I know almost nothing about the Patterson brothers beyond the few short paragraphs I wrote for their EOS page. Bobby was oldest (born in 1934), then Ronald, then Raymond. They grew up in Hawaii and migrated to California at a time when most surfers dreamed of doing just the opposite. All three worked at the Hobie Surfboards factory. All three were excellent surfers—Bobby was maybe the best small-wave guy in the world during the mid- and late-'50s—but they lived in a pre-surf-media age, and therefore didn't leave much of a mark. (Here's a 

 shot a few years after his prime.) None of the Pattersons lived past 60.

The Pattersons mean a lot to surfers who mean a lot to me, including Mickey Munoz, who worked, surfed, socialized, and navigated the straits of adulthood with all three brothers. I called Mickey last week to talk about them. 

What neighborhood were the Pattersons from?

I think they grew up in Manoa Valley, right behind downtown Honolulu.

Did you know any of them before they moved to California?

No. Bobby was first to come over, I think in 1952. Matt Kivlin and Joe Quigg went to Hawaii that year or the year before, met Bobby, and Bobby expressed interest in coming over, and next thing you know he's living in Matt’s guest room. The problem was, Matt had a girlfriend at the time, and things got a little awkward.

Matt took him to Malibu of course, and we met there, started surfing together, hanging out. I was 14, Bobby was maybe 17. My family had a big house in Santa Monica Canyon, and I had my own bedroom, my own bathroom, even my own entrance; my mom and dad really liked Bobby, so we just invited him to live at our house. And he stayed for almost three years.

Ronald came over two years after Bobby, so we met here in California. Then when I went to Hawaii for the first time, in 1954, Bobby got in touch with Raymond, telling him to expect me. So there I was in Waikiki, more or less fresh off the boat, I just got out of the water at Queens and I’m walking down Kalakaua Boulevard, heading back to this funky little place I'd rented. All of a sudden this chopped ’47 Merc comes up on my left, all lowered and everything, with four scary-looking Hawaiians inside, duck's ass haircuts, everyone sitting real low in their seats. I’m getting a little freaked out, and the car slows down, stops right in the middle of the street, everybody piles out, and just before I have a heart attack one of the guys introduces himself as Raymond Patterson.

One of the best in the Islands, already, yeah. And he was still just a kid, too. Like 16. A prodigy. Hung out with all the other best players in Waikiki, and picked it up really fast. For the rest of the time I knew Raymond, I almost never saw him without a uke or a guitar.

No, no, no. He was the cleanest living of the three. By far. It’s funny—or not 

—but Raymond was the least-dissipated of the Patterson brothers, yet he was the first to die.

Heart attack. The family had a long history of heart problems.

On the other hand, being the cleanest-living Patterson brother wasn’t much of an accomplishment.

No, that's true. Ronald was a chain smoker, and I mean a chain smoker in the most literal sense. Lighting the next one from the burning end of the one he just finished. I once saw him crack open his seventh pack in a single day.

Sanded boards for hours at a time, without a break, and never wore a mask. His theory was that as long as he had a filtered cigarette in his mouth he was safe from all the fiberglass and resin and shit coming off the boards.

Amazing that he made it to 60 before he died.

And it's interesting, because his wife—he was married for 40 years or something—ended up with lung cancer, most likely just from being around Ronald, and the day she was diagnosed he took his pack of cigarettes, threw it in the corner, and never smoked again.

Ronald was one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. Could do almost anything he put his mind to. He’d take your broken TV apart, put it back together with a couple parts off to the side, and it would work better than it ever did. The guy was maybe 140, 145 pounds, but incredibly strong. Do you know who Hevs McClelland was?

Yeah, big bald guy, used to MC the SURFER Poll.

I watched Ronald arm-wrestle Hevs, who weighed 260 and was strong as an ox, at a party one night. They got down on the floor, and it took maybe 15 minutes, but Ronald turned Hevs over. Stunned everybody. I asked him later, “Did you really think you could beat Hevs?” He said, “I did, yeah, but I thought it would take longer.” Total confidence.

Oh yeah. And it was the same deal, he would just surprise you. For example, I shaped my very first board in 1956, and like just about every other first-timer, I started out with a perfectly good blank and whittled it down to almost nothing. Just made this balsa toothpick of a surfboard. Seven-foot-something, super thin and narrow. Nothing like what anybody was riding. I ended up giving it to Ronald, and he just loved it. Rode it so well. There’s a great shot of him on that board at Windansea.

Backside, head down, back arm kind of pointing up to the lip?

I’m looking at it right now, it’s a beauty.

Did all three Pattersons work at the Hobie factory at the same time?

For years, yeah. That was a big part of why I ended up being so close to them. We all worked together at Hobie, took lunch breaks together, surfed after work, went to the parties, and from there, you know, there was family stuff, raising kids, holidays, everything. Hobie was doing so much business in the late '50s and '60s, and the work kind of held everything together.

Back to the smoking. Wasn’t Bobby famous for smoking while he glossed boards?

The guy was so meticulous, his brushes and buckets had to be in exactly the right place, and he mixed his resin just so, kept his workspace really tidy. It was his room. Nobody allowed inside without permission. Anyway, customers liked to watch guys making boards, so Bobby cut this little window into his door so people could look inside without him having to open the door. So you’d look in, and Bobby’s got a board on the sawhorses, everything just so. And it was a dance, you know. He was so good at his job. No wasted motion, perfect economy of movement, he’d pour the resin and delicately dance down one side of the board, then the other, more resin, spreading it out, just beautiful. With a Pall Mall hanging out of his mouth, and a half-inch of ash hanging right above this beautiful brand-new still-wet surfboard. And I swear, the ash NEVER fell.

No! Incredible! All those fumes, the styrene, the acetone, all that shit! And the guy never started a fire!

Bobby ended up in Thailand, on the run. Can you talk about that?

Yeah, well. Bobby [long pause] got into the importing business. And was pretty successful at it. But to back up just a bit. Bobby could not moderate. For example, he was just incredibly generous. To a fault. When his wallet was fat, he never hesitated to slam it on the bar and it was drinks for everybody until the money was gone. He also drank a lot, smoked a lot, was a huge meat-eater. What I’m trying to say is that, before the FBI was after him, Bobby was already in not-great health. Really poor circulation, and ended up having heart surgery. And after the surgery, we're all saying “Bobby, come on, you gotta stop smoking and drinking, you gotta eat better.” And he just could not stop. Ended up in Thailand, and eventually died of a heart attack or a stroke. To nobody’s surprise.

Was he still surfing before he left for Thailand?

No, and that was another contributing factor, I think. It’s complicated. When Bobby came to California, as a kid, he was one of the best small-wave surfers in the world. And that lasted for a few years, up until the late ‘50s. But between the things I just mentioned, smoking and drinking and all the rest, he ended up not surfing as much. Then by the early '60s there was this whole new crew of hot young guys coming up, Corky Carroll and another 10 like him, and Bobby’s rep as a surfer faded. It happens. Ronald and Raymond kept surfing, but they didn’t have that sort of burden to carry around of being “the best.” I would say, in fact, that that was Bobby’s downfall. It’s really hard for some guys to not be the best anymore. Bobby was for sure one of those guys.

Plus business at Hobie was down in the late ‘60s, compared to what it had been a couple years earlier.

Right, that didn’t help. He wasn’t making the kind of money he’d made a few years earlier, and was looking to offset that loss. What he got into was a lot more lucrative. But, as always happens, he got involved with a transaction that went bad, and he got a heads-up that the authorities were on it, so he just packed up and left.

 sort of Thai. And he loved Thai women. Plus he’d done business there, so he already knew the place.

Raymond and Ronald didn’t go that route.

No, they stayed with Hobie longer, then ended up doing other jobs. Legit stuff.

Did you keep in touch with Bobby after he left?

No, not so much. It was just a whole different scene. Ronald and Raymond, I stayed in touch with them. Bobby . . . it was sad, you know. He pretty much just gave up. On everything. It was just, Fuck it, I’m going to keep drinking and smoking and whatever, and that’s what he did. Right up until he died.

It's weird, how much we’re attracted to the guys who flame out.

Part of the deal there is, you’re sort of on the edge of your seat, wondering if they’re going to get it together and moderate, or crash and burn. Most of my heroes were extreme types, and a lot of them are gone. Bobby included. I’ve always been more or less in the center. Which maybe isn’t so interesting, but you get to keep going.

[Top photo, left to right: Bobby, Ronald, Raymond. Shot by John Severson]

"WHEN BOBBY CAME TO CALIFORNIA AS A KID, HE WAS ONE OF THE BEST SMALL-WAVE SURFERS IN THE WORLD" - MICKY MUNOZ REMEMBERS THE PATTERSON BROTHERS

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