Dick “The Fox” Mobley gets bronze plaque on Surfers Walk of Fame
Dick Mobley on his Mobley egg at 22nd Street in Hermosa, in 1960. Photo by Leroy Grannis
The best Christmas I ever had was the year I was 12 and saw a shiny, brand new, blue, 8-foot-6 Bing Surfboard shaped by Dick Mobley standing next to the Christmas tree with silver ribbon and big, gold bow.
It was 1960. Dick had already shaped for the era’s biggest names — Dale Velzy, Greg Noll and Hap Jacobs. Dick surfed with his brother John at 22nd Street in Hermosa Beach with Dewey Weber, Henry Ford, Donald Takayama, Harold Iggy, Skipper Fats, and Skip Beal — the best South Bay surfers of the era.
They called him the Fox because he kind of looked like a fox and he could be a little sneaky.
“Dick was called ‘The Fox’ because he had a knack for creating chaos and sneaking away, leaving somebody else to be caught in the net when the police arrived,” recalled Kent Layton, my best friend at Mira Costa and Dick’s second employee at his Ski Surf Shop
I thought he was cool because he never talked down to us even though he hung out with the older guys, who constantly teased us. Dick was clean cut with sun bleached, blond hair combed to one side. He wore Levi’s a nice ski sweater and deck shoes. You couldn’t tell if he loved surfing, skiing or sailing the most because he was excellent at all three.
Dick and his brother John, who also shaped for Bing, were third generation Hermosans and master craftsman at whatever they undertook.
On my first day in Mr. Honaker’s wood shop class at Mira Costa High School, Mr. Honaker showed the class photos given to him by John Mobley a year after he graduated. John had moved to Hawaii’s North Shore and lived in a tree house he built himself. It looked nicer than any one bedroom apartment I had ever seen. It was furnished with chairs and a wooden bench made from branches off the same Banyan Tree it was built in.
When Dick was a kid his mom would drive him to Velzy’s shop in Venice, where he hung out with the other gremmies. Eventually, he got a job sweeping up, which led to fine sanding the balsa surfboards before they were glassed. Dick told me that he considered Velzy the Michelangelo of surfboards.
Dick learned to shape after building a 12-foot, plywood Spyder catamaran in his mom’s garage. That summer, he sailed it down to La Jolla, where he landed a shaping job with legendary surfboard builders Wayne Land, Pat Curren, Al Nelson and Del Cannon.
“We spent the summer shaping and learning from each other, doing what we loved to do.” Dick said. “When I came back for school Greg Noll heard through surfing’s grapevine who I was shaping with and hired me on the spot. I started shaping for Bing the following year.”
When I was a student at Pier Avenue Junior High School, now the Hermosa Beach Civic Center, my 7th grade girlfriend was Ilona Vsetecka. Her parents were from Switzerland and owned the only ski shop in the South Bay. Every Monday at 8 p.m. they would cover the side of a little hill in the park next to North Elementary School and give ski lessons. It was right across the street from my house on 28th Street and Morningside Drive. My father would let the Bay Area Surf Club have their meetings at our house. After the meetings we would run across the street to have snowball fights and watch Dick and John Mobley, along with Dewey Weber, Mike Doyle and Henry Ford try to ski on the little patch of snow before it all melted into the grass. They could only do one turn before hitting the dry grass, but everyone had a blast.
Dick and Vickie Mobley at their Ski and Surf Shop.
In 1965, Dick came up with the idea of The Ski Swap Shop. It was a place for all the seasonal skiers to sell their used ski equipment. Twenty percent went to the store. Dick was well liked and created a lot of local traffic. He sent Kent to ski equipment clinics sponsored by all the top brands. Dick couldn’t get any new skis, boots, or bindings because Pat’s Ski Shop had big orders with the top companies. But that didn’t stop him from learning everything new about skiing and making his little shop the most popular place to go to get your equipment checked and tuned before hitting the slopes.
Dick impressed Solomon and Look, so they let him sell their new bindings. It was a huge breakthrough for him, giving him the leverage to approach the other, popular ski equipment and fashion companies.
The most popular skis at the time were Rossignols and soon Dick was selling more than any other shop in the country.
In 1966 Dick changed the name of his shop to The Ski Surf Shop. It was clever business concept and kept the store busy year ‘round. From surfing, he expanded into sailing, waterskiing and skateboarding.
Bob Wyler was one of Dick’s top salespersons.
“Dick told every customer if it doesn’t fit or work, bring it back and we will take care of it. Dick was always way ahead of the game, having popular products two or three years before the big chain stores.”
Dick let Kent rip the toilet out of the upstairs bathroom and turn it into the Cougar Room. It was almost the size of a nice, studio apartment. Dick showed us how to turn a $1.50 gallon of Red Mountain Wine into a delicious, wine cooler punch he called Jungle Juice. He’d add a quart of 7up, a quart of Squirt and any left over fruit from the refrigerator. He said it was an old Hawaiian recipe. On low budget ski trips Dick would put a gallon of Red Mountain Wine in a cast iron pot on the stove with cinnamon sticks, nutmeg and cut up orange slices and let it simmer. Dick taught us that it didn’t take much to have a good party, but it was important to have your best friends there.
Every summer Dick would have a big picnic party for employees and friends on the sand dunes next to Rosecrans Avenue in Manhattan Beach. Everyone skied down the dunes. He even built a ski jump for the all around competition. Bill Robbins was a great surf photographer and one of Mobley’s best friends. When Bill got married Dick held the wedding in his backyard. Everyone had to wear shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, including the bride and groom. The reception was a big luau, complete with a pig wrapped in tea leaves cooking in the ground and plenty of Jungle Juice. Bill went onto become a famous Hollywood studio photographer where he shot and designed all the James Bond Movie posters in the ‘80s.
In 1967, Dick Mobley and I had a falling out after I returned from a trip to Australia with one of Bob Mctavish’s short, “V” bottom surfboards. It was the first short surfboard in the United States and it became my signature model for Jacobs. Kent Layton, Paul Mooney, Greg Armor, Bobby Warcola and I made it the most popular surfboard in the South Bay. Dick loved the design and took my friend Kent’s Jacobs Mike Purpus “V” Bottom Model and started building exact copies. He sold them his Mobley Surfboards decal on them for $25 cheaper than Jacob. He even had a sign in the window saying, “Why pay more for the Mike Purpus ‘V’ bottom when you can get the same surfboard with a different sticker here.”
Kent later explained to me that there wasn’t much snow the previous ski season. Dick had to sell a lot of surfboards to stay in business. The following year we made up and resumed our friendship.
Kent told me that Dick noticed that all the ski boots were geared to fit European skiers, who had narrower feet. The ski boots were especially uncomfortable for South Bay Surfers, who wore sandals all year long. Mobley talked Lang into premiering their new foam injected boot at his store.
“Dick really put on a show for each customer, wearing special safety goggles while he injected the foam in the side of the boot to fit the customer. He even put an apron and goggles on the customer before the ordeal. One spooked customer ran out of the store with a half inject ski boot on because he thought his foot was going to blow up,” Kent said.
The show worked and Mobley’s Ski Surf Shop became the most popular ski shop in the area. The following ski season Mobley had 36 Ski Surf Shop employees. Dick and his wife Vicki finally retired in 2005, four decades after Dick opened his shop.
The crew of the Outrage, owned by movie studio head John Calley after winning the 1978 Newport to Puerto Vallarta Race in both the Class A division and overall. (Left to right) Jim Sharp, Mike Macdonald, Gary Ritchie, Ensign Lars Forsbert USN, skipper Stud Linder, Wyle Nisbet, Doug Rostello, Dick Mobley and Kenny Gardiner.
Kenny Gardiner was another Mira Costa High School surf buddy of mine. Kenny’s dad Bud was a vice president a Douglas Aircraft and Kenny’s godfather was Donald Douglas, Junior. Bud built and raced a lot of beautiful sailboats in the annual Newport to Ensenada race. Dick was always hired on as part of the winning crew.
Kent left Mobley’s Ski Surf Shop to go to graduate school to study psychology. He said it seemed fitting after hanging out with Dick for 10 years. Now Kent is the director of Behavioral Health at the Alvarado Parkway Institute in La Mesa, California.
I asked Kent what he would like to say about Dick
He answered, without hesitation, “Dick is certifiable over the top. You never know what he will do next. He is the most fun person I know and a good human being with a big heart.”
Kent said he is thrilled that Dick is finally getting the recognition he deserves for shaping all those awesome surfboards for Velzy, Jacobs, Greg Noll and Bing that had their decals displayed on the deck.
Dick Mobley and pioneer surfer and retired Manhattan Beach firefighter Tom Rice will be inducted into the Hermosa Beach Surfers Walk of Fame on Saturday, April 9. The program begins at 11 a.m. at the pier head. B