MASTER!! BOBBY PATTERSON

Photo courtesy of Timmy Patterson, from Douglas Cavanaugh's collection. Butch's pal Bobby Patterson, the epitome of cool doing a hand drag at Hammond's Reef.
From "Remembering Butch: The Butch Van Artsdalen Story" by Douglas Cavanaugh:
MIKI DORA--
"They talked about Phil Edwards a lot, and he was a great surfer. But I thought Bobby Patterson was the best in the world. That guy had something amazing going on."
TIMMY PATTERSON--
"My dad(Ronald Patterson) and his brothers, Robert and Raymond, grew up on the streets of Honolulu, almost like homeless kids. They got orphaned pretty young. They had a father but he was such an alcoholic that he was never available to them, so they just wandered from house to house. They really stuck together, hanging out and playing music all the time."
CARL EKSTROM--
"Bobby was probably the best surfer I have ever seen. He was absolute perfection in the water; never made a mistake. His feet would blur and the next thing you knew he was on the nose, then they’d blur again and he’d be on the tail stalling. He did it so quickly and smoothly that you’d think he floated up and down that board.
I used to hang out with Bobby and surf with him quite a bit. Sometimes we’d go up north to surf, which was Phil Edwards’ and LJ Richards’ territory. That’s when this big competition started over who was the best surfer in the world. I would pump up Bobby and LJ would champion Phil. It became a pretty big debate between the surfers from the north and surfers from the south. Bobby and Phil were both definitely the standouts back then. It was hard to decide who was better. Bobby always got my vote."
LJ RICHARDS--
"I remember walking into Trestles one day with Phil and Bobby was out there surfing with his brother Ronald. Just the two of them, riding these perfect four to six foot waves all by themselves. Phil and I stood there on the bluff watching Bobby surf.
I just shook my head in amazement and Phil admitted ‘Man, this kid is good’. I don’t think he wanted to get in the water with Bobby at the time to be honest with you. There was that danger of being shown-up. But I always felt that Phil was the best in the world with Bobby a close number two."
CARL EKSTROM--
"The Patterson brothers were the first guys I ever saw using what would be later called a “short board”. Bobby also gave me my first taste of genuine aloha. I had this real piece of shit board that was this sort of cut down plank with redwood rails. It was so bad that everyone called it “the box”. I’d been riding this thing since I was eleven and had actually knocked out one of my front teeth on it.
Bobby Patterson sees me riding this horrible thing and he paddles up to me and says ‘Carl Ekstrom, your surfing is never going to get better on that. I’m giving you my board’, and he got off his board and shoved it to me. It was this beautiful piece of art that he’d made himself, with black and gold flecks of dust all glassed into it. I mean, this was THE hot board on the beach.
So I say ‘Aw no, I don’t have the money to buy this board’, and he says ‘No no, I’m giving it to you’. ‘I can’t take that!’ All my friends were really jealous because he was the best rider on the beach and the fact that he’d given me his personal board just blew them away. I was blown away too, but that’s the Hawaiian way. That’s their aloha spirit."

Bobby Patterson from ENCYCLOPEDIA of SURFING videos on Vimeo.