Tales from the Canyon ~ Part 1
US Marines at Trestles, 1967 ~ Photo: Leo Hetzel
“Tales from the Canyon” is a short memoir Bruce began writing around 2008 recalling his experiences as a young man in Southern California and his introduction to surfing.
by Bruce Jones
I am one of four brothers (no sisters) brought up in the ‘50’s by great parents, very frugal, as my Dad’s family was running a lumber business and they had been through the Great Depression. The frugality paid off for us kids – the cheapest way to take a vacation was to go camping, and camp we did!
Lots of coastal camping, California style, north of LA mostly. Heading south past Santa Barbara on Hwy 101, as we were passing Rincon, I yelled to my Dad – Stop!!! There were about 10 people out, probably 1959, nice head high glassy day, I had seen people surfing at Huntington Beach (we used to rent “Mats” there on the south side of the pier for body boarding), but it was nothing like Rincon. I was enthralled by what I saw.
Soon after that we were camping at Pismo Beach, my older brother Rod didn’t come, my Dad called him from a pay phone to see what he was up to – he had gone surfing for his first time, without me!
I couldn’t believe it, my Dad put me on a Greyhound bus in San Luis Obispo, I got to LA, made my way home and put out the word that I wanted to go surfing, in no time I got a call – “if you have gas money, I have a board you can borrow!”
The guy who drove, Jon Jordane (became a famous sailboat
racer and navigator), took me to San Clemente, we parked by a bridge under construction ( the then new Interstate 5 bridge over San Mateo Creek), and walked down the path along the creek, paddled through a marsh and ended up at Upper Trestles. It was a beautiful summer morning in 1960, glassy, shoulder high, lots of kelp, and crowded (“Gidget” had just hit the big screen), I was overtaken by the grandeur of the whole experience. In my cut off Levies, I paddled out and just tried to stay out of everyone’s way, ended up not catching any waves and after a couple of hours paddled in.
That afternoon we went to Doheny and I stood up and rode my first wave. Within a few weeks my Brother and I talked my Mother into getting a campsite at Dohney for two weeks, she dropped us off with all our camping equipment, gave us a dollar a day for food (other than the canned food we brought) and said she’d be back the next weekend to check on us.
I couldn’t believe it, we were on our own, CAMPING, and at a SURFSPOT! I was 15, my brother was 16, no rules other than the normal unspoken ones – keep your camp clean and stay out of trouble – it was all surf, eat and sleep! In 1960, the campground was in the area where the day use is now, and every campsite had a piped in, natural gas stove. There were surfers living in trailers on some of the sites, even one guy patching dings to make his way.
I had purchased the 9-2 Hobie that I had used on my first day at Trestles, and it turned out to be a great board, in no time I was catching and riding everything in sight. The original Hobie shop was just up the hill in Dana Point, and in the afternoons we would walk up the hill and check it out, this is when they were making them in the back of the retail shop. We would go to the back door and peer in at the workers and the blanks, just amazed at what they were doing.
My Mother checked on us the second weekend, gave us her blessing and said, “I’ll be back in a week to pick you up!”.