Born on January 11, 1920, legendary
surfer Albert “Rabbit” Kekai came into surfing at a time when the
sport was barely two decades “new” – having been revived from
near-extinction shortly after the turn of the century.1
Duke Kahanamoku still ruled the beach at Waikiki and the beach and
its breaks reigned supreme as the epicenter of wave riding. Major
influences on early modern surfing – guys like Dad Center, Dudie
Miller, John D. Kaupiko and Tom Blake – were not only still around,
but at their prime.
“The abundant legends that surround
him testify to his stature as an authentic folk hero,” wrote C.R.
Stecyk for a profile on Rabbit in a 1994 edition of The Surfer’s
Journal. “… To focus on the veracity of the countless Rabbit
stories of romantic conquest, martial arts conflicts and incredible
sports feats is to miss the point of the man…”2
One of five children born to a Waikiki
machinist, Albert Kekai was part of the beach scene by age three. His
uncle was a lifeguard at Publics, and had the younger Kekai surfing
at age five. Active in most every sport in school, his remarkable
speed on the field earned him the nickname of “Rabbit.” Of his
early days, he remembers, “I would play football, come back surf,
play basketball, come back surf, run track, always going.”3
At 10, he was taken under the wing of
Duke Kahanamoku who paid his entries into canoe races and had him
teaching surf lessons. An excellent student at Kamehameha High,
Rabbit sought an athletic scholarship but was hampered by his small
stature. Despite academic scholarship offers, he decided to earn a
living from the beach. To supplement his beachboy lifestyle, he
earned wages as a caddy at Ala Wai Golf Course, a construction
worker, a stevedore, a bit actor and a successful beachside gambler.4
“Imagine if you will,” wrote Paul
Holmes for Longboard magazine in 1998, “Waikiki in 1926. A
stretch of pristine beach far removed from Honolulu’s bustling port
and downtown, Waikiki is still a village. An arc of bright white sand
abuts aquamarine ocean speckled with surf dancing on coral reefs.
Overlooking the sweep of the bay, stands majestic Diamond Head, a
dark, sphinx-like sentinel. The Royal Hawaiian Hotel is still under
construction. Plans are underway to drain the pond and swampy area
behind Kalakaua Avenue. Tourism is so far still limited to the select
few who can afford transoceanic steamship travel. Only a handful of
buildings dot [the] beach front. Among them is the Moana Hotel, one
of just two hostelries on the shore among the coconut palms, banyans
and hau trees.”5
“In the basement of the Moana,”
Paul continued, “is the locker room of the Hui Nalu surfing club,
from whose ranks come the beachboys – the expert local watermen
enlisted by the hotel’s concessionaire Dudie Miller to take
visitors for canoe rides and surfing lessons. A similar service is
run from the rival Outrigger Club, just a few hundred yards up the
beach. As the late afternoon sun sinks behind golden clouds billowing
on the Pacific horizon and the workday draws to a close, a handful of
beachboys gather at the pavilion out on the tip of the Moana’s 300’
wooden pier. Soon strains of song and ukeleles spill out over the
sea, where a bunch of little kids are splashing in the shorebreak on
paipos. One of them is five-year-old Rabbit Kekai…”6
“Me and my younger brother learned to
surf and angle cut the curl real early,” Rabbit told Steve Pezman
and C.R. Stecyk for a 1995 interview in The Surfer’s Journal.
“When you get young training, like 5, 6, 7 years old, you get good
basics. The way I learned was from watching the big guys. My uncle
was a lifeguard and every day we’d go down to the beach, we’d see
the big guys hanging around. My cousin Louie Hema and I used to look
up to David Hema (his father) and Albert Kauwe (who was custodian at
Public Beach Park). Another guy in our family we also used to look up
to was Chuck-A-Long, he was one of the greatest, and a guy named Gabe
Tong who was a fire chief, and another guy they called ‘Hawaiian,’
his name was Carlos Naluai. They used to be the big guys down there,
riding those 11’ to 12’ redwood planks out at Publics.”7
“We were riding big, heavy clunkers,
koa double-enders,” Rabbit said of his elders. “Even the bottoms
and the tops were the same shape, so you could paddle them both ways
and even flip ‘em over. My uncle had one about 14’ or 16’ long,
and I was just a little guy so I could hardly move ‘em. But I’d
go out and paddle up and down and chase the little waves and stand
up. An, oh… I was hooked, you know.” 8
Asked in another interview about the
longest boards of the time, Rabbit answered, “That was only Duke
and the real old guys who rode those sixteen footers. Of course,
there was Blake and that other guy, Sam Reid, who about that time
introduced the hollow, cigar-shaped box boards.”9
Rabbit estimated that there were well
over a couple of hundred surfers riding Hawaiian waves toward the
later part of the 1920s.10
“Way more,” than a couple hundred. “They were all over.
Queen’s, Canoes and every place you can think of. Publics was the
most noted spot for big wave riding at the time. Duke and those guys
would start way outside and just go. They were trimmers. They’d
pick up the wave on those sixteen-foot boards and stay out in the
green all the way, they never stayed close to the white water, and
they would go a long distance. As kids we watched Tom Blake and all
those guys do their trim jobs. Duke and those guys used to just stand
and do what we called ‘pose.’ They used to hold their pose for a
mile. At times you’d see them bend down to just take a little drop,
then pick up speed again and that’s how they’d go. But they never
did cutbacks; it was all angle. They’d shout, ‘Comin’ down’
or ‘No drop-in!’ if we looked like we were thinking about going
in front of them.”11
1930s
“We had Hawaiian wood boards, like paipos, about 5’ long, no skegs,” Rabbit recalled. “… with a deep vee in the bottom at the back. It helped turn ‘em, and that’s how we learned to maneuver better, stepping hard like that on the back.” 12
Rabbit put it another way:
“We used to have what we called paipo
boards, similar to the Morey Boogie Boards [the modern body board].
We used to belly board over there [at Sunny Cunha’s – now known
as Cunha’s], knee ride, do everything like that. On my first paipo
boards, the shape was about five feet long and narrow – like 18”
wide, cause we were narrow you know. With 60/40 rails – 60 on the
bottom, 40 on top. They were flat. I had my rails more tapered up in
the middle part of the board so you could lean on it. The nose was
the same as Takayama’s noserider [created in the 1960s]. We used to
do a little concave in the front. That’s where Donald got the idea
(chuckling). He used to surf there when he was little. We used to
have fun.
“Like you see, everybody, what
they’re doing now is just making a copy of all of the versions of
what we had before. They are calling them twin fins and all that, we
used to have it in our days, just like what you call channels now,
but with two ridges on either side, just like catamarans. That’s
what we called a twin fin in our days with no fins – on a belly
type of board, with grooved, channel bottoms. And it holds! You can
stall them, you can do turns, just like you do on a twin fin.”13
“My first board was about five feet
with 60/40 rails, with the 60 on the bottom and flat,” Rabbit
continued. “The width was about 18 inches wide with a nose like
Takayama’s noseriders with a little concave in the front. We had
twin channels in the bottom in the early thirties. You get that V
back there, that boat bottom, and you step back on that and you’re
using it like one fin and you can really pull it around. In our days,
we’d practice riding up forward and slide ass, doing sideslips and
making the waves.”14
Rabbit did his basics in Queens’
Surf, then graduated to Publics. “I started to get outside to
Publics where the big guys were,” he said, “And that’s where I
really learned. The big guys would kick my ass and try to get me out
of there because I was too small. But I’d just stay out there and
when they see I could handle it they let me stay. I can’t remember
all the names, but they were good, old-style surfers – catch the
wave, turn when the curl started to come up, and then trim down the
wall. It was all trimming and long rides.”15
A member of the second generation of
the Hui Nalu, Rabbit not only got into surfing, but outrigger
canoeing, also. When he was still just a kid, he had his own two-man
koa canoe that he would take out to ride waves by himself. One of his
mentors was Lukela “John D” Kaupiko. By age 14, he was one of the
club’s best steersmen, competing against the Outrigger crews
coached by Duke Kahanamoku.16
Rabbit told of his interaction with Duke Kahanamoku, specifically
with regards to canoe racing:
“The Duke was with the Outrigger
[Canoe Club] when they were our chief competitor. He was their best
steersman. When I was a kid, I used to hang around, and when I was
about 12 years old [1932] I was a hot-shot in steering two-man
canoes. We used to have kid races, the old man brought me up as
steersman, cause I used to have my own two-man canoe. I’d go out at
Publics. I used to keep it at Sonny Cunha’s place [for whom Cunha’s
is named after]. The steps that he built down, we had two guys carry
the canoe across Kalakaua, set ‘em down, get one rope and slide
that thing down the steps. To bring them up, you had to pull it up,
one guy push and the other guy pull. Get it up, run across the street
and leave ‘em in his yard. He used to let me park my boat there.
There was a lady that lived at the far end of his place, she was a
b-i-t-c-h (Rabbit spells it out), she wouldn’t let anybody around
her property. That’s where Bobby Krewson and I used to go and
invade! There were a lot of her rich old haole friends over there
with their boards. We’d fix ‘em up (chuckling).17
But, it was really good in our time.”18
“That’s when the Duke started to
take notice of me when I was a kid, like that. Give me all sorts of
pointers for steering canoes, and I got to be one of the best out
there. Later on, Blue Makua was with me, but he used to go down to
the club because his uncle used to be down there (his uncle was one
of the noted guys, they called him Boss Makua). I respected that man.
My biggest coup in canoe racing was (Rabbit’s voice lowers in
respect and he almost whispers the next phrase)... beating the Duke
at his own game. He taught me how to get the inside lane when we
paddle. He’d always shut you out on the inside, he’s smart and he
taught me a lot of different moves so when you turn, the inside guy
don’t get by, like the racetrack. The outside guy gotta swing wide,
by the time you swing wide, you are left behind. That old man was
smart. He knew all the angles and everything. So he used to tell me
to watch the guys, that sometime on the outside, you get no choice.
Watch him, stay with him right there as close as you can, if he goes
close to the buoy you have to swing wide. From outside you get a
shorter distance to cut in. So I did that on him, I pulled his own
trick! I turned inside and I had the run going inside. When he came
out wide, I beat him by half a boat.”19
Rabbit was asked if Duke had a sense of
humor about being beaten by his student. “Well, that day when I
went up and got the trophy and brought my crew up,” Rabbit
answered, “all six Kahanamoku brothers lined up and shook my hand.
And it was an honor in those days, and oh, the cheers came down the
isle you know, from the old man especially. Then, my coach was John
D. Kaupiko, and he tells me, ‘Where you learn that?’ And when I
told him he said, ‘You listen to him.’ I learned everything I did
under John D., but the Duke gave me fine pointers. There was another
coach from the Outrigger, Dad Center, he used to own all this
property around here. Dad was another good coach. Being a haole, you
know, you usually don’t get anything from them, but Dad used to
take me alongside and talk, and he tells me how to train. So I don’t
knock ‘em, I listen, that’s the way I learn – I listen. I
listened to the Duke, I listened to Dad, I listened to my coach. Then
whenever I get inside, I think, ‘Oh, that’ll work.’ So I pull
one again and I get ahead of those guys.”20
Rabbit took exception with those who
said that because Duke Kahanamoku was in the rival club, he was never
Rabbit’s teacher:
“Some of the older guys said,
‘Bullshit. Duke was never your coach.’ And I talked back to them
in Hawaiian because I wanted to teach them a lesson. Then I said, in
English, ‘Did you understand what I just said to you?’ And they
said… ‘No!’ And I said, ‘Remember the times you guys would
come into the canoe shed and Duke and I were talking in Hawaiian? And
they said, ‘Yeah… what the hell were you guys talkin’ about?’
And I said, ‘That’s right, he was teaching me and he didn’t
want you guys to know about it.’”21
Recalling his very first victory
against the Outrigger Canoe Club and right afterward, Rabbit said:
“Duke had come up to me on the beach
that day and shook my hand and he’d said to me, in English, ‘So
you learned something, eh?’ And that night at the awards dinner all
five Kahanamoku brothers had come up and shook my hand and not just
because I was Hawaiian. No, they wanted to show respect for the
knowledge I’d learned from Duke.”22
While still surfing Publics, Rabbit
phased into hot-dogging. “I started with the old style,” Rabbit
admitted, “but then I got my smaller board and started hot-dogging
– following the curl, inside and close to it, following the curl
down the line.” Older guys would kick out on the trickier section,
inside, but Rabbit and his young peers would keep going. “We knew
where the rocks were and we’d zoom in between them without getting
hit. That was the start of hot-dogging.”23
Not long after, the big guys were
trying the maneuvers the younger guys like Rabbit were making. “They
learned how to cut back and do some of the things we were doing,”
Rabbit noted, “But they were still doing those gradual turns –
Society Turns we used to call them, and they were always out on the
green, not back in the curl or in the whitewater.”24
Many of the “clunkers” were
eventually cut down into what became the forerunners of the Hot Curl
board.25
“Everyone pretty much shaped their own in the day,” Rabbit said.
“You just trim it down, trim it down until it felt right for you.
Speed was what we were looking for in my time.”26
Rabbit’s first board is now in the
Bishop Museum. “I don’t know how it got there,” he said with a
laugh. “It disappeared one day and I hadn’t seen it in years. But
I know it’s my board!”27
His abilities in the water earned him
an early position among the beachboys who worked the beachside
concessions.
“In those days only the big guys, the
old timers had the license to be canoe captains,” Rabbit recalled.
“They were guys who’d really paid their dues, put in a lot of
water time, knew how to handle all the equipment, steer the canoes
safely and teach people how to surf. Duke Kahanamoku, John D. Kaupiko
and Dad Center were the guys who said yea or nay and there was a
test.” 28
Rabbit was only 15 years of age when he
was granted his captain’s license. By so doing, he joined the elite
group of Waikiki beachboys – guys like Steamboat, Turkey Love,
Tough Bill, Chick [Daniels], Blue Makua, Sally [Hale], Panama Dave
and Scooter Boy.29
Even by the mid-1930s, tropical fruit
still grew wild on the shore at Waikiki and the reef was home to an
abundancy of fish. To be a beachboy there and in that time was not
only to have a cool job, but a lifestyle at surfing’s very center.
Even though “There were what today
you’d call territorial rights,” over some particular breaks,”
Rabbit remembers, Waikiki in the 1930s was still uncrowded. “You
had the whole ocean to yourself and that was about the best thing.
You could catch a wave and go all what you want.”30
“We hung out right where Public Bath
is,” Rabbit recalled. Speaking of himself, Louie Hema, and his
brothers Niga and Sam, Rabbit said: “We were really good and down
in Waikiki our names were pretty big and when you’d get down to
Queen’s that’s all they’d look at, you know, Rabbit, Louie,
Niga and Sam.”
“We’ve heard stories over the
years,” Stecyk and Pezman mentioned to Rabbit during their talk
story with him, “that without your approval nobody came in and
surfed there [Public Baths].”
“No, that’s before my time,”
Rabbit clarified. “When we were there anybody comes in. In the
‘40s, the guys who ruled the roost were the Cross brothers Jackie
and Dicky, Wally Froiseth. George Downing was a little punk like I
once was. He used to get out there a lot. But the regulars were like
Smokey Lew, Hyah Aki, Louie Hema, Mongo Kalahiki and myself. We were
about the first real good hot curlers out there, guys used to watch
us… We’d go for tubes. When Queen’s was about five feet and
really good inside and the wall tapering all the way down, we’d see
who stayed in the tube the longest. I was a top rider [meaning he’d
stand tall, stay high]. I’d trim high and go flyin’ across. That
was my style. And those guys, they’d get down low in the center of
their boards. I’d ride there too but my style was up high, trimming
on the top of the wave.”31
Some days, Rabbit told Paul Holmes, he
and his friends would surf from one break to the next, using one reef
as a launch pad to the next, all the way to Kings’ Surf down by the
Honolulu Harbor. The spot was once out in front of the royal palace
and the exclusive domain of the Hawaiian aristocracy. In an ironic
twist of fate, it became a garbage dump, later to be filled in and
the land reclaimed. All the changes on land ruined the waves, there,
possibly forever. Rabbit recalled the place with fondness. It was “a
sweet break,” he said, “with a sandy bottom where you could take
off and go both ways.” He also remembers it being sharky and he and
others having to wait for the sharks to finish feeding before going
out to surf.32
The beachboys had a reputation as
partiers and this they embraced with an open pride. However, Rabbit
never got into that aspect of the lifestyle, in part because of his
age, but also because of other factors:
“I’d go there to parties with those
guys,” he said, “But I eat and then, ‘bye… I go.” This
attitude may have been due to his family’s influence:
“My Dad didn’t like to think my
brothers and I would be sneaking booze and drinking like that. So he
said to us, ‘if you guys want to drink you come sit down here and
drink with me. And if you don’t want to do that just don’t let me
ever catch you drinking.’ So that sorta put me off and after that
it never happened. I was an athlete. I was always playing football,
basketball, baseball. I never had time for it and I always hung
around with guys who were athletes who were just down to their
business… no fast life.” 33
Like many of the beachboys, however,
young Rabbit did gain a reputation as something of a ladies’ man.
This aspect of his life he is reticent to talk about, in deference to
his wife.34
Late ‘30s, Early ‘40s
Rabbit made his first trip to the U.S. Mainland “Just before the war,” he recalled, “in 1938 or ‘39, on a vacation. I met Opai and Whitey and those guys at San Onofre. That’s where everybody used to go [on the Mainland]. I surfed Malibu, too.”35
Even though many of his most famous
surfing competitive wins were in the 1950s, Rabbit considers that it
was during the late 1930s and early 1940s when, “I was in my prime.
We had our own cars, like woodys, stacked ‘em with 10, 12 boards on
the roof, everyone chipping in a quarter for gas and bringing a
dollars worth of food – rice, pork and beans – and we’d go to
Makaha, Haleiwa, Sunset and V-land.”36
“One day we had a contest at Queen’s
to see who was the better one. We’d go for tubes, take the drop and
see who could stay in the longest. Smokey would do something, then
Hyah would do something else, then I’d go. Each time we’d say,
‘That’s it, that’s the best.’ But you could never tell. Each
ride would be better than the last.”37
George Downing recalled a particular
incident that was not uncommon. “Back then you couldn’t get into
Queen’s if you were an outsider. The only way in was if a local got
you in. Now some of the boys learned to shape fast. This one fella
who shaped a lot of his own boards was known for being real quick.
Once this [outsider] guy on a good redwood plank drifted into
Queen’s. The guys saw it was a nice piece of wood, so they let him
catch a wave. Right away they shoved him off and the board floated
inside.
“On the beach there were concessions
and a lot of local activity. They had this one area where they kept
the drawknives, saws and all the tools necessary to carve a board. So
anyhow, this uninvited visitor’s board floats in, and by the time
he swam in, the real quick guy had already cut a new outline shape
and had turned one rail. When the owner walked up, the speed shaper
was pulling his drawknife down the other rail. Now the outsider is a
little suspicious and he asks the shaper if he’s seen his lost
board. Then he goes, ‘Hey, that board looks like my board.’ The
answer came back, ‘No way brah, I’ve been here working on this
for weeks. Your board’s probably caught in the rip. I’d go look
down at Publics.’ So the guy walked off looking for it.”38
“Rabbit wrote the book on dirty
tricks,” he said of himself, with a kind of devilish laugh.39
Rabbit well remembers the time of the
first known big wave casualty and of riding Waimea at 20-to-25 feet.
“That was the year Dickie Cross
drowned there,” Rabbit recalled of 1943. “The waves
were cracking all the way from Kaena Point to Kuhuku.”40
The biggest surf Rabbit remembers was
actually not on the North Shore or even Makaha, but right off of
Waikiki:
“The biggest surf I’ve seen and
been out in was during the ‘30s at a place called Bluebirds, in the
steamer (shipping) lane. Hard to estimate. I don’t know how big,
but according to George Downing and Wally Froiseth, it was about
30’-35’. But we couldn’t [accurately] estimate the height out
there.
“The waves crack way outside in the
blue water and there’s no way to line up. You can think you’re in
the right place and the waves will crack way outside you. So we sit
out there and watch and try to take off toward the edge so it really
cracks behind you. Then you can make it all the way down through
Outside Castles and all the way through Big Publics. Then you have to
kick out because there’s just a big wall all the way down to the
Royal Hawaiian. Anyway, that’s what they call Zero Break or Outside
Zero and there were six of us out that day and we practiced the buddy
system – anybody get wiped out we’d go inside and help ‘em
out.”41
“That day the Lurline (632’ ocean
liner) came out and came right by, between us and the shoreline, in
the regular shipping lane like that. And just after he got by us,
just past the break, a big set came and we had to run for it. And the
wave cracked way outside and I’m sure the captain must have just
shit himself when he saw that, because you know what would’ve
happened if he’d been caught broadside like that. Afterwards I went
down to the harbor and talked to him about it and he said he’d seen
us sitting out there and wondered what the hell those crazy surfers
were doing out there in the steamer lane.
“I never did see it break out there
again. Big Castles maybe, but not Bluebirds. I never see it crack
like that again.”42
Rabbit recalled other exceptional days
– in the 15-to-20-foot range – out at Castles:
“You get that and you can go all
across Big Publics, all the way down through Cunhas and sometimes
right through to Queens. But not like they say Duke rode – all the
way from Big Castles to (where now is) the Royal Hawaiian. It is
possible. But Duke and those guys had big 16-footers and they could
do on the green like that – they could just track across.”43
Why don’t we see anything like that,
today?
“There’s sandbars and sections
now,” Rabbit echoes a similar observation that I had heard more
than once before by elders of the tribe. “Before, when we were
young, you’d see one line of wave all the way across. Reefs grow.
Sandbars form. Things change.” 44
1940s
During the early part of World War II, Rabbit joined an Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) training unit stationed at Hale‘iwa. “Two hours or four hours of the day on the job,” Rabbit recalled, “Most of the day free to surf, whatever.” By the afternoon, he was usually back on Waikiki Beach, riding waves or working concession. “It was okay,” he summed-up his early military experience.45
Later on, however, things got a lot
more radical in “the island chains of Micronesia,” Paul Holmes
wrote, “slipping underwater demolition charges onto enemy defenses,
clearing the way for troop landings as the U.S. took back territory
occupied by the Japanese.”46
“Of our ten man unit,” Rabbit sadly
remembers, “only four came back. I had three and a half years of it
and that was enough. I didn’t want to make a career of it. I wanted
back on the beach.”47
Rabbit was one of the many noted 1940s
surfers who banded together to form the Waikiki Surf Club. “I was
in the Waikiki Surf Club with George Downing and those guys,”
Rabbit said with pride.48
Rabbit was there at the Waikiki Surf
Club when the first and second major waves of California surfers
started coming to Waikiki after the war. He’d already established
friendships with Mainland surfers after visiting Southern California
in 1939. At that time, he hung out at San Onofre with Whitey Harrison
and Opai Wert.49
This time, on O‘ahu, he hung out with not only his long-time
friends, but also the new California transplants like Joe Quigg, Matt
Kivlin and Dave Rochlen.50
“Rabbit really started this style
that they call hotdogging,” attested Californian Joe Quigg, who
moved to the islands a little after the war. “In the summer,
Queen’s would get overhead and Rabbit would be inside of the tube
hanging five with no fin and his back arched. All you would see was
this flying green blur visible through the lip of the wave. He’d do
it over and over again, always with precision.”51
“The Island kids were doing amazing
things on all kinds of their finless boards, but no one ever gave
them credit,” underscored Quigg. “Rabbit would come flying out of
the section, stomp on the tail real hard and stand the board straight
up on its tail and bring it down on a different angle and then run to
the nose and take off in another direction. I can remember paddling
out at Makaha in point conditions and pushing up through the lip on a
big set wave. Right at the top, as I’m about to punch through, I
looked down and there was Georgie [Downing] standing there smiling,
going faster than hell on his redwood. He was just streaking along in
impossible situations and making it because of positioning and all
that inertia. Downing pioneered the riding of really big, nasty
waves.”52
“Rabbit and I traded boards one day
at Queen’s,” continued Quigg. “Rabbit was really skinny when he
was young and probably didn’t weigh much at all, so I got on his
board and it just sank. I could stand on it in chest-deep water and
his hot curl would press to the bottom and lay right on the reef.”53
“We got our board’s length coming
down, really trimmed with four inch tails and pointed nose, and
brought in to like 18 or 19 inches. They were pointers like the
modern day gun, that’s how we had our boards. Redwood plants with a
V tail for the big ones at Makaha, where we used to go a lot, we’d
go out with the width to 20 or 20 1/2 inches. At Makaha, you’d drop
in, point and go... make it through the bowl and do cutbacks and S
turns on the inside. At Queen’s, when we used to, ya know, get the
hotdog deal going, my board was like 7 or 7 1/2’, sometimes up to
9’. I used to write ‘Chi-Chi Bobo’ on them.”54
Rabbit underscored that the various
crews were surfing not just in the Waikiki and Makaha areas, but on
the North Shore, particularly Laniakea and Paumalu (later renamed
Velzyland or V-land, in honor of Dale Velzy):55
“George Downing and everybody had a
surfin’ safari,” recalled Rabbit of one particular North Shore
assault. It “started at Diamond Head right around the whole island,
every surf spot you can think of. That was back in the ‘40s.”56
Rabbit added that they were even
surfing Pipeline “way before” 1951. “Yeah, board surfing
Pipeline. We had a family home down on Paumalu. We used to stay out
there, in like a big army barracks, you know, our family place. And
in the back there was a kitchen and outside there was a bath house,
it was a big property out there. During the weekends the family went
out there. So during weekdays Richard Kau, Squirrely, all us guys, we
buy bread, pork and beans, sausage, whatever we could afford and we
stay down there in the place and we surf all the places down there.
Out in front close to where we lived there, we used to surf that
place every day, they call that V-land now. That’s Paumalu, the
whole district by Sunset. The kids talk about V-land and I say we
used to surf there, it’s a left, not a right.... In those days the
reef on the left made for a big, long wall, and we’d mow the left.
We used to like the left because we were used to going left at
Publics, and we’d get good surf, no reef problem. Now, hey you got
rocks over there on the left, look how shallow it is. It’s a big,
steep break going to the right. But try to go left over there
somedays, and the thing just collapse on you.”57
1950s
Rabbit has talked more than once about his friends he surfed with in the 1940s; guys like Woody Brown, who was raising his family in The Tavern environs and was influential in the surfboard designs of the time. Rabbit was next door at Waikiki when Woody first developed the catamaran.
“That guy pancaked a glider from
about 5,000 feet and walked away [in the 1930s],” Rabbit began.
“Just like he did at Waimea Bay [in 1943]. That guy is charmed. His
first wife had passed away back in California and when he first came
here he slept on the beach just like a typical haole guy. We sorta
took a liking to him. He had a balsa board he used to knee paddle.
He’d come out surfing with us guys and we had fun together. We
sorta took him in under our wing. He had a lot of knowledge of board
building… It was mostly Wally and Georgie who befriended him. Then
he married one of the Hawaiian ladies down here, one of the best hula
dancers you’d ever see. He hooked up. Maw Brown we called her. She
raised two kids. And Woody was a good provider.”58
“Woody shaped good boards,” Rabbit
continued, “balsa, balsa-redwood. Then he started building
catamarans. He was the first to bring them down here. They were about
14’ and had lateen sails. I used to sail it off Diamond Head where
the ‘leahi’ wind blew, and when we’d get knocked down over
there, he’d get so mad.”59
About sailing, Rabbit acknowledged,
“Well, it comes natural to all us guys. When I first got onto that
cat I told Woody I knew how but I really didn’t. But I used to go
out and sheet for him and I watched. And I learned. I got good enough
to heel that thing over – it was fun! Then Woody built the first
big catamaran, the Manu Kai, in his backyard. Forty foot. Everybody
pitched in. We rolled the damn thing down the highway and it took
about sixty guys to lift that cat, walk about ten feet then put it
down. Rest. All the way down to a lagoon where we put it in the
water. Then Woody sailed it to Waikiki for the first time. He somehow
got licensed to be the first guy out there.”60
Another friend and fellow surfer was
George Downing:
“George and I used to rule the roost…
In our time George and I were just… top dogs,” Rabbit recalled.61
“… Georgie was more of like a white
water rider. He’d get going on that wall from way back, and when it
came over, he’d drop down and just go. Like he was glued on. Power!
I’m a power surfer too but I like to stay in the green, just
outside the thick part and just shoot it and make it!”62
Asked about his own nose riding, 63
Rabbit said:
“Well, when you trim you move up to
make it go faster, right? So we used to do like cheater fives then
just pull into standing island pull-outs at the end. And it went from
there… the modern day floater, in our days we called that… a
mistake! You’d try to get out of the wave and you’d get stuck on
the top and then come back down again and you’re still on it! We
used to do reverse kickouts too. Backside, kick it out, spin around
the other way and catch it.”64
Of the coast haoles that came
over after the war, Rabbit befriended them and many others that
followed. He became close friends with Matt Kivlin, especially.
“I think he was the best… in my own
opinion,” Rabbit assessed of the early California surfers he knew
in the 1940s and early 1950s. “He had a real stately stance, like
straight up, you know? Real graceful. I used to watch him a lot. Matt
gave me a balsa board that he’d shaped similar to our style, a hot
curl but with a fin. He made that board for his wife and then I rode
it and liked it and he gave it to me. That was in 1954. And I won the
Makaha with that board in ‘56 and ‘57.65
I rode it in Peru [a couple of months later] and won with it there
too. I ended up selling it to the President of Peru’s nephew for
$1000.”66
“My boards were about 16 pounds,
sometimes 18,” Rabbit said of his last redwood boards. “I’d go
heavier because in bigger waves you needed momentum.” Asked if such
lightness in a redwood board was the result of having taken so much
out of the wood, Rabbit replied, “No, you get the light ones
[lightest redwood blanks in the stack]. Some of the redwoods were
just like balsa boards. You’d look for the straight grain and
they’d be really light.”67
Rabbit’s favorite redwood board of
all time was the board he named “Chi-Chi Bobo.”
“… nobody knew (laughter) what it
means! George’s were Pepe. That means ‘baby.’ He still got it
there.”68
As for the fate of all his old boards,
Rabbit replied:
“Deteriorated! You just throw ‘em
under the house and they’d get a lot of drillers in ‘em –
termites! They get to ‘em, you know, or when you leave ‘em
hanging in a ceiling. They deteriorate, you get rid of ‘em.”69
In the early 1950s, Rabbit steered the
Waikiki Surf Club to victory in the second of the then-newly
inaugurated Moloka‘i-to-O‘ahu canoe paddling race.
“The waves were 15’-20’ out in
the channel,” Rabbit remembered. “And our crew did it what we
call iron man – no substitutes, no relief paddlers, just one
six-man crew. The Waikiki Surf Club had another canoe in the race and
they’d gone south, and the escort boat had followed them. But I’d
gone north so nobody even knew where we were. We had no radio
contact, nothing. We capsized three times out there. A big wave came
and I didn’t have a chance to turn in or back it in. We were down
in the trough like a dead duck with another wave coming and I
realized ‘We’re gone now!’ I just had time to yell, ‘Watch
out!’ and the next wave threw the boat [canoe] right over the ama.
Three times that happened but we managed to get the boat up again and
keep going. In the surf it’s pretty common. Thunderbirds we call
‘em, and then you’re pretty close to shore, so no problem. But
out in the open ocean… it was hairy, boy.”70
During his more than 40 years as a
beachboy, Rabbit came in contact with a number of well-known people.71
Asked for any “interesting encounters with celebrities over the
years,” Rabbit replied:
“Gregory Peck, Kirk Douglas, Red
Skelton, William Bendix. I worked in a lot of the movies that were
filmed in Waikiki. Gidget Goes Hawaiian, The Old Man and
the Sea, Mr. Roberts, From Here To Eternity,
Hawaii, Diamond Head. All the ones that came down here,
everyone got in ‘em. I made good money. Georgie was pissed at me
because he was handling all the extras and getting ten percent of
their pay, but he couldn’t get any of mine. Working on the movie
Blue Hawaii, I got in a beef with Elvis. I could handle myself
with him, no problem, but I went to the director and told him hey,
I’m out of here.”72
Other noted celebrities included Redd
Foxx, Dorothy Lamour, Deborah Kerr, Michael Douglas, David Niven and
Gary Cooper. Gary Cooper enjoyed Rabbit’s company so much, he
wanted to take him to dinner with his family to one of O‘ahu’s
fanciest restaurants. “I told him I couldn’t go because they had
a dress code and I didn’t have clothes for that place,” Rabbit
remembers. That didn’t stop Cooper, who outfitted Rabbit with
appropriate attire in order to make the occasion.73
When the owners of the Dodgers baseball
team – the O’Malleys – put their championship team up at the
Royal Hawaiian for an off season break, Rabbit got a chance to meet a
number of famous ball players all at once. He took both Sandy Koufax
and Don Drysdale out in an outrigger that pearled on a First Break
swell, pitching the canoe over their heads and filling with water. “I
made a quick move and bring the nose up and got it all the way back
to shore. But when I asked ‘em if they wanted to go out for one
more they both jumped out and said, ‘No way.’ It was pretty
hairy,” Rabbit admitted with a laugh. “They’d never forget that
day. They had a ball surfing though. I took ‘em surfing on my big
Hobie tandem board and got ‘em all standing up. We had so much fun
that year.”74
“We’d been there before them guys,”
Rabbit said of the Coast Haoles who usually get the credit for
being the first ones to re-open the North Shore. “I hate it when
they (the media) say they were the first.”75
“Da Bull, Peter Cole, Van Dyke, they
said they were the first, and all those guys, you read about ‘em in
the magazines, they were the first guys to ride Waimea. I said hey,
we been here before you guys, but the pictures were taken that
publicize you guys. I said you were the first to be photographed, but
not the first to ride Waimea!”76
Remembering that he and his friends
were riding the North Shore “In the ‘30s and ‘40s,” Rabbit
specified it was “Mostly Haleiwa… and Sunset” on planks.77
“Peter Cole and those guys,” Rabbit
went on, “we sat down and had a big argument, especially [Fred] Van
Dyke. They say they were the first and all that, but they all came
down ‘56-’58. I asked them if they every heard of a guy named
Dickie Cross? They said, ‘Yeah he died at Waimea.’ I said,
‘Right. In the 1940s, think about it.’ Two guys that went out
that day were Woody Brown and Dickie Cross. A guy named Stew Sakamoto
and myself, we missed our ride going down with them that morning, we
came about half an hour later. That evening we heard the news.”78
Debunking the popular myth that the
North Shore wasn’t ridden until the 1950s by California surfers,
Rabbit pointed out that in the 1940s, surf safaris were taking locals
all over the islands. As an example, he gave Downing’s 1940s surf
safari that had started at Diamond Head and gone around the whole
island.79
Rabbit mentioned that they were surfing
Pipeline way before Mike Doyle and Phil Edwards broke it open at the
beginning of the 1960s and before Bob Simmons and Flippy Hoffman were
bodysurfing it in 1951. “We had a family home down on Paumalu
[Sunset Beach].”80
Rabbit gives credit to the hot curl
guys for being the first to open up Makaha and then the North Shore.
“Nobody used to go out there. Then the town guys started to go. The
pioneers I would say would be George Downing, Wally [Froiseth], Henry
Lum, Woody Brown…”81
As for Makaha, “The first time I rode
Makaha,” Rabbit recalled, “it was about an 8’ day. One time it
got big and George and them, they went out, and they came back and
said, ‘Hey Rabbit, try there, breaking big, the point.’ So that’s
when we’d go. We used to ride the point a lot. Woody Brown, Wally,
George, Henry Lum… they were what you call the regulars, and I used
to tag along. And after you go there a couple of times you just get
the bug.”82
“You know,” Rabbit said, “a lot
of guys talk about surviving big wave wipeouts at Waimea. To me, you
do it like a paratrooper, spread eagle. It will tumble you if you’re
in a ball. But if you’re spread eagle it will push you down but you
can control yourself underwater. You just stay down as long as you
can then come up. Just like a paratrooper jumping out of a plane.
Same thing underwater. And go with the surge, it pushes you. The next
one come in you go down deep, spread eagle and it pushes you in till
you’re home free.
“Another thing, some guys like Van
Dyke, Tommy Zahn, Peter Cole, they had a theory, they used to train
in swimming pools to stay under for one whole minute because that’s
how long they felt a big wave held you down. So one day I say, ‘You
sure you stay down one whole minute?’ And they go yep! So I say
look, if surf breaking now – ten to fifteen seconds interval. You
tell me you always come up before the next one come. But for one
minute you gotta stay down four waves. You guys never will do that.
They started to think and when they got my drift, it was Ricky Grigg
who said you’re right Rabbit.
“Another thing, when you get nailed,
you go down, get rolled around, you don’t know which way the
surface is. In the olden days a lot of the guys would tie a balsa
chip or ping pong ball up in a net on a string. It told you which way
up was. But the human body is like a cat, you know how when you drop
‘em, they always turn feet first? With the human body, if you
relax, the head always turns back up. You try to dive down in a pool,
you’ll see. So, down in that turbulence, a lot of guys they fight,
they’re going down the wrong way. If you spread eagle, you find
that you’re able to come back up, naturally. This is survival that
I’m talking about. When you come back up, don’t take a deep
breath like everybody, that’s the worst thing you can do. You take
a normal breath, you can hold it longer.
“Another thing, when you think you’re
running out of breath, you snort out! Push out the stale air. (Rabbit
exhales sharply through his nose.) Blow it out! You find you’ve got
a reserve air supply. And you’ve got that much time to come back
up. And when you snort it out, your whole body feels light coming
back up. That’s our theories. In the olden days we talk about it.
That’s how we find out. How, you know, survival on big waves.
Today, I don’t know if anybody got that kind of knowledge, but
that’s the way it is.”83
“In extreme conditions,” Rabbit
said, “when something happens, something goes wrong, you can get in
situations you just can’t get out of. You’ve got to know your
limits. If you can handle it, do it. If you can’t handle it, don’t
do it. The smart guy is the one who knows when he’s in over his
limit and will just paddle in.”84
By the mid-1950s, Rabbit was an
established authority and a proven champion.85
He began to pass on his knowledge to the younger generation of
surfers then coming up in Hawaii; guys like Joey Cabell, Donald
Takayama and Harold Iggy.
“I loved Joey,” Rabbit said. “He
was a funny little kid. I used to watch him come down before he’d
go to school. He would come out, but he didn’t have his own board,
and my boards were in a big banyan tree there and he’d take down my
board and go surf. We’d just stand our boards in a tree and
nobody’d steal boards, except us guys, we would steal somebody
else’s and shape’em down (Rabbit chuckles)!”86
“You betta believe it!” Rabbit
detailed another memory of how the locals got some over on the
tourists. “They were outlined by the time the guy’d get in. A
couple of the other guys, they got caught. One guy, Mike Franks,
would stick a template on the plank and then they’d just outline
the whole thing, saw through that thing so fast, draw knife the
thing, plane the bottom already, and the top, whatever paint the guy
had, or varnish, they’d plane the thing off so it’s just
unfinished wood by the time they’d get in. And they’d say,
‘Where’d you get the new board?’ And we’d go, ‘Lewis and
Cook’ (The local lumber company). Wood was cheap then. It cost
about fifteen bucks for a blank. But the trouble was the wood was in
stacks. You had to go through all of it to find the good stuff. See
most of it was still wet. They didn’t kiln dry in those days.”
87
“Nose Hemma was another guy. He
wanted to get a board and there were some boards guys had left in the
locker that were brand new from Sears & Roebuck. Hollow boards.
Nose just painted one red and left it laying outside the locker. Then
he walked up right in front of the guy who was looking for his board,
picked it up and walked away with his board. He got four boards like
that.” 88
Both Joey Cabell and Alan Gomes were
influenced by Rabbit.
“Alan was the hottest,” Rabbit
recalled, “he was older than Joey. Alan used to be George Downing’s
protégé, he won all the juniors, then right after that Joey started
to come up. He was my protégé.”89
Alan’s father was noted wood
craftsman Abel Gomes.90
“Well, he owned a shop where they
made furniture,” Rabbit remembered, “so he [Abel] had all the
tools and access to any kind of wood. He shaped all of the boards for
Alan. Boy that guy was making some unreal boards, total craftsman
style. Alan had all the best. Alan and Georgie Downing and Wally
Froiseth; they all used to live in that one block on Tusitla (that’s
Tahitian for a peaceful place to reminisce). Abel made boards for a
lot of those guys. Wally made his own boards and he made boards for
Georgie too.”91
“We all looked up to Wally because he
was the oldest. You always look up to your elders with respect.”
Rabbit said everyone’s style was similar, “but Wally’s a
trimmer. He’s got balls, and he would stay deep in the pocket and
just fly. In other words, he’d just let it get as steep as he could
and go for speed. That was everybody’s aim in our time when the
waves were big.”92
Passing on the Calabash
In his later years, Rabbit spent a good deal of his time as Beach Marshall for the annual Triple Crown pro events on the North Shore, the HLF longboarding series, and scores of amateur contests for Island kids.93
“I’ll be a coach for any of today’s
guys who show that they’ll listen,” Rabbit once said, listing
surfers as different as Kelly Slater and Ken Bradshaw among those
he’s guided.94
“I see what they can do,” Rabbit
said about those he coached, “but the one thing now I notice that
all the coaches… they don’t understand waterman’s knowledge.
They don’t look for the tide, they don’t look for the type of
break they’re getting and how to work the wave. That’s one thing
they’re lacking. I don’t say anything, I don’t knock ‘em down
on it, and I don’t give ‘em pointers. Cause some coaches if you
give pointers, they get pissed off at you. So I stay to myself. I use
my water knowledge and get the kids to do it. I teach different
things different ways.”95
“I remember one time, at Ala Moana,
the bowl – a funny thing,” Rabbit continued. “We were having a
contest and there was this guy who was a big name. He comes out there
dropping in on every damn kid. And Ala Mo was his place. We tried to
kick him out and he kept doing it so I went out there and told him,
‘Come on, give it back to the kids, you’ve had your fun.’ He
said, ‘Hey, I want to surf, nobody’s going to chase me outta
here.’ And I told him, ‘Hey, give’em break.’ So I went inside
and sat and he lost his board [in the pre-leash days] and it came up
to me and stopped. As he swam up he smiled at me because I had hold
of his board, and I gave it one chop and his skeg went like that
(Rabbit makes a fin bend flat with his hand). I said, ‘Here, go
surf.’ He didn’t do anything, I didn’t do anything. I’d just
broke his best board’s skeg! Boy he was sick! (Rabbit makes sort of
an abashed laugh as if the whole deal had amazed him too.) Later he
came up and apologized. I said, you want it fixed – I fix it if you
want. He said no. But you know, he learned a lesson without us
getting in a fight or anything.”96
In talking about the passage of
knowledge from one generation to another, Rabbit mentioned Dad
Center. “Good man,” Rabbit said simply but with emphasis. “So
you learn a lot from those old guys. Nowadays, in my own opinion, I
wouldn’t pass on the waterman knowledge from those guys to the
modern-day guys. If there’s a certain guy that I see, that it’s
worth passing on, I do it. But outside of that I won’t, because
these guys, they’re ego guys. Everything is for them and I hate
that. You see, pass on to something, do it right and try to share.
But a lot of these guys, modern-day coaches, I watch them and
sometimes, like the Outrigger crew here, the club, they had the best
crew you can get (I used to compete against them), but they never
win, they’re way in the back. Like eight crews and they’re number
seven. They got pissed off at their coach. So they came and asked me.
I told them, you know what, I cannot do it unless you get permission
from the club and from the coach. The coach tell me, ‘You think you
can do anything better than what we’re doing for the kids, you got
my blessing out there.’ I asked, ‘Free hand?’ He said, ‘Free
hand!’ In other words they don’t bug me. For four days I worked
the crew. The fifth day I got them to go slow for timing to iron out
all the kinks. They went in that next race and they broke the record.
One of the fathers had money, you know, he tried to push some on us.
But I said no, my reward is to see the kids win. But I created such a
monster by coaching those kids to win! All the other clubs that were
losing, they wanted me to coach.”97
Rabbit was asked what to him is a
waterman and he replied, “A guy that knows everything. He can
handle himself in the worst situations, and he can look out for other
people. For instance, every time there’s a body recovery they call
us guys. We know the situation, where to go. They say, ‘Why here?’
We just know the ground. One time this guy who was Chief of
Detectives come to me and say, ‘My son’s out there.’ So I took
my board out there and look around on the bottom… and found him…
brought in his little boy.”98
Asked in the mid-1990s who was worth
investing in – who had the waterman’s spirit – Rabbit replied:
“There’s a lot of up and coming
lifeguards who are watermen. The pick of the littler is Brian
Keaulana. Boy! He’s got all that knowledge that Buffalo has pumped
into him. That guy, he’s the best. Have you seen that rescue he did
with the jet ski and everything? I tell you, modern day techniques
with those jet skis are unbelievable. Before, we never did have
anything like that. The only thing we had was what we called the
buddy system. One guy go down, one stay up and look for ‘em, or we
try to get his board, in big surf we go out and grab ‘em tandem.
When things happen like that you just get ‘em in to the beach,
smile and go back out.”99
Does Rabbit like to ride with a leash
or without?
“Right now, at my age, I’ll take it
with!” Rabbit replied.100
“I don’t want to swim in from way the hell out there. In our
time, at the Makaha contest, if you lose your board, you’re out.
That’s why George Downing and I, white water or not, we’d just
prone it out. In our days proning was chicken. It wasn’t kosher.
But if you prone out, you live, and get back up again…”101
“If you had to assign a label to
Rabbit Kekai to classify him,” surf writer C.R. Stecyk wrote of a
seemingly impossible task, “it would have to be something like,
‘The father of modern hotdogging.’ Guys like Kivlin, Quigg,
Edwards, Dora, Takayama and Cabell all regard him as a primary
influence. Kekai’s contest record is unparalleled and includes the
Makaha and Peruvian International titles.”102
Asked if he had any special regimens or
health practices to keep fit,103
Rabbit replied:
“I get down if I don’t go surfin’
or get in the water. You become like a couch potato. Sluggish. I
gotta get in the water, so even if it’s flat I’ll go paddle. And
I like competition.104
“I liked surfing in the Makaha
contest and getting guys like Eddie Aikau and Phil Edwards in my
heat; and Jeff Hakman, Felipe Pomar. I remember one day it was so
big. I remember paddling out and passing the bowl and sets are coming
in. Like about five or six waves. And I just barely squeezed through
one, paddling for dear life out of the impact zone and the next one
was bigger yet and just about to peel over. I turned and paddled as
fast as I could and caught it and dove straight down, just like a
plane doing a nine-G dive to pick up speed, as fast as I could,
through that whole big section, and I made it out right into the
channel. And Eddie was out there. Eddie looked at me and he said, ‘No
way, Rabbit, you’re crazy!’ And I said, ‘Life or death, Eddie.
To get outta there it was either that way or get nailed. I just
pulled it out.’ That’s always stuck in my mind, that time with
Eddie at Makaha.
“Eddie was special. To me, Waimea Bay
was Eddie… and Jose Angel. Those two guys are tops in my book.”
105
Asked if there was anything left that
Rabbit wanted to achieve before his time in this life was over,
Rabbit answered:
“The water is so good. It keeps me
young while my friends are so old. I tell them to get in the water.
It calms you – no stress – and brings you back to earth.”106
“Well, my dream is to surf as long as
I can. Everybody ask me and I say, ‘Hey, I’m looking at a
hundred.’ They laugh but that’s my thing, to keep surfing and
keep competing and see how far I can go.”107
ENDIT
------------------------------------------------------
1
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 65. Rabbit Kekai.
2
Stecyk, C.R. and Pezman, Steve. “Rabbit Kekai – Talking Story,”
The
Surfer’s Journal,
Volume 3, Number 4, Winter 1994, p. 65.
3
Borte, Jason. Bio of Rabbit for Surfline, January 2001.
Rabbit quoted.
4
Borte, Jason. Bio of Rabbit for Surfline, January 2001.
5
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard,
Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 51.
6
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard,
Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 51.
Paipo,
another terms for a keoe
or wooden bodyboard.
7
Stecyk, Craig and Pezman, Steve. “Rabbit Kekai -- Talking Story,”
The
Surfer’s Journal,
Volume 3, Number 4, Spring 1995, p. 65. “Chuck-A-Long” was
spelled “Chuck Ah Long “ in the Longboard
article. See
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard,
Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 52.
8
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard,
Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 52.
9
Stecyk and Pezman, 1995 p. 65. Rabbit quoted.
10
Stecyk and Pezman, 1995, p. 65. Rabbit quoted.
11
Stecyk and Pezman, 1995, pp. 65-66. Rabbit quoted.
12
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 52.
13
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 66. Rabbit Kekai.
14
Stecyk, “Hot Curl,” The Surfer’s Journal, Summer 1994, p. 71.
Rabbit Kekai.
15
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 52.
16
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 52.
17
Meaning, they’d “liberate” the boards and make alterations so
they could not later be recognized.
18
Stecyk and Pezman, 1995, p. 72. Rabbit Kekai quoted.
19
Stecyk and Pezman, 1995, pp. 72-73. Rabbit Kekai quoted.
20
Stecyk and Pezman, 1995, p. 73. Rabbit Kekai quoted.
21
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 53.
22
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 52.
23
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 52.
24
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 52.
25
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 52.
26
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 52.
27
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, pp. 52-53.
28
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, pp. 53-54.
29
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 54.
30
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 54.
31
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, pp. 67-68. Rabbit Kekai.
32
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 54.
33
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 55.
34
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 55.
35
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 75. Rabbit Kekai.
36
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 55.
37
Stecyk, “Hot Curl,” The Surfer’s Journal, Summer 1994, p. 71.
Rabbit Kekai.
38
Stecyk, “Hot Curl,” The Surfer’s Journal, Summer 1994, p. 67.
George Downing.
39
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 58.
40
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 55.
Rabbit recalled the year as 1941, but Dickie Cross died at Waimea on
December 22, 1943. See
Gault-Williams, “Woody Brown: Pilot, Surfer, Sailor,” The
Surfer’s Journal,
Volume 5, Number 3, Fall 1996, pp. 94-107. Photo prints by Bud
Browne.
41
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 56.
42
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 56.
43
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 56.
44
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 56.
45
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, pp. 56-57.
46
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 57. Paul
Holmes.
47
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 57. See
also
classic Clarence Maki photo of Rabbit on the beach at Waikiki,
during the late 1940s, p. 56.
48
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 72.
49
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 57.
50
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 57.
Holmes also added Bob Simmons to the list of Coast Haoles, also.
51
Stecyk, “Hot Curl,” 1994, p. 71. Joe Quigg.
52
Stecyk, “Hot Curl,” 1994, p. 70. Joe Quigg.
53
Stecyk, “Hot Curl,” 1994, p. 70. Joe Quigg.
54
Stecyk, “Hot Curl,” 1994, p. 71. Rabbit Kekai.
55
Stecyk & Pezman, “Rabbit Kekai -- Talking Story,” 1994, p.
72.
56
Stecyk & Pezman, “Rabbit Kekai -- Talking Story,” 1994, p.
72.
57
Stecyk & Pezman, “Rabbit Kekai -- Talking Story,” 1994, p.
72.
58
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 75. Rabbit Kekai.
59
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 75. Rabbit Kekai.
60
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 75. Rabbit Kekai.
61
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 75. See
also
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, Walter
Hoffman classic photo of the winners of the Christmas Day races,
1953. Freatured trophy finalists were Tom Moore, George Downing, Pat
Wyman, unidentified, and Nigger Kekai in front of the Moana Hotel,
p. 53.
62
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 75.
63
See Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First
Among Equals,” Longboard, Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998,
Clarence Maki
classic photo (from Rabbit’s personal collection) of Rabbit riding
Queen’s in
the early 1950s,
p. 51.
64
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 75.
65
See Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First
Among Equals,” Longboard,
Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, classic Bud Browne photo (in
Rabbit’s personal collection) of Rabbit surfing Makaha in 1958,
post-Chi-Chi Bobo, p. 55. See
also
classic Dr. Don James photo of Rabbit surfing Makaha in 1958, p. 57.
66
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 69. Rabbit Kekai. See
also photo
of Rabbit in The
Surfer’s Journal,
Volume 3, Number 2, 1994, p. 68.
67
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 70.
68
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 70.
69
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 70.
70
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard,
Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 57.
71
See
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard,
Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, Bernie Baker photo of Rabbit
giving Katie Couric of NBC’s “Today” show dry-sand lessons on
surfboard riding, 1990s, p. 54.
72
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, pp. 75-76.
73
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard,
Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 54.
74
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard,
Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, pp. 54-55.
75
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard,
Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, pp. 55-56.
76
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 72.
77
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 72.
78
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 72.
79
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 72.
80
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 72. See
also
Gault-Williams, “Ancient Hawaiian Surf Culture.” Sunset was
originally known as Paumalu,
a known surfing spot even before Europeans landed in the Hawaiian
Islands.
81
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 72. Wally gives credit to Gene Smith and
Whitey Harrison as first in the modern era to rediscover the North
Shore in 1938-39. See
Gault-Williams, “Surf Drunk, The Wally Froiseth Story,” The
Surfer’s Journal,
Volume 6, Number 4, Winter 1997.See
also Gault-Williams, LEGENDARY SURFERS Volume 3: The 1930s, ©2012
by Malcolm Gault-Williams.
82
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 72.
83
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 76.
84
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard,
Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 58.
85
This also included the area of tandem riding. See
photos of
Rabbit with noted 1963-64 tandem partner Momi Adache in Holmes,
Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among Equals,”
Longboard,
Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 58. Dr. Don James photo. See
also
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 76 & 71. “Momi was a gymnast at
U.H.,” Rabbit said. “I tumbled there and got to know her coach,
Don Gustafson, and he put us together. We jelled right away. She was
a little heavier than the other gals, but she had spring and balance
so I didn’t have to dead lift her.” [same Momi as today’s
Momi Keaulana?]
86
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 70.
87
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 70.
88
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 70.
89
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 70.
90
See
Gault-Williams, “Tom Blake and the Hollows,” Longboard,
Volume 3, Number 3, August/September 1995 for more info on Abel
Gomes and his craftsmanship.
91
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 70.
92
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, pp. 70-71.
93
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard,
Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, p. 58.
94
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard,
Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998,
p. 57.
95
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 74.
96
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 74.
97
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, pp. 73-74.
98
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 74.
99
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 74.
100
See
Holmes, Paul. “Rabbit Kekai: Last of the Beachboys, First Among
Equals,” Longboard,
Volume 6, Number 2, May/June 1998, classic photo (in Rabbit’s
personal collection) of Rabbit hot-dogging Queens in 1984, p. 52.
See also
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, photo of Rabbit on a Ben Aipa noserider,
1970s, p. 73.
101
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 75.
102
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 65.
103
See
photo of Rabbit’s feet in Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 72.
104
See
photo of Rabbit nose trimming in the July 1994 Kahanamoku Contest,
in Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 74. Also
picture of he and his brother Jamma on p. 75.
105
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 76.
106
Borte, Jason. Surfline bio, January 2001.
107
Stecyk and Pezman, 1994, p. 76.