in all my postings, rants and raves, and trying 2 recall the rippers of my youth, (early 70's- mid 80's), one name i left out and must be acknowledged as one of the best 70's, early shortboard, 7'6" and the like, single fin pintail riders was Barry Wolfe. also into the early 80's with the thick, flat, twin-fim, MR era. BW was amazing. actually and honestly the first guy i ever saw do a 360, and i mean a "REAL" 360! on like a 7' plus single fin, 76/77ish at 1st light, and it was a carving whopper, kinda like kelly does now, but way more core or the equips of da time. i know Bob, eibla, or tiptime have to have some ripping Barry Wolfe stories, and with all the names in this thread genre, he had to be brought up! spit it boyz!!!!!! and bob, we want pix! SV

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tubes, doobs, and boobs: thats the american way and id rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal labotomy!

hows da sick shot in da new ESM that Pope took of Barry in Hatteras, circa 70's. cant believe noone has touched this thread. yall r blowing it!

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tubes, doobs, and boobs: thats the american way and id rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal labotomy!

moved out to cali* ...followed the space shuttle and lived near Area 52... around that time, moved back to CB a few years later. u know i can't be responsible for what i missed out on! i jammed with Beefheart out in the desert inna trailer middle of no where. after Zappa split. Buddy Rich put on a hellof a show... my neigbors has a cat that was half rabbit... not makin that up...Met the Jazz Crusaders at Disnyland, AND many more....was surfing Malibu and County Line, but not very often...in fact it was a chore to get there from up in the desert... Jim Ladd and KMET and KLOS got us thru.... those was some crazy days and u know what i mean...... SO -- fill us in.n i always wondered....

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And Bob will ALWAYS be my numero uno. -Tiffanys

U GOT ME LOST ON DIS POST BOB! DID U EAT DA BROWN ACID, AND WTF DOES THIS HAVE 2 DO WITH BARRY WOLFE! JUST WONDERING!  col. sv

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tubes, doobs, and boobs: thats the american way and id rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal labotomy!

Translaytion.. - i was not around for most of the BW era. We followed the shuttle to cali, where i avoided mike (i hope) , surfed very rarely - then jammed in a trailer , in the middle of the desert, where Zappa went to high school - Antelope valley -google it.... with a semi famous musician - i found out many years later... Area 51 is known, but not many know about Area 52. I do, and the aliens and the missing nerve gas cannisters ,oops scratch that... - and I also met many other famous, or soon to be well known musicians..we did have a Governor Brown, but he was a jerry... capiche?

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And Bob will ALWAYS be my numero uno. -Tiffanys

well bob, im glad u had a long, strange trip, but between valuzzi, barry, max roever, and a young tom black,and da CC Rider, u missed some of da best mid 70's surfing done anywhere round da world, and it all happened in my backyard. like a 70's video game for an 8 yr old grom!

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tubes, doobs, and boobs: thats the american way and id rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal labotomy!

i know, thanks for the reminder! ........cali during that era was def. a long strange trip...,at least i made it back to the sunshine state....however, it's great that u have it all recorded up there, and can still tell the stories...BIG thanks for that, and much respect

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And Bob will ALWAYS be my numero uno. -Tiffanys

Known Barry for years. He has definitely gone downhill bigtime. Jim Byrd is out west with his 2 daughters living his cowboy dream. If you recall he used to dress up as a cowboy for Halloween every year. But damn, back in the day he screamed at Chicama.

Used to work with Barry landscaping at John's Island in summer of '74. We'd to go down on the beach at the main clubhouse for lunch and a cool down. Not much surf down there, but we had a fun session one time. All the locals used to pack up and leave the beach when the "help" showed up. I was surprised the owners let us use their private beach access. I'm sure that has changed!

thanks damua! i loved jimmy byrd. one of my mom and dads best friends and only guy ive ever known more bow-legged than me! he and bill webster were really good to me as a kid, and are gr8 men and gr8 surfers! Baryy and the downhill thing; not really the point of this post, nor does it need 2 be aired here; just wanna hear about how hard he ripped so all can know that do not know the CB history! God Bless Barry!

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tubes, doobs, and boobs: thats the american way and id rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal labotomy!

just bringing da thread back up!

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tubes, doobs, and boobs: thats the american way and id rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal labotomy!

Greets, all!

Barry the "surfin' machine". No other was anything like him!!

I just came across this forum and thread from searching on Barry and Sharon Wolfe after one of my incessant discussions of the old days with my sister and daughter. During the mid 70's and mid 80's, my sister and her family lived at the old 14th St. bungelows and Barry and his lived right next door which was like 4 or 5 steps away. I got to know him as all that's mentioned above and on enough of a personal level that we'd pair up sometimes running across each other at Playalinda, my "homebreak".

Visting Barry was just surf talk heaven, and was there no b.s. about any of his accomplishements or knowledge from him. He was all around very ok too, and never got into any of that looking down from above like too many in the sport can do.

Whew! The man's talent is near indescribable. For casual everyday small fun out back he'd work that beat-up vintage David Nuuhiwa like a short board, like his feet were welded down on it, or get one of his twins up on the rails for top to bottom smack and spray runs to the shore. For the more serious sessions he had a variety of thin rail singles as noted above to pull off storm surf charges like in that stunning Hattaras pic.

That photo! Good God! It's of a full on, shedding off high g's power blast that took a 2 page spread in Surfer Mag which embarrased the contest pro's who had to watch him outside the zone taking all that glory. He always was really proud of that in his being critical of the pro circuit scene. I haven't seen it for decades but have been talking about the shot ever since and if anyone can link a source, that'd be a true testament to phenomenal Barry.

In all seriousness, this is important history like was mentioned above. The Slater's were right across A1A, of course, and we didn't know Kelly's name until he was winning his first competes, but were extremely highly aware of his growing grommy presence. The bungelow deck was where the evoluton of "The Kid" was studied, and anyone could tell he was just gone with the sport. There were times we'd tried beckoning him out from the shorebreak reforms that he was smashing to shreds, but he'd shake head his no. We're talking under 10 in age Kelly. "The kids getting really hot!" or "only the kid would be out in that slop".

Thanks for this thread! It's already convinced my grown children and back then were my surf salad days where I was privileged to be in Barry's inner circle. And especially way outside when it was only a few us after dinner while that little kid was always watching.

I was consistently regular there for years visting and staying over almost all weekends and uncountable days after work at KSC, and watched so much serious talent expressed in the great conditions that super spot is known for. I primarily at one point was riding a razor railed blue and white decked 7'6" Tabeling single with a concave nose rider scoop...ha. Or any old eggs 6 and under I could get cheap and beat up. Also ran into a near shot 10' Noll bull board for free that we patched up and kept between the buidings for general family use too...lol.

Very cool forum and much appreciated, thanks!!

 

Edited: 11/05/2011 at 06:20 PM by CThompson

Great guy , great Surfer, great family. I remember all of them from 4th Street North.

And smiling Sharon deserves her own thread, but I'm too new here to begin one.

Didn't know her near as well as Barry, but she was always visitng family that just so happened to be at a good spot too.

I just heard that one of my nephews is still close friends with Barry's daughter, I may check up on him.

Edited: 11/05/2011 at 06:00 PM by CThompson

I like this thread. My brother was a big part of my surfing. I owe a lot to him and his ability to teach me how to surf. I watched him and learned a lot from him. His style was amazing to me and the hard turns he would pull were and are so strong and powerful. I always said my brother could rip on a door if that was all he had.

I remember the first hurricane swell he paddled me out in - it was hurricane Belle and to me it was huge, he stuck with me the whole way outside. He could have easily left me and made it out in no time but he waited through every set until I made it all the way out. I sat and watched him for a long time and finally was brave enough to catch a wave. I don't remember how many waves I caught that day but watching my brother take off and disappear until I would see his board and the spray down the wave was awesome to me.

I remember many trips to the inlet with him. Being the little sister definitely has its benefits as far as how many waves I could catch. Every time I surfed with him I would play a game in my head that I would try to do what he did on a wave. I could never come close to the power but it was how I learned to surf better through watching and trying to surf like him.

Many people say that we have a similar style, I would think that we do since he was surfing the way I wanted to. He still rips and I bet anyone would be amazed at the power and knowledge he has of the waves and how he rides them.

Little sister Sharon

i mowed a lawn next to Sharon's house, ( BW's lil sis/ legend surfer), and he recognized me from knowing my parents, and step dad Buzzy, so we talked a lil story, and he agreed with a post i made years ago as "iluvsheepinlace", or "petergozinya", or whatever alias i used that CFLDave has now deleted' BUT, to get to the point, he fully agreed with one of my comments, that from 75'-80',( most transitional phase in surfings history), that 'round these parts, Barry Wolfe, David Balzerak, and Bruce Valuzzi were the future and IDOLIC to the time! God Bless Them All! thnx boyz!

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Just shut up & paddle out!

Holy Smokes Sean! Jimmy Byrd! He saved my @$$ one day. One morning at 15th street I was out with one other guy I didn't know, non local and couldn't surf very well. Waves small, 2-3 ft and kinda lumpy. He japped me on this little left but it was not worth vocally beefing at him over. I decided to try and catch him and go over or under him, ya know, make a statement kind of thing. As I got closer he somehow felt me coming and took a quick glance back just as I was doing a hard turn at the bottom after coming down from the top to pass him. I guess he thought the that jumping toward the nose of his board would get him some more speed, but instead he pearled up to waist. His board shot back at me so fast I couldn't get out of the way and I felt the tail hit me in the forehead. Water was only waist deep and I jumped up cursing him wildly. He looked me up and down with his mouth agape so I looked down and saw I was covered in and dripping blood. What happened I think was as his tail hit me in the forehead, the fin, which was one of those plastic ones that was ground down to a point from running it into the sand over and over, had punctured me under my chin and behind my jawbone. I didn't even feel it! I felt like my mouth was full of water or something so spit and it was all blood. I went in, leaving my board right there on the beach but took my towel and compressed the wound and walked back to the apartment. Halfway there the towel was just soaked with blood. As I'm walking back to the apartment here comes Jim Byrd with his board under his arm to go for a surf. He says: "Alb...you OK?" "I dunno" says me "Some Kook just wacked me with his board". I went in to my apt bathroom dropped the towel to look, and almost passed out! Big flap of skin hanging under my jaw and blood just pouring out. I plopped down on the toilet seat dizzy. Just then Byrd opened my door and hollered in "Hey! You OK?" No sez I, I need to go to the hospital. My girlfriend had the car and we had no phone (common back then) and everybody was pretty much at work. Anyway...Jimmy toted me to the Hospital where it turns out a fairly good size vein was ruptured. Jimmy had seen my board on the sand and figured if I was bad off enough to just leave my board there, it must not be good. He had retrieved my board and come to look after me. I dunno what I would have done but I was getting woozy. Took 30 something stitches inside and out to close everything up. If you ever see Jimmy again....tell him thanks again from me. And Oh....you're not even close to Jim's bowlegs!

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"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." -- John Kenneth Galbraith