i used to surf with him as a grom, then hang with him as part of da 80's spectrum crew! but, i know there is way better stories than mine from some of u silverbacks! spit em! he always ripped! in the 80's when CC was shaping/repping, Bruce was travelling/writing, he and Dougie Deal use 2 amaze me on the new "modern longboards", and always such a tiedye colrful character!

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Just shut up & paddle out!

Oh Gawd, where to begin. I'll start with just one for now. In the early '70's one of TS jobs to make ends meet was newspaper delivery manager or lead man or whatever you want to call him. This entailed him having to get up every morning at 4 a.m. driving his POS Volvo to pick up a bunch of newspapers from some pick up point then take them to some other pick up point beachside where he met the delivery "boys" and doled out papers to them. I think he also had his own route. My girlfriend (wife to be) and me lived next door to TS and his wife at the time in a 2 duplex apartment complex on 15th St. (Its still there). Part of T's routine was to make a predawn wave check and if it was good report to me and a couple others to go surfing. One morning around 4:15 a.m. my door is being pounded on and T is hollering my name (No one had a phone) "Get your ass up!". I stumble out and T sez, "get your shoes on and come with me." He's got a big bed sheet in his hand and we skamper across A1A to the end of 15th St and down to the beach towards the water. There's a full or near full moon out and you can see pretty good and T is running towards this big pile of something right on the water edge. As I get closer I recognize it for what it is, one of the infamous "Square Grouper" that used to wash up from time to time. Thing was pretty waterlogged and T couldn't get it by himself, probably weighed about a 100 lbs. I'm pretty goosey about all this because I barely smoked the stuff myself, much preferring barley and hops to the paranoia the weed used to bring on me. Any how we're picking up clumps of buds and putting them in the spread out bed sheet, looking all around for early beach walkers or worse, the CBPD. We get it all loaded on and T grabs one end and I the other and back to the apartments we go. As we're crossing A1A the early morning commuters are on their way to the Cape or whatever and we have to stand on the side of the road waiting for cars to pass. Then it dawned on me, here's a couple of guys standing on the side of the road holding, what appearts to be a blanket with a dead body in it! We dash over to T's apartment, throw open the door just as T's wife is exiting the bathroom into the hall bare arse nekkid. She screams, runs into the bedroom and slams the door and begins cursing us both out loudly, but mostly directed at T. I say, "Man, I think I better go home now." Got something to do rite now so I'll try to finish this story later. But it involves what we did with it and T's wifes and my GF reaction.

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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

thanks Al, seriously the best story ive ever read on here, and have never heard it b4! was a grom down the street then? i found me a big sack flounder on the beach at oclub at dawn in 85': me and my buddy mike skipping school! got popped w/some a week later and RV flipped, Dooley booted me, and i lost my ride from INSTINCT, but i still think is was way cool to find a bail. it was soked as well, and we only got 35-40% of it, but a gr8 right of passage for my gen and upbringing!

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Just shut up & paddle out!

OK, story finish. We get our stuff and spread it out on T's living room floor. Of course all but 10% of it is wet, and naturally we sample the dry stuff (bad move for the following thought process). Now we're thinking what to do to dry it out without being seen. The Duplex we lived in had a shallow grade roof so we two geniuses decide that the best way to dry it is to spread it out on the roof, which of course we do under the guise of fixing something on the roof. The women are out of their minds pissed at us but we continue until we're done and then go off to work. At the time I was taking classes at night and working for a local roofing company and we had a job on S. Tropical Trail in Merritt Island. It's late July and hot as hell. Now, what happens almost every summer afternoon on a hot day? You got it! Thunderstorms. From the roof of the house we were working on I could see across the river to Cocoa Beach and the Thunderstorm sweeping Southwest to NorthEast across S. Cocoa Beach. Yup, the heavy rain washed all of our "treasure" off the roof and into the lawn. I come back to see T, on his hands and knees pawing around in the grass. I didn't even make the effort. On the up side...we had sproutlings popping up all around the building. On the downside...the landlord kept mowing the lawn over them. Just to make it clear these days, I no longer do anything other than Barley and Hops and the occasional fine Kentucky bourbon as I've learned that, at least for me, anything else causes serious lapses in judgement.

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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

I can remember when he was a giant pain in the ass and just learning ro surf. I used to run him over. We went to High School together. Smith was and is a classic. I saw him a couple of years ago and it was really good to see him doing well. I think he was running a major yacht for some rich dude.

greeneyedeep--I see Capt. Tommy all the time, he's doing great and loving life-6-19-2011

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The Wavecaster

How did that ugly old geezer end up with a hot girlfriend? I first met him when we were 16 years old. The first short board I ever rode was Smith's...it was a hollow Hansen Twin Fin around 6 feet long. I could barely ride it but it was suited to his high energy insane surfing style.This was around 1968 or so. Gotta love the Guy.  Brucker

Damn TS, u dont look a day over 80 ol buddy!!!

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Just shut up & paddle out!

I hear he is an unreal fisherman.

Edited: 06/22/2011 at 05:41 PM by cleanlines100

TS needs to drop 50 his knees are shot he hasn't surfed in a decade and he has gained and lost more than most people its all whether he is drinking or not apparently he is enjoying adult beverages and his own cooking which is pretty good.  Wish him luck it looks like he's going to need it I bet he's got a pocket full of viagara for his date.  One night back in '87/88 I'm in bed already and I hear a knock on the window its him and Catri they need help getting a 400lb marlin into my neighbors garage so they can cut it up and smoke it the smoked marlin turned out great.

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In loving memory of my brother Lance, Duncan Currie, BVD and Bruce Dygert.

Edited: 06/23/2011 at 12:44 PM by Rocknrollisland

I cant tell ya all of it but I was summend in the middle of the night 25 years ago to pick up ts at an undisclosed location....he was wearing handcuffs..........2am, "get me home" was his request.

We cut the cuffs off after many failed attempts.......the rest of the story and how he got the bracelets is left to your imagination......

I better stop now....

It was 1978/1979 and we all lived in a triplex just north of Floridana Beach. We called it Carreyville after the owner. There was TS/George/Smitty, Artie, Knappy Chuck, Flo Bag, Megan, me and my wife Starlene plus other assorted beach creatures coming and going day and night for two years. Our lives revolved around surfing, parties EVERY night, fishing, occasional work banging nails, some insanely fast rides to surf first peak with TS in his monster chrysler sedan, and untold other adventures of the south beaches too numerous to list and many not fit to print. Smitty you are looking good for an "Old Dog". Remember the "Old Man" series of boards designed for you??

Edited: 07/07/2011 at 11:14 AM by surfly

1979_ts_sebastian/inlet.jpg 1979_ts_mackerel.jpg A couple of old shots of the "Old Dog". Does anyone else have trouble uploading photo's from a Mac ?

Edited: 07/07/2011 at 11:25 AM by surfly

Hey... someone help surfly

I wanna see those pics of TS

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... positioning and selection

i knew i opened a can o' worms!

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Just shut up & paddle out!