DON NAKAMURA

 I started surfing in 1959 after the movie Gidget came out. I saw the movie and I have been stoked on surfing ever since. I didn’t have a car but I had an older buddy and a friend of a friend had a board and he took me surfing for the 1st time. I then twisted my mom‘s arm shortly thereafter and she bought me a balsa wood surfboard with a Velzy business card laminated to the board.

When I got out of the Army I went to El Camino College and then I transferred to Long Beach State and I decided I wanted to be a school teacher. Both my sisters are school teachers and my sister always said. "when you get a job you have to have a job that you enjoy otherwise you won’t be very happy". I taught junior high school for eight years and then at Pacifica High School for 25 years. It was a great job, I enjoyed it so much, I was the football announcer for 25 years, the basketball announcer for 20 years and activist director. 

The whole time I was teaching, I surfed on the weekends, during the summer and during Christmas vacation and Easter vacation. When I was in my late 40s my good friend Bruce Takahashi, who I surfed with in my 20’s, moved back to Huntington Beach. We hadn’t see each other in a while and when we got back together we realized the number of days you have left in life is a finite number so we both made a promise to each other that every chance we get we were going to surf. So I’ve kept up my end of the bargain and I SURF SURFI SURF SURF between 340 and 350 days a year. The only time I don’t is when my wife and I go on vacation or when we go to Vegas three or four times a year. I ride a long board but I’m working my way down, so I’m down to a 7’11. I just ordered a 7’8 Becker so hopefully that’ll be ready in about a month. I’m getting down there on the size of my boards!