A lot of rules don't apply to people as cool as Billy Hamilton. It's unfair, but there you go. Self-contradiction, for example. Hamilton was so cool that he enthusiastically wave the anti-contest flag ("Contests should not fit into surfing, and surfing should not fit into contests"), while at the same time cashing checks from big North Shore events (he was a three-time Duke finalist, and '71 Smirnoff runner-up)—and nobody called bullshit. 

Meanwhile, Hamilton's surf-musings were outstandingly hippy-dippy even by the fatuous standard of the era. Here's a taste, from a 1974 

 article: "We all have our individual rhythms and tempos, which we use in accordance with the various evolutionary patterns of time and space." Fifteen-hundred words of that, and neary every surfer on earth, save Flippy Hoffman and Bluey Mayes, read the article, nodded their shaggy unwashed head and muttered, "Right on

Hamilton got away with this and more because he was our Jesus of Cool. I mean, the hair alone. A perfect marcelled dirty-blonde comb-back, in combination with a tidy middleweight push-broom mustache that made Gerry Lopez' face furniture look pubescent and weak by comparison. Add black Wayfarers, a closetful of well-fitted glam-casual clothes, and a Robert Redford smile, and Hamilton's cool was redlining before he even set foot in the water—where the whole effect was multiplied into something that made you feel the rapture was nigh. 

And I do mean "rapture." Surfers through the years have talked about having a personal relationship with Christ. But the Savior actually gave Bill Hamilton style tips. His sublime frontside cutback is based on a picture of Jesus giving the Sermon on the Mount, arms raised and fingers pointed with Raphaelesque perfection. Hamilton stared at it for hours and decided he didn't want to cut back like Corky or David. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO STYLE SAVIOR BILLY HAMILTON

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