Frederick Kohner (1905–86) studied at the Sorbonne, received a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Vienna, worked as a screenwriter in Berlin, then fled Europe just ahead of the Nazis. He arrived in Southern California and began working in Hollywood, and his screenplay for 1938’s Mad About Music was nominated for an Academy Award. Gidget, Kohner's 1957 debut novel, written in just six weeks, was based on the stories told by his 15-year-old daughter about learning to surf at Malibu. Kohner went on to write the script for the 1959 screen version of Gidget, as well as several sequel books. He also wrote Broadway plays and taught film classes at the University of Southern California.

I’m just crazy about swimming. I really am. I must have been thrown into some Southern California swimming pool when I was six months old . . . and I’ve been in the water ever since.

Pools are not the real thing of course. But give me a mountain lake (like the one on the Brenner Pass I swam in last year in Europe) or the Garda Lake or that bitchen Mondsee in Austria—even Lake Arrowhead. Boy, they’re doing it to me.

But the real thing is the ocean. And I don’t mean that crummy Adriatic Ocean and I don’t mean the Atlantic either (I tried them all out). I mean the Pacific. I’ve been in and out of that bitchen Pacific from Carmel down to Coronado and there’s no water around the world that can beat it. That’s what Rachel Carson says too, and she ought to know having written that terrific book 

I guess the whole thing started because I’m so short. I’m not quite five feet but if it hadn’t been for that year-round swimming I’d probably stayed a dwarf. My mother had this crazy idea that I’d grow if I’d only stretch my body as much and long as possible and that’s why she made me swim from the time I can remember. She took a boat up at Arrowhead Lake and I had to swim close to her as she rowed and rowed—for hours. Turned out to be not such a crazy idea after all. Most of her friends laughed at it and so did Dr. Rossman who is our family doctor, but—lo and behold—what started out as a dwarf grew into an almost five-footer. When someone asks me about my height I always say five-foot, naturally, like when someone wants to know my age I say going on seventeen.

I’m really quite cute. I’ve real blond hair and wear it in a horsetail. My two big canines protrude a little which worries my parents a great deal. They urge me to have my teeth pushed back with the help of some crummy piece of hardware, but I’ve been resisting any attempt to tamper with my personality. The only thing that worries me is my bosom. It’s there all right, and it sure looks good when I’m undressed, but I have a hard time making it count in a sweater or such. Most of those kids in Franklin High are a lot taller and have a lot more to show—but most of them wear those damn falsies that stick out all over the place and I’d rather be caught dead than be a phony about a thing like your bosom. Imagine what a boy thinks of you once he finds out. And he finds out sure as hell the first time he takes you to a show.

It’s different in a bathing suit of course. Nothing helps there—no falsies or such phony stuff.

I’ve got a couple of real sexy-looking bathing suits that’re pretty low-cut and have a skin-tight fit. When Jeff saw me the first time, I was wearing the pink one and that’s why he called me Pinky—real corny.

Now that I mentioned his name I better stick with him for it’s Jeff’s story as well as mine and when I think back on that summer and all those things that happened it’ll be Jeff first and then a long, long stretch of nothing and then Cass, the great Kahoona, or maybe it will be Cass first and Cass last—who knows what comes first to your mind once you sport a lot of bags under your eyes?

Well, that day—it was the Fourth of July—I went with my parents to good old Malibu. They go there all year long—on account of me liking to swim and then on account of 

 being sort of nuts about sun and fresh air and a lot of running around to “keep fit.” They always meet with a bunch of other fresh-air fiends and loll around and talk a lot of boring stuff, intellectual and such, my old man being a professor of German Literature at USC.

Most of the time I take a girlfriend along when I ride out to the beach with them—Mai Mai or Poppy or Barbara—but this Fourth of July I was alone. Everyone was afraid of traffic and accidents and sunstroke (we had some two hundred degrees of heat that day)—so I was good and stuck with the old lady and the old man. I took my portable radio along though and heaps of peanut butter sandwiches and 

 which I have been reading on and off for a year. I’m really horrible about reading. It’s embarrassing, especially for my old man who is a Doctor of Literature, but it just seems impossible for me to concentrate. To be honest I’d rather write a book than read it. I once discussed this problem with Larry who is my sister’s husband and a professional headshrinker. The way he explained it to me is that I’m suffering from an inferiority complex on account of my old man having zillions of books around the house and reading like a maniac. Could be—but I’m not worrying about it. I sort of feel that living life is better than reading about it in books.

I always like to get out for a real long swimming binge before I eat my sandwiches, so that Sunday I put on a pair of fins that belonged to Billy who is a deep-sea-diving enthusiast. Billy comes down to the beach with more stuff than Cousteau took to inspect the Silent World: tattered overalls, faceplates, oxygen masks, barbed spears with a line on them, old tire tubes, and other spooky equipment. Billy’s a great expert on inspecting the lower depths of Rancho Malibu and a cunning killer of perch, bass, octopus and abalone. Once he plucked a lobster weighing ten pounds.

Personally I don’t care for all this underwater crap but I do get a kick out of putting on the fins and a faceplate and observing the love life of the abalone—which is quite fascinating, believe me—and that’s exactly what I did on that fabulous Fourth of July day.

The coast was flat and even when I started out—hardly a ripple in sight. I headed out for the wide open spaces which is a cinch with those fins—if they fit over your feet.

A diver can kick a couple of times and—smack!—he’s 50 feet underwater. Besides, you can streak through the choppiest waves with them like a bitchen rocket ship.

Little did I know that day what I was in for.

I was out there for about ten minutes slipping in and out the waves, diving down to look around occasionally in some corridors of kelp, coming up for some drags of air again, when this huge thing came from nowhere. A wave as big as a house rose suddenly out of the smooth surface feathering with foam on the top—and crashing down at me. Boy, it sure knocked me silly.

When I came up again—and just in time to get a fresh drag of air—another one came, big and green and swelling, sucking up all the water in front of me. I dove quickly the way I had learned it and let it pass—and came up again. Only now I noticed that I was far out—almost at the end of the pier. The place I had started from was nowhere in sight and one tremendous wave after another came rolling in towards the shoal water. The tide was coming in and I was caught in it!

Boy, it nearly choked me. I’d never get back. I realized that I had been swept toward the cove side of the beach. The waves broke here and rolled like long, incredibly powerful cylinders toward the shore.

I dove, came up again, saw another wave sky-high zooming towards me, dove again, came up—caught air—and screamed.

While I screamed I realized that it was stupid, the noise of the crashing wave almost blasting my eardrums. Who would hear me? Even under the surface it was gurgling and churning by now and green and red specks danced up and down before my eyes.

Once more I made a lunge towards the surface, stuck my head out and opened my mouth to suck for fresh air.

Half a dozen boys squatting barely a hundred feet away from me on their surfboards . . . waiting for the big hump. It was such a funny sight, like a goddamn Fata Morgana. I wasn’t alone anymore. I would be saved.

Again I screamed. No one heard me. Another wave came pounding along. I ducked it. By now the saltwater was biting my eyes. I began to struggle blindly—trying desperately to get to the surface again. I mechanically treaded with my fins, rose up, fought for air—and was all of a sudden lifted to the surface. A pair of powerful arms were around my neck, almost strangling me.

The next moment I felt some hard board under my body and struggled out of the grip that held me.

I was sitting on a surfboard in the clear water beyond the surf line and the guy who had fished me out of the water had a grin on his face as wide as Joe E. Brown’s. I was glad I was saved but I sure didn’t care for that smile on his face. He felt pretty big.

“Hey, Shorty—what’re you doing out here?”

“What do you think I’m doing,” I said, “looking for some seagull eggs?”

‘Sure,” I retorted, “I’ve tucked them under my fins.”

That smug grin got smugger—if that was possible.

“Ahhh—that’s why you got lost, Pinky.” He looked down at my fins as if they were a couple of toilet seats.

“What’s right with it,” he said dryly.

Dammit, I felt like spitting in his face.

Meanwhile, the other guys on the boards came to life.

“Who’s that fine-looking coozy?” hollered another one. He wore a straw hat as big as a cartwheel.

“Is she for real, Moondoggie?” another surfer called over.

“Bite the rag, you guys,” he snorted. Then he turned around—I was dangling at the tail end of the board—and said evenly: “Okay—to the nose, Pinky!”

I hadn’t the faintest notion what he meant. All I knew was that he had a lousy personality.

“It so happens my name isn’t Pinky,” I said.

“Will you please take me to the shore,” I said haughtily.

“You hear this, men?” he hollered. “She wants to go to the shore.”

“My folks will be worried,” I said. “I’ve been out here for some time.”

“Okay, Kiddo,” said the character they called Moondoggie. “Slide on your tummy up front—I’ll get you back to Mamaville.”

I didn’t say anything and just did as he told me. He, too, slid down, turned his head to look back towards the onrushing waves, dropped his hands into the water and began to paddle.

I began to paddle with my arms the way I saw the others doing it . . . then a big wave came moving in with a rush. I could feel the water fall underneath me as it rose. It was a smooth and pure wave, not a trace of foam in it. Moondoggie and I tandemed forward with a couple of strokes and the board began to move ahead. I could feel it being lifted upwards as we cut the water with our hands. The speed increased. I got a tremendous kick out of it. “Watch out, Pinky!” he yelled.

The wave was now at its highest peak. For a moment I had this earsplitting buzz in my head, and then—zoom—we went down, the board almost dropped away under our stomachs, the water hissed and roared, foam tossed over my shoulder. Then the noise was dying down and the board chittered and came to a crunching halt in a few inches of water.

I looked around. Only two other guys had made it. The rest had gotten the ax.

I felt so jazzed up about this ride I could have yelled. Moondoggie swung his long legs around and dragged the board ashore. He was tall, I could see it now, all of his gorgeous six-foot-two. “Well, Pinky,” he said, “how was that for a pull-out?”

He bent down and lifted the board up, swung the 35 pounds over his head as if it were a pair of skis and walked away. I stood there like a dope, with those crummy fins still on my feet.

“Hey,” I yelled after him, “thanks for the ride.”

He didn’t even turn his head. A real freep, if you ask me. He wore tight blue jeans that had those phony fringes but he had a damn good build must admit.

About two hundred feet offshore stood this old Quonset hut made from bamboo sticks and palmettos and odd pieces of driftwood. There was a crude fence built around it and in the enclosure some of the surfers were squatting in the sand, their knees drawn under their body. When Moondoggie came up to the fence they called out.

“It’s me—and I’m in love again,” someone started on a uke.

“Ah—blow yourself!” was all my lifesaver said. He wasn’t mad or anything. Jeff Moondoggie. Funny name. I yanked the fins off my feet and started back towards the bay where my parents sat. I figured they must have had a dozen hemorrhages by now, with me gone for an hour and all. I was impatient to get back to them—but not 

 impatient. I was thinking of the ride on that board with Jeff and I was terribly proud of myself. I wondered whether I would be able to lift that board the way he did and carry it up the beach over my head. Boy, to be able to ride—all by yourself!

Boards were nothing new to me. I’ve been skiing for years and I’ve done some waterskiing too. But this was different. I don’t want to sound corny but my heart went flippity-flop and I got all hot inside just thinking of it.

Then I saw this grubby-looking guy with these pants that looked like male frenchies working away with a wood plane on an unfinished surfboard. He had a regular workshop made up on the beach and a sign said WANT BOARDS—ASK STINKY. A few boards—one with a nude girl à la Monroe painted on it—leaned against the fence.

I forgot about my old lady and old man and all and watched the guy. The wood shavings were flying around as he planed away like a madman.

He said “Hi” too but gave me a big freeze otherwise—just polishing away on that damn board. I wondered whether all surfers were like him and Moondoggie—snooty bastards.

“Me,” he said . . . just ignoring me.

That made him look up. He wasn’t exactly friendly as be gave me the once-over.

“No—for my Aunt Hester,” I said, trying to be funny.

“This is 75 bucks,” Stinky said, not moving a muscle, “but you couldn’t handle it, little one.”

He screwed up his face and shook his head.

He scanned around his workshop, dropped the plane, reached for an old beaten-up thing with a lot of notches in it and lifted it up with one hand.

“Twenty-five bucks,” he said. “Weighs only 20 pounds. Lift it!”

I lifted it. It felt like a sack of pebbles. “I’ll put some fiberglass on,” Stinky said. “Look like new.”

“You’ll be here tomorrow?” I asked.

“Okay—make it look like new. I’ll pick it up at ten.”

It usually takes me years to make up my mind.

1957: EXCERPT FROM "GIDGET," BY FREDERICK KOHNER

Subscribe or Login

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features

The Sunday Joint

Videos