by Mike Purpus
Laurie Wislon’s introduction to surfing began in the mid ‘60s, pre-surf leashes, with shagging her older brother Jeff’s surfboard when he lost it in the surf and it washed ashore. She was 10 and was born into a water family that lived on 8th street, in Hermosa Beach, a block from the beach.
“My parents body surfed every day, and I would wait at the water’s edge for my brother’s board and paddle it back out to him,” she said.
Her brother rewarded her by pushing her into an occasional wave on his 9-foot Gene Cidello board. Cidello made the board pictured on the cover of “Surfer Girl,’ the hit album by the Beach Boys, who lived in Hermosa during this period.
Wilson, who was tall for her age and athletic, soon earned her place in the 8th Street lineup her brother’s friends, including future Los Angeles County Lifeguards John Baker (SWOF 2006), Alfred Laws (SWOF 2007), and Mike Stevenson (SWOF 2007), and future Chevron Surf Camp director Jim Cuberly.
“They inspired my aggressive style. The South Bay only had a few female surfers in the mid 60’s. Josette Legadaire (SWOF2020), Margo Scotten and Judy Carillo were the best. Linda Benson (SWOF 2004), and Candy Woodward (SWOF 2018), won most of the contests.
“The other women were good surfers, with a graceful, cruising style. But I wanted to surf like the guys, who attacked the lip and sped down the line. I’m goofyfoot (right leg forward), and I loved surfing fast rights and doing backside off the lips.
“I remember one hot, four foot day. The North side of the Hermosa Beach Pier was perfect. The best surfers were running down to the water from Dru Harrison’s house with cups of coffee in their hands. Donald Takayama (2007, David Nuuiwhia (SWOF 2024), Tiger Makin (SWOF 2020), Eddie Underwood, Steve and Chris Schlickenmeyer were paddling out in my front yard. Those were the best surfers on the coast.”
All those surfers kept their boards under the backyard deck at Harrison’s house on 15th Street, behind the Biltmore Hotel. One night, 30 boards were stolen.
Wilson started competing in the Western Surfing Association contests when she was 15. The WSA held contests every month, from Ocean Beach in San Diego, north to Santa Cruz. There were Single A, Double AA, and Triple AAA divisions. They were covered by the newspapers and surfing magazines. Some were televised. Laurie earned her AAA rating in her first year and got sponsored by Petrillo Surfboards and Sea Suit wetsuits. Wilson and fellow team riders Mark McMillen, Paul Mooney, Chris Barrows and myself had matching 6-foot-6 red, yellow and orange Petrillo surfboards, which got us a lot of attention
The biggest surf contest in the South Bay was the Hermosa Beach Surfing Championship, which was a part of The Lifeguard Invitational Surf Festival.
In 1969 Laurie and I won the Hermosa Championships.
“It’s the only surfing trophy I still have,” Laurie said.
One of our favorite breaks in the mid ’60s was a wave in front of the Camp Pendleton Marine Base. To get to them required trespassing on the base. One afternoon we reached the water undetected. But Wilson lost her board. It was pre-leash days, and her board washed ashore.
The Marines would hide in the bushes waiting for you to lose your surfboard. If the Marines grabbed your board, you had to return with your parents to get it back.
The Marines grabbed Laurie’s.
She was screaming at me to paddle in and demand it back. But I didn’t want to lose my board. It was brand new. The Marines made Laurie walk off the base before giving her board back to her.
Despite surfing as well as the best guys, Wilson and other top female surfers were a rarity in the line up. Surfing wasn’t ready for female surfers. If you brought a girlfriend to the sold out surf movies at Pier Avenue Junior High School you were shunned.
“After graduating from Redondo High School I got into basketball at El Camino Junior College. That led to a scholarship to play at UC Santa Barbara. In 1979, my UCSB coach got me into the first girls pro basketball league, the World Basketball League.”
“I was getting paid just to play for the Minneapolis/Minnesota Fillies. It was a lot of fun, but the league went broke after only one year,” Wilson said.
Laurie returned to the South Bay and back to surfing, while working for FedEx.
“It was surfing’s best era and I was part of it,” she said of the ‘60s, when Hermosa surfers and boardbuilders made Hermosa Beach California’s undisputed Surf City. HBSWOF
