SUNDAY JOINT, 9-29-2024: MOVE OVER DUKE, ALVIN KEECH IS THE NEW FATHER OF EAST COAST SURFING
Hey All,
Big thanks to New Jersey surfer-historian Mike May who led me down this week's Edwardian Age rabbit hole, which ended up being way more twisty-turny than I bargained for. Short version: that grinning black-lipped tux-wearing Bela Lugosi-looking ukulele player you see above is Alvin D. Keech, and it looks like he is your new Father of East Coast surfing. We mostly all thought that Duke Kahanamoku was responsible for introducing the Sport of Kings to New York and New Jersey, both, during an East Coast stopover after his gold medal performance at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. Easy mistake, as Duke was among the most famous athletes in the world at that moment, drawing crowds and making headlines with every public appearance. But hold that thought, we need to make a quick detour to Waikiki.
An energetic little South Carolina-born writer and busybody named Alexander Hume Ford sailed to Honolulu in 1907, liked what he saw, and stayed for life. Ford is rightly credited as an inventive and relentless promotor of Hawaii in general and surfing in particular, and is today best remembered as the founder of Waikiki's world-famous Outrigger Canoe Club—but he's always struck me as a puffed-up high-speed bore, a man whose passion for Hawaii ran second to his passion for marketing and selling Hawaii, and dipping back into his published work these last few days has reminded me that Ford was never more than a few paragraphs away from cutting loose with a bit of his patented softcore friendly-voiced racism, often about how the "white boy" in Waikiki is now surfing better than the native and winning the prizes, etc., etc., all hot air and nonsense. Honolulu's politicians, developers, and plantation execs didn't embrace Ford, exactly, but found him useful. What was good for Ford was also good for business. The local boys on the beach, meanwhile, I'm guessing, tugged a forelock when Ford strutted by, but otherwise ignored him and went about their day. For a while, anyway. Ford's new Outrigger Canoe Club (founded in 1908) was by and large an upscale whites-only group, which in turn led locals to formalize their own Hui Nalu club, whose star member was of course Duke Kahanamoku—hero to all, Ford included (after the 1912 Olympics, anyway), but very much not white.
Alvin Keech, on the other hand, while born in Hawaii and an enthusiastic surfer, was white as his highborn New York-raised civil engineer father. Ford's kind of guy. When Keech shipped off to a Pennsylvania boarding school and decided to try surfing the empty waves of Long Island, New York, during the summer of 1909, he got in touch with Ford, who was then also in New York. Ford and Keech took to the surf just up from Rockaway Beach, Queens, in early September. Ford shot a letter back to the Honolulu Advertiser describing the event: "Within a few days after [Keech's] first exhibition, the idea of the surfboard swept down the beach . . . and has reached Atlantic City."
Ford, in this case, was on the money. Beachgoers were interested in the new sport. Keech returned to the Shore the following summer for more exhibitions, and a 1913 Press of Atlantic City article notes that "surf-board riding and 'sliding' takes up the time of the younger element. Ever since the exhibition here some three years ago, the sport has grown and grown into popularity."
So there we have it. Duke's pedestal, I don't think, is too much reduced by removing his name from the front of the New York-New Jersey surfing timeline. And Keech does make an interesting replacement. Like Duke, he hit the front pages for a multi-person ocean rescue ("Saves 4 Lives on Surf-Board in Sea: Alvin Keech of Honolulu Makes Rescue with Queer Device"—actual 1910 headline), and a year earlier he helped evacuate 55 guests from a burning hotel on Long Island; not long before the whole structure collapsed, Keech jumped to safety from a second-story window.
Keech and his younger brother, Kelvin, then moved across the country to San Francisco. Both were exceptionally gifted musicians, and by 1914 they had a music shop and studio on Powell Street, were specializing in ukuleles and "doing much towards introducing the Hawaiian melodies at the society functions" (Star-Bulletin), and in general helping to spearhead the Hawaiian music craze that was sweeping across America. Watch Keech shred here (no sound, unfortunately); listen to him cover the basics of uke playing here.
So far, so good.
But hang on, here comes a 1919 Los Angeles Evening Express courtroom divorce hearing article, headlined: "Husband Knocked Her Down," and we learn that Keech, 28, after moving to LA, beat the hell out of his teenaged wife just seven days after getting married. "Mrs. Keech said her husband came home intoxicated. 'He swore at me, pulled me across the room, put his hand on my throat, knocked me down and pulled my hair,' she testified." The judge ruled against her. Divorce denied.
I mostly lost interest in Keech after that. He sailed to Europe in the '20s and played in jazz bands with his brother Kelvin, who later become a famous NYC radio announcer. In 1948, when Kelvin flew to Hawaii for a visit, the Star-Bulletin announced his return with a two-column article, which included a brief family history—no mention whatsoever of Alvin, who died, without notice as far as I can tell, later that same year.
Can we just forget all about Keech and let Duke be the first East Coast guy again?
Thanks for reading, and see you next week.
Matt
PS: I can't leave without once more putting the boot to Alexander Hume Ford. Patrick Moser, Surf History Department Chair, has reminded me that, for a full-length Page Two 1907 Advertiser article about George Freeth, Ford managed to include a photo of himself (below), captioned: "Surf-rider balancing on the crest of a breaker." In truth, Moser notes, "Ford is able to stand on the surfboard only because Freeth swam underneath the plank and held it steady while the photographer snapped the picture." We weren't using the word "kook" in 1907, or even "kuk." Will "muff" do? or "jamoke"? Flimflammer? Four-flusher? Nut-squealer?
PPS: One more thing, in keeping with this week's downbeat vibe. The "Sport of Kings" reference in the opening paragraph, above—I always knew horse racing was the original Sport of Kings, but did not realize until today that the phrase is also used for polo, cricket, fox hunting, and something called "real tennis," which, who knew, is a predecessor to regular tennis. Google-search "sport of kings" all by itself, in fact, and surfing does not show up at all. You have to add "surfing" to get any hits. Debbie Downer, over and out.
[Image grid, clockwise from top left: Alvin Keech playing uke; Duke Kahanamoku and tandem partner riding in Waikiki; the Hui Nalu club, with Duke on lower-left; vintage fox hunting print; Alexander Hume Ford, around 1900; Atlantic City tinted postcard from 1910. Duke Kahanamoku and Anita Stewart in Isle of Sunken Gold, 1927. Duke surfing in Waikiki, photo by Tom Blake. Courier-Post headline about surfing from 1914. Hawaiian music group in San Francisco in the early 1920s. Alvin Keech article on the banjulele, date unknown. Alexander Hume Ford "surfing" Waikiki, 1907]