6/24/14
I know pretty much nothing about the Patterson brothers above and beyond the five short paragraphs I wrote for their EOS page.
Bobby was oldest (born in 1934), then Ronald, then Raymond. They grew
up in Hawaii, and migrated to California at a time when most surfers
dreamed of doing just the opposite. All three worked in the Hobie Surfboards
factory. All three were excellent surfers—Bobby was maybe the best
small-wave guy in the world during the mid- and late-’50s—but they lived
in a pre-surf-media age, and therefore didn’t leave much of a mark.
(Here’s a little vid on Bobby,
filmed eight or 10 years after his prime.) None of the Pattersons lived
past 60. There were a couple of short surf mag obits when Ronald and
Bobby died, but overall very little for a research geek to grab onto.
But the Pattersons mean a lot to surfers who mean a lot to me, including Mickey Munoz,
who worked, surfed, partied, and navigated the straits of adulthood
with all three brothers. I called Mickey last week and got a little peek
into the Pattersons’ life and times. (Above, left to right: Bobby,
Ronald, Raymond. Photo: John Severson)
* * *
What neighborhood were the Pattersons from?
I think they grew up in Manoa Valley, right behind downtown Honolulu.
Did you know any of them before they moved to California?
No. Bobby was first to come over, I think in 1952. Matt
Kivlin and Joe Quigg went to Hawaii that year or the year before, met
Bobby, and Bobby expressed interest in coming over, and next thing you
know he’s living in Matt’s guest room. Problem was, Matt had a
girlfriend at the time, and things got a little awkward.
That’s where you came in?
Matt took Bobby to Malibu of course, and I met him there,
we started surfing together, hanging out. I was 14. Bobby was maybe 17.
My family had a big house in Santa Monica canyon, and I had my own
bedroom, my own bathroom, even my own entrance; my mom and dad really
liked Bobby, so we just invited him to live at our house. And he stayed
for three years, around there.
How’d you meet the other brothers?
Ronald came over two years after Bobby, so I met him here.
Then when I went to Hawaii for the first time, in 1954, Bobby had
gotten in touch with Raymond, telling him to expect me. So there I am in
Waikiki, more or less fresh off the boat, I just got out of the water
at Queens and I’m walking down Kalakaua Boulevard, heading back to this
funky little place I’d rented. This chopped ’47 Merc comes up on my
left, all lowered and everything, with four scary-looking Hawaiians
inside, duck-ass haircuts, everyone sitting real low in their seats. I’m
getting a little freaked out, and the car slows down, stops in the
middle of the street, everybody piles out, and just before I have a
heart attack one of the guys introduces himself as Raymond Patterson.
Raymond was the uke player?
One of the best in the Islands, already, yeah. And he was
still just a kid, too. Like 16. A prodigy. Hung out with all the other
best players in Waikiki, and picked it up really fast. For the rest of
the time I knew Raymond, I almost never saw him without a uke or a
guitar.
Was Raymond the big party guy?
No, no, no. He was the cleanest-living of the three. By far. It’s funny—or not funny—but Raymond was the least-dissipated of the Patterson brothers, yet he was the first to die.
Like in his early 50s.
Heart attack. The family had a long history of heart problems.
On the other hand, being the cleanest-living Patterson brother wasn’t much of an accomplishment.
No, that’s true. Ronald was a chain-smoker, and I mean a
chain-smoker in the most literal sense. Lighting the next one from the
burning end of the one he just finished. I once saw him crack open his
seventh pack in a single day.
Ronald sanded boards at Hobie?
Sanded boards for hours at a time, without a break, and
never wore a mask. His theory was that as long as he had a filtered
cigarette in his mouth he was safe from all the fiberglass and resin and
shit coming off the boards.
Amazing that he made it to 60 before he died.
And its interesting, because his wife—he was married for
40 years or something—ended up with lung cancer, most likely just from
being around Ronald, and the day she was diagnosed he took his pack of
cigarettes, threw it in the corner, and never smoked again.
Wow.
Ronald was one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met.
Could do almost anything he put his mind to. He’d take your broken TV
apart, put it back together with a couple parts off to the side, and it
would work better than it ever did. Guy was maybe 140, 145 pounds, but
incredibly strong. Do you know who Hevs McClelland was?
Yeah, big bald guy, used to MC the SURFER Poll.
I watched Ronald arm-wrestle Hevs, who weighed 260 and was
strong as an ox, at a party one night. They got down on the floor, and
it took maybe 15 minutes, but Ronald turned Hevs over. Stunned
everybody. I asked him later, “Did you really think you could beat
Hevs?” He said, “I did, yeah, but I thought it would take longer.” Total
confidence.
Good surfer?
Oh yeah. And it was the same deal, he would just surprise
you. For example, I shaped my very first board in 1956, and like just
about every other first-timer, I started out with a perfectly good
blank, and whittled it down to almost nothing. Just made this balsa
toothpick of a surfboard. Seven-foot-something, super thin and narrow.
Nothing like what anybody was riding. I ended up giving it to Ronald,
and he just loved it. Rode it so well. There’s a great shot of him on
that board at Windansea
Backside, head down, back are kind of up under the lip.
Yeah, that’s the shot.
I’m looking at the shot right now, it’s a beauty.
He rode that board for years.
Did all three Pattersons work at the Hobie factory at the same time?
For years, yeah. That was a big part of why I ended up
being so close them. We all worked together at Hobie, took lunch breaks
together, surfed after work, went to the parties, and from there, you
know, there was family stuff, raising kids, holidays, everything. Hobie
was doing so much business in the late ’50s and ’60s, and the work kind
of held everything together.
Back to the smoking. Wasn’t Bobby famous for smoking while he glossed boards?
The guy was so meticulous, his brushes and buckets had to
be in exactly the right place, and he mixed his resin just so, kept his
work space really tidy. It was his room. Nobody allowed inside with
permission. Anyway, customers liked to watch guys making boards, and so
Bobby cut this little window into his door so people could look inside
without him having to open the door. So you’d look in, and Bobby’s got a
board on the sawhorses, everything just so. And it was a dance, you
know. He was so good at his job. No wasted motion, perfect economy of
movement, he’d pour the resin and delicately dance down one side of the
board, then the other other, more resin, spreading it out, just
beautiful. With a Pall Mall hanging out of his mouth, and a half-inch of
ash hanging right above this beautiful brand-new still-wet surfboard.
And I swear, the ash NEVER fell.
He never blew the place up?
No! Incredible! All those fumes, the styrene, the acetone, all that shit! And the guy never started a fire!
Bobby ended up in Thailand, on the run. Can you talk about that?
Yeah, well. Bobby [long pause] got into the importing
business. And was pretty successful at it. But to back up just a bit.
Bobby could not moderate. For example, he was just incredibly generous.
To a fault. When his wallet was fat, he never hesitated to slam it on
the bar and it was drinks for everybody until the money was gone. He
also drank a lot, smoked a lot, was a huge meat-eater. What I’m trying
to say is that, before the FBI was after him, Bobby was already in
not-great health. Really poor circulation, and ended up needed heart
surgery. And after the surgery, we’re all saying “Bobby, come on, you
gotta stop smoking and drinking, you gotta eat better.” And he just
could not stop. Ended up in Thailand, and eventually died of a heart
attack or a stroke. To nobody’s surprise.
Was he still surfing before he left for Thailand?
No, and that was another contributing factor, I think.
It’s complicated. When Bobby came to California, as a kid, he was one of
the best small-wave surfers in the world. And that lasted for a few
years., up until the late ‘50s. But between the things I just mentioned,
smoking and drinking and all the rest, he ended up not surfing as much.
Then by the early ’60s there was this whole new crew of hot young guys
coming up, Corky Carroll and another 10 like him, and Bobby’s rep as a
surfer faded. It just happens. Ronald and Raymond kept surfing, but they
didn’t have that sort of burden to carry around of being “the best.” I
would say, in fact, that that was Bobby’s downfall. It’s really hard for
some guys to not be the best anymore. Bobby was for sure one of those
guys.
Plus business at Hobie was down in the late ‘60s, compared to what it had been a couple years earlier.
Right, that didn’t help. He wasn’t making the kind of
money he’d made a few years earlier, and was looking to offset that
loss. What he got into was a lot more lucrative. But, as always happens,
he got involved with a transaction that went bad, and he got a heads-up
that the authorities were on it, so he just packed up and left.
Why Thailand?
I think partly ‘cause Bobby looked sort of Thai. And he loved Thai women. Plus he’d done business there, so he already knew the place.
Raymond and Ronald didn’t go that route.
No, they stayed with Hobie longer, then ended up doing other jobs. Legit stuff.
Did you keep in touch with Bobby after he left?
No, not so much. It was just a whole different scene.
Ronald and Raymond I stayed in touch with. Bobby . . . it was sad, you
know. He pretty much just gave up. On everything. It was just, Fuck it,
I’m going to keep drinking and smoking and whatever, and that’s what he
did. Right up until he died.
Its weird, how much we’re attracted to the guys who flame out.
Part of the deal there is, you’re sort of on the edge of
your seat, wondering if they’re going to get it together and moderate,
or crash and burn. Most of my heroes were extreme types, and a lot of
them are gone. Bobby included. I’ve always been more or less in the
center. Which maybe isn’t so interesting, but you get to keep going.
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