The Dirty Boogie stole the show.
It was the dance Tom Rice used to do at seaside parties to attract girls, and at age 84 he paused before an appreciative audience to shake it until they couldn’t take it, moments before he was inducted into the Hermosa Beach Surfers Walk of Fame.
Rice, who, as a kid, slept under lifeguard dories with previous Walk of Fame inductee Dale Velzy to get a jump on the morning waves, was honored along with vintage surf and ski shop owner Dick “The Fox” Mobley with bronze plaques on the city pier, at a sun-soaked ceremony on Saturday.
Bob Bacon, a member of the Walk of Fame’s pioneer section, introduced Rice to the large audience, and spilled the beans about the dance, which punctuated seaside parties decades ago.
“Tommie would start doing the Dirty Boogie on the Strand to draw the girls,” Bacon said. “Nobody could do the Dirty Boogie like Tommie. He was loose as a goose, just like he was in the water.”
Rice took the podium — flanked by U.S. and California flags on one side and the pier’s Tim Kelly surfer statue on the other – and was greeted with calls of “Dirty Boogie” from the crowd. He demurred for a moment and then obliged, stepping lively and shaking what his mama gave him, to cheers and applause.
Rice then regaled the assemblage with tales of surfing beginning in the 1940s, when the 180-pound teen hauled a 110-pound wooden longboard up and down the steep road to Paddleboard Cove in Palos Verdes.
“The ocean was our playground,” he said.
He told of belly sliding on a wooden ironing board, and watching two men flip a pie tin back and forth on the beach sand.
“That was the first Frisbee,” he said.
Bacon called Rice a true “surf rat,” and Rice did not disagree.
“Surfing was such a way of life that it ruined a lot of my folks’ plans for me,” he said.
He described waking up under a dory and going with Velzy to the Lighthouse Café to tank up on coffee and hotcakes, for 25 cents, before surfing all day.
“We didn’t look at girls unless there was no surf,” Rice said.
But then, they looked plenty.
“One of the first things I learned was you don’t hunt grunion, you hunt grunion hunters,” he said.
The hunter met his match one day in Carol, a beautiful 17-year-old who would become his wife and with him raise six children, who in turn gave the couple 12 grandchildren and a couple of great-grandchildren.
Rice worked as a lifeguard for decades, served in World War II, taking part in the invasion of Okinawa, and was credited with an instrumental role in negotiating with U.S. Marines for surfing access to San Onofre State Beach. He was also a Manhattan Beach firefighter.
Previous Walk of Fame inductee Bing Copeland introduced Mobley to the audience, and noted that his friend and fellow shaper started surfing before foam was used in boards, which then weighed about 30 pounds and were made of balsa. Leashes had not yet come into use, and wetsuits had not been popularized for surfing.
“You had to be pretty dedicated to be a surfer,” Copeland said.
Mobley shaped for legendary Hermosa Beach board makers Velzy, Greg Noll and Hap Jacobs, and for Copeland in the 1960s, then went on to run The Ski Surf Shop on Artesia Boulevard for 40 years.
“It was one of the finest ski shops in the South Bay,” Copeland said.
Mobley’s comments were brief and filled with gratitude, including a thank you to his wife Vicki.
“How many colors can you jam into the prism,” he said, summing up his approach to things. “Do everything you can.” ER
