yet.
[00:32:01] Terry: Right. Knocked. Knocked it knocked out. Reifman Two, two front teeth, which to this day, to this day,
[00:32:07] Chris: They haven’t
[00:32:07] Terry: grown back
[00:32:08] Chris: They haven’t
[00:32:08] Terry: grown back, nor, nor did he bother to go out and get caps
[00:32:12] Brad: Oh, no way!
[00:32:14] Terry: So, I’ve actually heard that Mike Reifman is, uh,
[00:32:17] Chris: A good
[00:32:17] Chris: whistler? No.
[00:32:20] Terry: Well, he’s actually a security guard. Or he was at an apartment complex, a townhouse complex, I think where Randy Rose is.
[00:32:28] Terry: Because I was actually talking to Randy about it not too long ago. That, uh, Reifman bought. Was up, was up there now, whether or not he’s still employed there, I don’t know. What about Larry
[00:32:37] Chris: Salem? Where is that guy? Larry Salem. and I’m just like, well, let me get him here.
[00:32:41] Terry: Larry Salem, um, I’ve actually spoken to Roger Morris about that and Roger remembers him very well also.
[00:32:48] Terry: To Larry Salem was, was a, the total eccentric guy. He was like the Mickey Dora of Miami Beach. He was not a friendly guy. He was a loner other than his little clique. [00:33:00] And, uh, he just really had a poor attitude. He didn’t like to surf contest. In fact, he never surfed contest. And, to answer your question, where he is today, I’ve heard rumors that he’s actually, uh, still working at one of the hotels, throwing out beach pads on the pool deck, doesn’t drive a car, and is just basically Going on a
[00:33:21] Chris: limb, probably no Instagram or Facebook.
[00:33:23] Terry: I doubt it. I would doubt it. I would doubt it. He’s listening to this. If you’re Larry Larry, you’re always the greatest longboard small wave rider I ever saw that was down here. Period.
[00:33:36] Chris: And apparently a really good spear trucker too. I get it,
[00:33:41] Brad: I get it.
[00:33:42] Terry: Come back to the lineup. Love to see some of that longboarding.
[00:33:46] Terry: That Larry Salem that I know. But he’s disappeared. I’ve heard rumor that he’s still here. Roger seems to think that he’s in one of the hotels somewhere.
[00:33:54] Chris: This is why I love Terry. I’ve been listening to some, a lot of these stories since, uh, I don’t know, when I [00:34:00] worked at Isle of Water sports some like 10, 12, 13 years ago.
[00:34:04] Chris: And I’ve just always been such a big fan of surf shops and surf stories all together. So like, you hear some of these stories and you’re just like naturally like, yeah. I don’t know if everybody’s like that. Well, maybe I am. I’m like this. Yeah. I feel you. But it’s so interesting because you get to hear so much of the history of just your local area and
[00:34:24] Brad: overall things that you don’t get to hear.
[00:34:25] Brad: I think something that you and I have touched on a lot is that, for whatever reason, we kind of got this notion that Miami doesn’t really have any surf culture. But maybe it’s just that it hasn’t been handed down so well. I mean, that could be part of it. Uh, I mean, we do have a reputation for being like super transient.
[00:34:41] Brad: It’s like, I’m not from here. I don’t know if I’ll die here. You know, so like, that means
[00:34:45] Terry: something. The irony of the surf culture is that the Whitmans created it. But they, but they were never voiced. They, they were in their own element doing their own surfing. And they didn’t really participate [00:35:00] in, in my understanding.
[00:35:01] Terry: Say, on
[00:35:01] Chris: a level of humility, or would you say it’s that they just didn’t want anybody else doing it? No, no, they, they,
[00:35:06] Terry: you know, uh, Bill and Dudley were, were, they were true innovators. You know, they, they created the first underwater camera. They actually took it out in the water at Waikiki. Do you remember seeing the film that we had at one of the surf archives?
[00:35:21] Terry: I
[00:35:23] Chris: took a tour of their, their museum that they have here in Miami,
[00:35:27] Terry: but, but they created this underwater camera, put it on a, on a barge out in the number threes or canoes on Waikiki. And they shot like the first water shots of all the Hawaiian surfing in the forties. I mean, who thinks of that stuff in the forties and in the fifties, Dudley, you know, from his flying days.
[00:35:45] Terry: And he had a, had his own plane was flying over to Eleuthera anytime he could. The winds and wave scenario was correct.
[00:35:53] Chris: Imagine what wave passing was like that. Then to go ahead and be a,
[00:35:57] Terry: but
[00:35:57] Brad: not only go, go to The Bahamas, nobody was flying. Go to [00:36:00] The Bahamas is a good idea pretty much all, all the time.
[00:36:02] Brad: That’s an easy one. , nobody was
[00:36:04] Terry: flying anywhere in those days. Islands to go on a surf trip. Dudley had it wired. He had boards over there because I’m sure it was pretty raw about then.
[00:36:13] Chris: It was pretty rare. I was gonna
[00:36:15] Terry: tell you how raw it was here, the, the first time he took me over there, I was probably.
[00:36:21] Terry: Probably 18. And it was myself, David Exley, and John Rank, and Dudley flying the plane. And Dudley, you know, obviously from his war days, was a rather exuberant pilot. And when we got over there, he decided he wanted to go down and take a look at the surf break. So here we are at probably About 10
[00:36:38] Chris: feet over the water.
[00:36:39] Terry: So here we are at probably, you know, 000 feet as we’re coming in. And he decides to do a full bank with the plane and do this big dive down on the Surfer’s beach and he goes into this full dive and I’m sitting in the back of the plane and I’d never really Experienced a small plane before so I’m sitting in the back and I’ve sort of got my hand over my mouth Sure, [00:37:00] because
[00:37:00] Chris: I
[00:37:01] Terry: don’t want to throw up in his plane because I know it’s the last time I’m gonna be getting in the plane So he comes down and he does his he does this little sort of scoot along the water and then climbs right back up And, and he and he knew exactly what he was doing to all of us, right?
[00:37:17] Terry: He’s
[00:37:17] Chris: rousing you guys. Right?
[00:37:18] Terry: So he’s the airport. The airport. Back then there, there was no airport. It was a runway with a tower, but there was nobody in the tower and the, and the person that came out to greet you when you got off your plane and there was, you know, there was, there was no real airplane.
[00:37:35] Terry: We had a small plane and that was it. The guy that came out was a little, little Bahamian kid with a shoe shine box and wanted to know. That, that’s who greeted me. That’s who
[00:37:45] Chris: your traffic controller is. Am I clear to go? Sure, I can bring shoes?
[00:37:49] Terry: So, uh, he had a house back then. And he used to, and, and
[00:37:55] Brad: Have I seen you at the Aren’t you the same guy from the
[00:37:58] Terry: And, and so, they used to [00:38:00] keep boards at the beach.
[00:38:00] Terry: They had a, like, a stand up thing there. Nobody bothered with boards.
[00:38:04] Chris: Yeah, I was just dealing with it. What is this? And,
[00:38:07] Terry: uh, so, the first day And actually that day we did bring a couple boards from the house. So as I’m taking the boards off the car, Dudley says, well, what are you doing? And I said, well, I’m getting the boards.
[00:38:18] Terry: He goes, no. And he reaches into the station wagon and he grabs his big old machete and he says, here, he says, you need to go cut some grass to get. This to, to the beach because the, the sawgrass was so high. There was no pack to get to the beach.
[00:38:30] Chris: Groms paying
[00:38:31] Brad: dues. There you go. It’s like that doesn’t happen anymore.
[00:38:34] Brad: Like I know you think you’re doing something here, but I’ll take care of the boards. You need to take care of hacking through the junk board here. There you go. So I
[00:38:38] Terry: was the gopher. You take
[00:38:39] Brad: all mosquito bikes. I
[00:38:40] Terry: was the gopher and uh, you know, I was pretty exhausted by the time I got us through the beach.
[00:38:46] Terry: But it was all, it was a great experience.
[00:38:48] Chris: That is why he’s like one less person in the line up.
[00:38:52] Terry: He’s like, of
[00:38:53] Brad: course I bring guys with me. How else am I going to get to the
[00:38:55] Terry: beach? And ironically, in those days, you know, there was really [00:39:00] nothing there. And Paradise, uh, excuse me, Surfer’s Beach, it’s a left hand point reef.
[00:39:06] Terry: And down from the beach, like, 200 yards, it would be like us looking at it from like, all over Jetty, down to all of it. prepared to give you the depth. And there was all these sharks that were like just spinning, spinning around in the water. So I’m in the water and I said to Dudley, I said, Doug, what’s that all about?
[00:39:26] Terry: And he goes, oh, well there’s a chicken factory down there and they pipe out all the mulch right there and all the sharks just hang out there and feed. So, that was always a little intimidating. But then, but then I thought about it. Well, if they’re down there and they’re really eating well, why would they bother to come up here?
[00:39:41] Brad: Yeah,
[00:39:41] Chris: there’s a little truth to
[00:39:42] Brad: that. Well, have you ever looked down the beach and saw another peak and you’re like, you know, It does look kind of good down there. Maybe we should go check it. Well,
[00:39:49] Terry: I don’t know if the chicken factory is still there, but that was just another witness story. But they were, those two guys were so far ahead of their time in so many different ways that [00:40:00] they were just incredible innovators.
[00:40:03] Chris: Yeah, I, I got to meet them later, way later in their life and got to understand that and go through their museum. It was so impressive. I’ve never got a chance to do that. It’s so cool. They’ve got just so many great things and you feel like you’re just walking back in time. And it’s just so enjoyable to be able to still capture, know it, and then hopefully be able to pass it on to others of where our culture has come from, locally.
[00:40:27] Brad: I met them at Expo. Remember I told you I’d been like 15 years since I was at Surf Expo? At Surf Expo, there was like this, the film I think you’re talking about was playing on like this little TV and I was like, This is weird. How is this possible that someone has this footage? And it’s like, how do you know?
[00:40:44] Brad: What? What? And he was there.
[00:40:46] Terry: The story behind that film is that they filmed it back in the 40s. And they canned it. They never did anything with it. And somewhere, when Robert Kahn, who’s still involved with the family, [00:41:00] Um, They, they reproduced it. They pulled it out of the cans, and the film was still good.
[00:41:05] Terry: That was the most amazing thing. It was 8mm film. And it was all still good, and they, they got it, I guess, digitally reproduced, or however that kind of stuff is done. And they put it all on one big thing and edited it. And it’s really a picturesque view of what Hawaii was really like in the 40s. It’s not really a surfing movie, per se.
[00:41:27] Terry: But it’s a cultural, it’s a right, but about Hawaii, the way Hawaii was. But the thing that always struck me is what I said earlier about the, the water camera. And these guys had a water camera out, out on a barge. You think to do that, who would do it? Yeah, exactly. That’s so bizarre. And uh, you know, my attitude towards Dudley was, you know, I would’ve been back away if you didn’t gimme the job.
[00:41:50] Terry: I’d still be, I’ll be in Publix today, . ’cause I got through college. That’s a super cool story. So,
[00:41:57] Chris: ah, that’s unreal. So that
[00:41:59] Terry: was my, [00:42:00] my beginning surfing. I
[00:42:02] Chris: I’m so glad that you still stopped by the shop and still, you know, oh, it’s always a s stories. It’s all pleasure to come. It’s so good to see
[00:42:08] Brad: you guys.
[00:42:08] Brad: It’s pretty incredible to know that really that’s surfing on the East Coast story more or less here. I don’t know if there’s any, I mean, I think Tom Blake served in Atlantic City, um, pretty early on.
[00:42:20] Terry: Um, so there’s a picture, it’s probably in the museum. Bill and Dudley were youngsters like you, like you Brad, where they were surfing a, like a contest up in Daytona Beach, probably.
[00:42:34] Terry: That the one where they’re standing on all the different test boards? Yes, yes. Well actually there was a,
[00:42:38] Chris: we were all, well you and I, were in an Ocean Drive magazine and it was spread probably about, Oh, I saw that, okay. Six years ago maybe, six or seven years ago, where, uh, Dudley was a part of it. Um, I think that was actually a couple months before he passed.
[00:42:51] Chris: Um, and I know in those articles, there was that one picture that’s, uh, whatever,
[00:42:59] Terry: [00:43:00] whatever year that was. I still have that magazine
[00:43:01] Brad: somewhere. It’s online. Oh, it is online. You’re right.
[00:43:06] Terry: It is. That’s right.
[00:43:07] Brad: I’ll link to it in the blog. It’s on the line. So that’s how surfing
[00:43:12] Terry: was back in the day.
[00:43:15] Brad: So tell me, um, I was kind of interested to know about how crowds change.
[00:43:21] Brad: Everyone complains about how crowded it is now, but I I’ve seen pictures in the mid sixties, um, right out here, like what I guess would be first street and it’s more crowded then than it is now.
[00:43:32] Terry: There was, um, you know, when I started surfing, it was right before the real rush of beach boy music because everybody wanted to be a surfer or look like a surfer.
[00:43:46] Terry: You know, everybody was going and buying. Hey, look, I’m selling dreams,
[00:43:50] Chris: too! Look! You know? Serve me here! Be a server! Serving is cool. Serving is cool, apparently.
[00:43:55] Terry: But, all of a sudden, in the mid 60s, yeah, there was a lot [00:44:00] of people out there, and most of them didn’t know what they were doing, and there was no leashes, and the boards all weighed 25 pounds or more, so Those
[00:44:09] Brad: are factors that I hadn’t considered as much.
[00:44:10] Brad: So, until the
[00:44:12] Terry: leashes came along in the shortboard revolution in the late 60s, you know, it was a little wild out there. But more so here than, than at home. Sure. Really. More so here. Interesting. It’s pretty
[00:44:23] Brad: gritty down here, wouldn’t you say? It was
[00:44:24] Terry: very gritty.
[00:44:25] Brad: That was actually the other thing I was going to say.
[00:44:26] Brad: Like, so, through the generations, uh, or the decades, I should say. Right. 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, you know, 2000s. That were the second decade there. Right. Like, the changes that have happened in, let’s just say, south of 5th or Miami Beach. I mean, it’s, I mean, it used to be
[00:44:44] Chris: pretty, it used to be pretty gnarly down here south of 5th.
[00:44:46] Chris: I, I
[00:44:47] Brad: can remember. Before that, it was all the rat pack era, so it was like the goods and the glam, and then all of a sudden, civil rights, Vietnam. A lot
[00:44:54] Terry: of the elderly Jewish people that all sat out in front of the hotels back in the late 60s and [00:45:00] early 70s, as they passed away or decided to move out of this environment, there was this flat period, interest rates went to 18%, so forth and so on.
[00:45:10] Terry: So there wasn’t a lot of buying, all this property down here was very depressed, and only the guys that were smart and had real money.
[00:45:20] Terry: Uh huh. Of course, the beginning was the, uh, Nicky, Nicky Beach, down here, and then Penrod’s. Penrod’s. That’s it. Right. Penrod’s. And, you know, in the late 70s, early 80s is when it started to move back. But there was a time period where you could literally walk down Lincoln Road, and, not all, but a number of the storefronts were completely empty.
[00:45:43] Terry: foot traffic. I remember that
[00:45:45] Chris: even in the early nineties, late eighties as a kid, it being very much like that. It was either homeless people, derelicts or just very like small, like touristy kind of shops. A lot of ebbs
[00:45:57] Terry: and
[00:45:57] Chris: flows. Yeah.
[00:45:58] Terry: But today, you know, and [00:46:00] this is back sort of unrelated, but, uh, a close friend of mine that was a world class photographer, he opened a gallery on Lincoln road and he calls me, he was a client of mine in tennis and he calls me one day.
[00:46:11] Terry: I finally got a storefront on Lincoln Road in the 90s. It’s telling me the details. And literally, this is in the 80s, it was 40, 000 up front, non refundable, to get the store an 8 grand a month rent.
[00:46:27] Chris: Back then?
[00:46:27] Terry: Back then.
[00:46:28] Chris: What?
[00:46:29] Terry: Back then.
[00:46:30] Chris: How?
[00:46:32] Terry: Now, needless to say, he didn’t stay there. I mean, he checked out, I think he ran his contract out, and that was the end of it.
[00:46:39] Terry: But, uh, I mean, he had a lot of money. Because he had big accounts. How?
[00:46:45] Brad: So how did surfing change during all these times? Um, I mean, after the 60s boom, I imagine it kind of subsided at, you know, Well, I think it settled down.
[00:46:55] Terry: It settled down in a respect, I mean, It was almost like, Surfing [00:47:00] was almost, when it started, It was like the Beatles coming to America.
[00:47:04] Brad: That’s exactly what I picture. It’s like a frenzy, where there would be like, That’s maybe where the competition with the shops came in.
[00:47:10] Terry: I mean, Well, as I said, our shop, my competitor, closest one was Paul Manning. We just, you know, we couldn’t put on boxing gloves. I was just gonna
[00:47:20] Chris: say. I’ll drink it out.
[00:47:22] Terry: I mean, he was always trash talking Obie’s surfboards and me.
[00:47:25] Terry: You know what I mean? No way. I had
[00:47:27] Chris: thought about doing that with Scott, from my end. I thought, like, I tell Scott all the time, I’m like, We can’t be friends all the time, bro. Let’s start a fight. Let’s start something. Well, but you guys have a lot more distance. You have a lot more distance. He won’t do it.
[00:47:40] Chris: I’m coming after you. Got this biggy Tupac thing happening. Tupac! So, uh. You are getting kind of biggy. Haha, did I just say that out loud? Yeah, I think
[00:47:48] Terry: surfing settled down, I think surfing settled down after the boom years and of course, you know, as we were talking earlier about the drug culture that came along in the hippie peace movement and all that, and [00:48:00] that sort of merged with surfing.
[00:48:01] Terry: A lot of guys never made it out of that alive, good surfers, and then in the 70s and 80s it sort of, you know. You know, it changed into real surfing, I guess, the guys that really, with the evolution of the boards,
[00:48:15] Brad: with the evolution of the
[00:48:16] Terry: boards. Um, I don’t think he had the same cast of characters that we probably had way back in the, in the early days.
[00:48:25] Terry: I mean, there was some,
[00:48:26] Chris: would you say there was still kind of influential surfing still happening at that point, uh, in regards to people like your Larry Salem’s and stuff? Yeah, there was guys.
[00:48:34] Terry: Well, I mean, the guy that, that I remember the most was a guy, um, his name was Roger Kincaid. He was surfing in my generation, but he was a very, very talented guy.
[00:48:45] Terry: And he wound up, uh, um, he wound up hanging out with Gary proper and he lives over in Maui. And I don’t know if he still serves to this day, but I mean, there was a lot of talent that came out of Miami in [00:49:00] those days of really good talent. And there is today. I mean, it’s, it’s just different. There was only a few characters.
[00:49:07] Terry: Back then where today, you know, I think surfing is just more, there’s more cohesiveness. Mm-hmm . To the crowd. In other words, I see the guys that come in here and, and there’s a lot of bonding. Right. A lot of bonding, you know, with the local guys, Uhhuh, you know, the tourists that come in and out. It’s, you know, sure.
[00:49:24] Terry: It. It’s, you know, nobody knows, but it’s right. It is. I mean, I feel
[00:49:27] Chris: like a lot of that is that like,
[00:49:29] Terry: so, so I think it’s changed. There’s not the, the, the spearing of guys, you know, trying to take a guy’s legs out every day. Lawsuits
[00:49:36] Chris: would clear that up.
[00:49:39] Terry: Something’s changed. Go ahead and stop using my lines because that’s my favorite line.
[00:49:42] Terry: You may kick, you may kick my ass, but you’re not going to kick my attorney’s ass, who we all know. So, yeah, it’s changed. Um, and I think in some ways. For the better, um, I, I kind of like the old days, the way the [00:50:00] pier was here and it, you know, had a lot of, uh, grit to it.
[00:50:05] Chris: I think there still has to be a pecking order.
[00:50:07] Chris: Like there is that kind of combination, you know, being a surf shop owner, knowing so many people, you kind of, you know, you keep it kind of mellow and peace. I’m typically like that as well. But, you know, you know that I’m not going to be a hothead. I’m not going to go, you know, at this point.
[00:50:20] Terry: Um,
[00:50:23] Chris: but I could still respect and understand having that pecking order.
[00:50:26] Chris: So I’m, you know, having the loud mouth out there, the barker out there, you know, this and that, because those that are just kind of coming into it may have not grown up with it or understood it, but I think it’s still such an important part of the culture of what we do. But I think also for those that aren’t the barkers and the regulators, there’s that, you know, responsibility of education, kind of helping people in less than a week
[00:50:46] Brad: last week.
[00:50:47] Brad: So good with the trial and error, just like. Oh, I’m not supposed to do that? I didn’t know it was supposed to do that. I just almost got beat up because of it. I guess I shouldn’t do that again.
[00:50:55] Terry: In the 80s, there was quite a crew. We had the Crute Brothers. [00:51:00] And we had Mike Kaplan, who was the enforcer.
[00:51:04] Chris: He was.
[00:51:05] Terry: And literally told people, if you didn’t like your surfing style, or you were sort of in an area that was not a designated area for you. You were told to go down the beach.
[00:51:16] Brad: Yeah.
[00:51:16] Terry: I mean, that makes total
[00:51:17] Brad: sense
[00:51:18] Terry: to me that that’s a helpful suggestion. And back in those days when Kathy was Cap, you know, you went down the beach.
[00:51:24] Terry: Sure. So
[00:51:25] Chris: capital
[00:51:25] Terry: still
[00:51:26] Chris: put
[00:51:26] Terry: you in a pretzel. Serious. Um, so you had guys like that and, uh, there was a few other tough guys that, that hung out at all over through the years. I managed to just kind of. Stay below the radar, mind my own business.
[00:51:39] Chris: I was
[00:51:40] Chris: a wall, and still am a, well, I’m not as much a wallflower.
[00:51:43] Chris: But I, it was the same thing, where I’m just like, don’t want to bother anyone.
[00:51:46] Brad: You’re a wallflower in full bloom.
[00:51:48] Chris: Yay
[00:51:50] Terry: So, but it, you know, it’s all good. I mean, you look back on it, and, and, you know, I kind of miss the camaraderie that was, that was out there. Which I’m sure [00:52:00] today’s kids have it here. You know, you guys must have it.
[00:52:02] Terry: We do. It’s just a different generation. You’re right.
[00:52:04] Chris: And I get excited when I get to kind of hang out and it might be only like thigh to waist high and small chop, but like you see a bunch of your friends and you’re all having a good time and you’re like, you know, that’s why you started doing it, it’s supposed to be fun.
[00:52:16] Chris: That’s what
[00:52:16] Brad: it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to be
[00:52:17] Terry: fun. So,
[00:52:18] Chris: you know, so being able to kind of share and high five and just, you know,
[00:52:21] Terry: yeah. So it’s, you know, evolution, I think the board thing has changed, you know, changed the game. A little bit. Yeah.
[00:52:27] Chris: Thank you, Kelly Slater, and so many other shapers out there.
[00:52:31] Chris: That whole momentum crew. Yeah, they really changed things
[00:52:33] Terry: up. So, yeah, surfing, you know, I’m just happy to still be alive and play in the water once in a while, so.
[00:52:41] Brad: Terry, it’s been a pleasure talking to you about this stuff. I mean, these stories are priceless, and I feel like we could really just go on here probably until tomorrow.
[00:52:50] Brad: Oh, I bore you. I’m not bored, not even close. This is the kind of stuff that I do. I’ll tell
[00:52:56] Terry: them the Bill Cepelo story afterwards. Yeah, there we go. After
[00:52:59] Brad: [00:53:00] hours. I’ll put some notes on that one on the vlog later. Okay.
[00:53:06] Terry: It’s a good story, but it’s not really related to Miami surfing. It was just a surfing experience that we took a field trip to El Salvador right after the war.
[00:53:17] Terry: Wow.
[00:53:18] Chris: And you can imagine, if most people are scared of El Salvador nowadays, I can only imagine what they were scared of back then.
[00:53:23] Brad: Yeah, that might actually come out on the blog somehow in another form. I mean, this guy’s a wealth of information. It’s been awesome talking to a legend. Thank you guys. How are you?
[00:53:36] Brad: I think we’re
[00:53:37] Chris: done. I think we’re done.
[00:53:38] Brad: We’re done. Um, I’m Brad from thank you surfing night. Everybody got Terry here. I’m Christian from
[00:53:43] Chris: first surf shop division. When would things are happening?
[00:53:48] Brad: Episode seven in the books. Thanks so much for joining. Um, So much fun. Yeah, let’s do it again. Thank you guys.
[00:53:56] Brad: Next week.
[00:53:57] Chris: Wait, hold on. We have someone else coming up next week? [00:54:00] Uh, I don’t think we do. Do we know? No? Okay. We’ll see. Oh, subscribe to this stuff
[00:54:03] Terry: maybe? Before I forget, you guys could try to get Mark Perry down here. He’s up in Fort Pierce. Yeah, but he was one of the original sort of crew that was in the late 60s that was pretty dominant out here.
[00:54:18] Terry: Okay. And he, he actually, he gotta go up, do a road trip. Well, you know, who knows him is Roger Morris. Okay. He gets, he sees him and uh, he worked for the Coast Guard, you know, he was out on, I guess drug patrols every other day. Right. So he, iss
[00:54:30] Chris: probably got some great stories. I’m sure he does and
[00:54:32] Terry: he’s a fine surfer.
[00:54:33] Terry: Interesting.
[00:54:34] Brad: I’ll have to look. We got a referral. Alright, Terry, thanks so much. Thank you. Thanks for coming. Thank you guys. Brad, big .
[00:54:43] Chris: Alright guys. Thank you guys. Have a good one. Okay.
[00:54:48] Okay.