A Look-Back to: The Grand Opening - 1969 PB SURF SHOP
DISCLAIMERS:
** Offensive Language, Probably!
** Sexist Comments, Yes - but I'm Just Kidding!
** Memory of Facts - Impaired - Not Kidding!
** Accuracy in Reporting: Maybe 50% - Not Kidding!
**************************************************************
Long before the Internet surf communities, there was a surf community
that found a home at PB Surf Shop.
I'm not sure when the shop first opened, but I had the pleasure of
continuing the PB Surf Shop legacy for Gordon and Smith when we took
over the shop in April of 1969.
I was the manager there for about eight years.
The two links below, document the first day of our grand opening - the
first day of Easter Vacation, 1969.
Grand Opening 1
Grand Opening 2
We had surfboards stacked like cord wood all over the parking lot in
front of the shop.
Photos by Lee Peterson. (New boards, Gordon and Smith, Inter-Island,
Midget Farley Stringerless, all selling for about $100.00 each)
Hey BA - there ain't no parking lot there -
you sack of crap!
The Hamels, Little George, and Phil got together and put-up a wooden
fence between PB's Store Front and the parking lot.
BA ruminates:
"I wonder who kept kicking the fence down?"
BA's dim bulb flashes:
"I found my old movies - now the
evidence is clear, and it's on video - soon to be a Limited Edition DVD."
When we moved indoors, our goal was to sell 10 new boards per day.
BA - you are so full of it - Today, the biggest shops on the coast don't sell 10 new boards a day!
What a pant load!
We added Surfboards Australia, Smithies, and Bing Surfboards to the mix, and sold MORE than 10 per day, you homos (just kidding)!
Our next door neighbor, for a while, was Head 'n Soul. "Any stereo
adjusted for $1.00 plus parts."
(One of the Head 'n Soul employees owned one of those little Honda cars, and
he put a plexi-glass bubble in his roof to protect his "'fro")
The most fun item to sell:
Size 10 - 10" long - not shoe size 10 - blue velvet, and $5.00 per pair, Holo-Holos, literally
by the trash can loads. (Lots of "free labor" on the days the coeds from SDSU came in for the new shipments, it was the early seventies - hooray for
the bra burning fad)
BA - what in the H*** is a blue velvet Holo-Holo? Sounds way too kinky for the early seventies!
You kids wouldn't know a Holo-Holo from an Oingo-Boingo from a Bongo Perkins!
Study some surf history. Then come and sit on Unca BA's lap for a history test!
We became OP's largest single store dealer - size 32 blue cord walking shorts, our specialty. Largest size we carried: 34 - any bigger than that, you were too fat to come in the shop!
Easy to say THEN
We sold used Levi's.
We bought the Levi's from a guy, who bought them from the prisons.
Saturday morning deliveries, only.
One of his (the Levi's guy) buddies overdosed on a mixture of "Reds" & "Blacks" and died in our doorway - pretty nice start to a Saturday
morning in the summer.
We sold leather bras, decorated with feathers, to the Hell's Angels'
biker babes.
- To be continued -
Later,
BA
The link to more of my surf reports is: Surfing With BA
The link to my latest "BS Page" is: BA's BS Page
Thought I'd better add some disclaimers:
* All of the tales I'm spinning are based upon facts of some sort.
* Most of the tales will be at least 50% factual.
I'm doing this web thing for a few reasons, and it is, and will be, "a work in progress" for a while:
1. It's an easy way for me to organize my "autobiography" so my kids will know a bit more about me.
2. I find this computer and internet stuff fascinating.
3. I was lucky to be able to start surfing - at least in my opinion - in the "Golden Age" of surfing - I do have some yarns to spin regarding those times.
4. This is an efficient way for some of the old guys to touch bases again - I've received a few e-mails from old (err, long-time) friends I've haven't seen in forty years or so - I think that's way cool.
5. I'm still surfing almost every day - and, at least in my opinion - that's a pretty "boss" thing to write about.
6. I think it will be nice, in a couple of years, to maybe look back at how good - or bad - the surf was in any given stretch of time.
Home
© 2003 bill andrews and adaywithba.com - All rights reserved, and I reserve the right to be stupid.