Kemp Aaberg, possibly the nicest guy to ever set foot on the sands of Malibu, turns 74 tomorrow. I thought it would be fun to take him back, way back, to when he was a gangly teenager—styling gangly teenager, sorry, Kemp—getting jostled around the North Shore in the back of a rattletrap woody as one of the featured surfers in Slippery When Wet, Bruce Brown's first movie. Slippery came out in 1958, and made Aaberg a West Coast star. The film is amazing if for no other reason than to see the North Shore when it was nearly moon-like in its emptiness. Aaberg had the time of his life on that trip, which was made all that sweeter by the fact that he more or less lucked his way into the project. Kemp's gain was surfing's gain. If think good style is the highest calling when it comes to riding waves, Kemp's back-arch turns at Pupukea will have you kissing your fingertips in appreciation and respect.

Bruce Brown says in the film that you'd only been surfing for two years at that point. Is that true?

Amazingly so, that’s right. I came from Santa Monica Canyon, and we skimboarded most of the time. It wasn’t until Mickey Muñoz came up and started surfing at the campground near there that we even knew about surfing, and that was 1956, which is when I started.

How’d you get picked to go on the trip?

I was a sander for Dale Velzy. Dale told Bruce to come down to the shop, pick out a few Velzy guys and make a film about going to Hawaii. A promo deal for Velzy Surfboards. So Bruce showed up, took a look around the shop, and I just sort of got in the way of his finger. He said “How ‘bout you?” I didn’t know him well, it was a total fluke, I was just standing there sanding boards. For me, it was really exciting. I'd just graduated high school and I was down surfing the Trestle as much as I could, and of course I was mad about surfing at the time. To get the connection through Bruce to go to Hawaii was a dream.

But you must have already had a rep as a good surfer, right?

I don't think so, not really. I was just surfing a lot with my friends at the Trestle. I really don’t know why he picked me.

What did you expect from the North Shore before you left?

My idea was, Hawaii has warm water and the biggest, best waves in the world. Boy, did I want to get in there and mix it up with a challenge like that. And flying on an airplane! That made it even more of an experience. You didn't really do that back then.

A 9'3" Velzy-Jacobs, with a candy-apple red glass job done by Bobby Patterson. A beautiful board, before it got all banged up.

Isn’t that amazing? We all brought just one board each. Bruce didn’t even bring a board.

How crowded was it on the North Shore then? Most of the time it looks like you guys are surfing all by yourselves.

It was the middle of the workweek when we showed up, so it was wide open. Almost nobody. Living on the North Shore was a unique thing to do then. So yes, we did have it mostly to ourselves. Bruce rented a cute little cabin right on the beach. We could see the wave at Pupukea from our windows. We all just lived on beans. I slept on this little baby crib mattress; I used my suitcase to sort of extend it. It's in the movie. Amazingly enough, I slept great on that thing.

Talk about surfing Pupukea. You're pretty much the star of that segment.

Just beautiful clean faces coming in and breaking down towards the Pipeline area, which of course we didn’t even consider surfing; Pipeline looked unrideable at the time. Pupukea was a beautiful spot where you could do those beautiful arch-backed turns. I can’t believe those still look good, that was more than 60 years ago. That was the time when I’d figured out how to bank the board, get it on an edge, and swing it around on the face of the wave. It was at Pupukea, in fact, that I figured out I’d gotten much better at surfing.

You surf pretty good-sized Sunset in the film. I can't imagine doing that after only two years of surfing. Were you terrified?

We were just so excited to be there, our minds were made up that we’d ride anything, whatever came up, we’ll jump into it. It didn't get all that big on that trip, though. Just small to medium waves. I came back later and got into riding Waimea, but not on that trip.

Freddy Pfahler. He didn’t show up in the film that much, but he really had a fabulous hold on surfing, and did beautiful turns. He gets my vote.

The last few times I went was to do the Ironman races. I got really into that back in the 1980s.

You know, I drove a UPS truck in Santa Barbara for 25 years. Figured it was time to get solvent and get a job. Anyway, I’d make deliveries to Bruce's house. I'd pull up his driveway in the big UPS truck, up there behind Refugio, and there’d be Bruce, napping, or sipping on his orange juice, and I’d say, “Here Bruce, here’s your package,” and he’d sign, and I’d take off in the truck. And just a few years before, Bruce and I were off hopping around Oahu searching for surf spots. I used to see Henry Ford all the time in Dana Point. Just ebullient and fun. He’s the one who’s ready to party, even though he’s older than I am. He’s a guy that's weathering these years the best. Still surfing pretty well, too.

It depends on the season. We've had a long, fabulous Indian summer down here, with beautiful conditions and beautiful waves. I've surfed some up near Refugio. But I don't follow surfing real closely anymore, not like I used to. I got frustrated with crowds, and with courtesy. Lack of courtesy, that is. And the way people surf has just changed so much, over all these years. When 

 came out, people were really still figuring out how to ride surfboards. Real good longboarding was still years down the road.

KEMP AABERG: SLIPPERY FELLOW TURNS 74

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