San Onofre: Memories of a Legendary Surfing Beach

An interview with David Matuszak by Glenn Sakamoto

California historian/author David Matuszak’s latest book, San Onofre: Memories of a Legendary Surfing Beach, explores the history, the people and the lore that is San Onofre. The book took nearly a decade to produce, with approximately 5000 illustrations and nearly 200 contributors. And if that isn’t all, it weighs in at a hefty 12 pounds and contains over 1500 pages. We spoke with David to learn more.

Tell us a bit about yourself…

I’m a native Californian who became a beachgoer as soon as I could drive. I bodysurfed, skim boarded, belly boarded, and knee boarded in the early 1970s at Huntington Beach before teaching myself to surf. Soon after it was opened to the public, I discovered San Onofre and I have been a regular there for the past four decades. I am both a member of the San Onofre Surfing Club and the Hawaiian Surf Club at San Onofre.

For decades, I’ve been fascinated with the history of the American West. That fascination led to my Nelson Point: Portrait of a Northern Gold Rush Town and my The Cowboy’s Trail Guide to Westerns. Both are detailed studies of American West culture. In San Onofre: Memories of a Legendary Surfing Beach, I turned my attention to surfing.

I’m a retired educator and spend winters at my ranch in the foothills of the Big Bear Mountains. I regularly retreat to my oceanfront surfing refuge on the Baja frontier and to my log cabin in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains where much of my writings are penned. Throughout much of the year, I can be found sliding a roller at San Onofre.

“I want the reader to feel what it was like to experience the magic of San Onofre,
particularly during the Golden Age of Surfing. I especially want surfers to understand
the origins of the Aloha spirit at San Onofre.” 

Why was it important to write a book about San Onofre?

Because it is the most unique and influential surfing culture the modern world has ever known.

What was your process for undertaking this massive project?

I’ve drawn from my own surfing and frontier experiences as well as my academic background to construct a comprehensive study of surfing as seen through the eyes of San Onofre’s surfers. I wove together the memories of pioneer surfers and placed them into cultural and historical context.

I spent 8 years full-time completing this history. For the first two years, I collected digital interviews of dozens of the first generation California pioneer surfers who surfed in the 1930s and ‘40s. One by one, they invited me to their homes where I interviewed them and scanned hundreds of photographs from their personal photo albums.

Each interview was painstakingly transcribed and I recorded the surfers' language precisely as they spoke in order for readers to understand the language patterns of surfers centuries from now. These interviews and photos are the foundation of my research and directed further research. My job became to put everything into historical and cultural context.

What is about San Onofre and surfing that is so important?

I wrote my doctoral dissertation about the California Gold Rush. From that dissertation came my Nelson Point: Portrait of a Northern Gold Rush Town. In that study of pioneer gold camps, I took one camp and told the entire Gold Rush experience through the eyes of the miners from Nelson Point. That same format I utilized in San Onofre. In other words, San Onofre is the story of the entirety of surfing through the eyes of the pioneer surfers there. Pioneer surfers, like surfers today, rarely surfed one break. So, those pioneers referenced surf breaks all over California and Hawaii. My job, again, was to place those stories into surfing context world-wide.

The more I researched, the more I understood the uniqueness of San Onofre. There really is no other surfing culture like it anywhere in the world.

Tell us your favorite anecdote or story from the book…

Impossible to say. There are thousands of great stories. The practical jokes section is one of my favorites. Give surfers enough down time between swells and they are bound to get creative. There were some hilarious shenanigans that went on there.

Which San Onofre character impressed you most when researching the book?

Impossible to say. I had some 200 contributors who referenced perhaps ten thousand surfers in my book. I have a specific chapter about San Onofre’s cast of characters with a sampling of the most colorful surfers.

Two characters most touched my life at San Onofre. Wally Duesler and Frank Hops. Frank was San O’s gentle giant and ambassador of aloha. I wish he had lived to see the book.

Did you ever think that the book would be over 1500 pages long?

My book began as a collection of the memories of one specific surfer, my dear friend, Wally Duesler. We lost Wally last year, just six weeks shy of his 100th birthday. He first surfed San O’ in 1937. I met him during one of my first visits there in 1981. We became great surfing and beach volleyball friends. In his early 90s, when we rarely saw him on the beach any longer, I began regular visits to his home on Cotton’s Point. Wally had been a custom home builder to the rich and famous. He built homes for John Severson and James Arness, the actor. 

“Pioneer surfers established an Aloha spirit all along the California coast.
That brotherhood of surfing has mostly disappeared, but it remains today at San Onofre.
It’s been passed down through generations there.”

After hearing so many of Wally’s stories about the early days of San O’, I suggested we document some of them in what I envisioned would be a 50 to 100 pages booklet. Then Wally told his contemporaries what we were doing and they said, “We have stories to tell too.” One by one they invited me to their homes and the project became a runaway train. They were all in their late 80s and early 90s at the time. All but a couple are gone now and I am so grateful to befriend each one of them and have the opportunity to tell their story.

How long did it take to complete the book from start to finish?

Eight years, full time. Except for the 2-months mid-stream I spent in ICU with a near-fatal MRSA infection. I spent nearly a month in a medically induced coma and was written off for dead by most everyone.

What was the most challenging part of making the book?

Transcribing the interviews was bone-crushing. It took six months. A ten-minute interview often took an hour to transcribe and several follow up phone calls for clarification. I wanted their words to reflect precisely what they said as they said it. Interviews that last an hour or longer sometimes took days to transcribe, playing the interview back and forth dozens of times for accuracy.

What feelings did making this book evoke for you?

Again, I’m grateful that I befriended so many of surfing’s pioneers and legends. The friendships are what I value most. I never had the good fortune to experience the early days of San Onofre when it was a private beach controlled by the surf club there. However, my research gave me insight into what I missed. And every reader will feel what it was like to surf San O’ from the 1930s through the 1960s when San O’ was considered to be the most exclusive private club in the world. The waiting list to gain access to the beach was as long as 5-years to become a member, even movie stars were turned away.

What are you hoping the reader will take away from reading your book?

Today and a century from now, I want readers to understand precisely what San Onofre surfing culture was all about. I want the reader to feel what it was like to experience the magic of San Onofre, particularly during the Golden Age of Surfing. I especially want surfers to understand the origins of the aloha spirit at San Onofre. 

Tell us more…

Our country is more divided now than at any time since the Civil War due to the political unrest the past four years. And tribalism and localism at surfing breaks since the 1970s reflects that divisiveness. Pioneer surfers established an aloha spirit all along the California coast. That brotherhood of surfing has mostly disappeared, but it remains today at San Onofre. It’s been passed down through generations there. Occasionally, a new surfer will display poor manners in the water and the old timers are quick to set them straight. The San Onofre Surfing Club and the Hawaiian Surf Club at San Onofre both encourage aloha in the water and on the sand as well. For that reason alone, it really is a special place. And it’s up to every surfer to assure that it remains that way.

I also wanted surfers to understand the origins of the place called San Onofre and the unique mixture of subcultures that shared the place: cowboys, farmers, Marines, and surfers. It’s the most unique interaction of sub-cultures and ethnicities in California history—beginning with San Onofre’s Native Americans and Spanish colonists.

How can we purchase San Onofre: Memories of a Legendary Surfing Beach?

Ask for San Onofre: Memories of a Legendary Surfing Beach at your local surf shop, or you can order directly at: www.pacificsunset.com.