The Realm of King Joy

There is still no shortage of romance, adventure, or legend along the rugged and seemingly untamed coast of Central and Northern California. Though the rumrunners have disappeared from the foggy coves and windblown capes, there's still a vista to inspire around every curve in the road, and a thrill in every tack to weather. A power inhabits this land of mountains and sea, and even the casual visitor cannot fail to be moved. The bearing of those who live, work, and play along this shore will be shaped as inevitably as grains of sand are pushed into dunes on the beach. Some will cower to the fog and wind, cursing the cold and the unfairness of the elements. For others though, they see only nature moving sure and proud.

In the early Depression years, two orphaned brothers found themselves grown up and working in the enviable position of lifeguard at the Fleischacker Pool on Ocean Beach in San Francisco. Dick Keating was an extraordinary fellow. Handsome, blessed with a congenial personality, a perfect physique, and the gift of gab, women fairly swarmed over him. He was also one of the best swimmers on the West Coast, winning event after event. For a time, Dick traveled with Billy Rose's famed Aquacades, featuring Esther Williams and Johnny Weissmuller. Keating was Weissmuller's stand-in for his Tarzan movies. His older brother, Bob Keating, on the other hand, was a more practical, down-to-earth kind of guy. They both loved the water.

In those days, the beach along the Great Highway in San Francisco was a much busier place than today. Beside the gigantic Fleischacker Pool (now gone), there was the zoo, Golden Gate Park, Playland at the Beach (an amusement park with roller coaster - also gone), and the Cliff House. The long, wide beach became a kind of crowded promenade on weekends and holidays. Men in their Sunday Best suits, and ladies in stylish dresses, strolled arm in arm, taking in the air. The notoriety of high-profile shipwrecks and the mass drownings that followed in the relentless currents probably drew the curious and added a sense of excitement to the breezy walks. In spite of the crowds, there still wasn't anyone surfing there yet.

Lifeguards from the pool often pulled double duty at the beach, and they had their hands full. Back then, few people knew anything about the effects of tides or swell direction, and some unwary tourists needed to be rescued along the vast stretch of anonymous and unmarked sand. In the course of saving lives along the most hazardous urban beach on the planet, the two brothers discovered, with the help of a couple of Hawaiian lifeguard friends, the wonders of bodysurfing, becoming hooked on the ocean's energy and movement.

At about this same time, while a young Jesse Owens was training to go to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Dick Keating was selected to participate in the Olympic Trials for the U.S. Swim Team. As luck would have it, the trials were in the hometown of Olympic great, Duke Kanahamoku. Young Keating was off to Honolulu.

The story goes that, upon his arrival, the Duke and all the Waikiki beach boys, especially Sam, the Duke's brother, took him in. They taught him board surfing, ukulele, and the ways of aloha. In return, at parties lasting long into the night, Keating, always the life of the party, entertained. Telling his jokes and stories until the Hawaiians were doubled over laughing, the aloha was returned. The beach boys dubbed him King Joy, and made him one of their own. The luau never lost steam through-out the Olympic Trials, but Keating's focus was on his new Hawaiian buddies, the women who followed him around, and his newfound pastime: surfing.

All-night carousing cost him a spot on the team but he never missed a beat. Upon his return to San Francisco, when he was asked how the games went he simply replied: "Ah, forget the games! You've got to try surfing!"

Thus, he began to teach everyone who would listen. First brother Bob became a devotee and others followed. They surfed Ocean Beach on smaller days, but even this was difficult on the finless paddleboards used then. So in 1940, while on one of their journeys down to the protected bay at Santa Cruz, the Keating boys found a cove with conditions more suited to their equipment at a spot called Pedro Point. This was closer to the City (S.F.) where they still worked. It soon became their own little Waikiki.

Pedro Point, in the town that is now known as Pacifica, was little more than a tiny fishing village. There were only a couple of simple fisherman's homes built onto the side of an old railroad levee, which formed the southern boundary of the beach. The beach itself faced generally northwest and was composed of sand with low dunes at the northern end, turning gradually more rocky toward the south where San Pedro Creek contributed eons worth of cobblestones. The northern end got more swell, was a bit steeper, and the sand could move around and form some nice banks with channels in between. The beach in the middle of the bay was flatter and the wave had a softer feel to it. The creek and point had rock bottoms with several distinct lineups for which the migration of sand was not a factor. The whole beach area was at the base of a triangular-shaped valley, bordered by a set of bare hills to the north and steep, wooded mountains forming San Pedro's famous point the south. The spectacular drop-offs and breathtaking panoramas of Devil's Slide began on the back side of this same point.

There were steelhead in the creek, crabs on every rock at the point, and abundant abalone and fish in the bay. Deer and raccoon ran all over the thickly wooded Pedro hillside at night. The valley, now covered with homes and malls, had nothing on it at all except artichokes, and thus was called Artichoke Valley. For folks not long off a farm or sharpened by a decade of the Great Depression, this place was an Eden. Food was everywhere, as long as you were resourceful.

Simple but serviceable wooden boat docks, crafted from the nearby stands of eucalyptus trees, allowed fishermen and crabbers to launch their skiffs through the surf. Those long wooden runners and a large spooled winch with 1" Manila rope meant that you could get your boat out again to safety above the surf line, too. There weren't many places that boats, especially bigger fishing boats, could find safety along this coast in the event of sudden storms. The small skiffs were more portable and suited to work in the local area, but you had to be able to anticipated the moods of the sea.

The Keatings built a clubhouse on the levee that same year. They brought their aloha, paddleboards, and the few other surfers they knew so they would have some company. They surfed. They fished. They built fires on the beach, laughed, and told stories.

There was a whole group of Hawaiians who had been part of this scene since the beginning. Whether they were there as refugees from economic hardship or distancing themselves from the specter of imminent conflict, their unique sense of ease with the ocean environment gave a momentum and character to this branch of California's fledgling surf community. The Keating brothers and their group of surf pioneers put together a kind of surfing and social group called The Pedro Mountain Surf Club.Just like San Onofre, there were ukes, luau, hula, and a party atmosphere that was ongoing. In Doc Ball's California Surfriders, published in 1947, Pedro Point was mentioned as one of only ten places in California with established surf communities.

All of this partying and the good times being enjoyed did not go unnoticed by the ladies, either. Of course, along with food and sport, the convivial and effervescent Dick Keating was usually the primary attraction. It happened that one day, though, a young and spirited woman by the name of Leah Parry was staying with her aunt when the two Keating brothers showed up to pick up her cousin. Leah was a cute, sweet young thing from the Utah countryside, and Dick assumed that she would be his. She was only sure that he was very smooth and "too wild" for her. Still, she liked something in older brother Bob, so she began going on excursions to the beach with them.

One of these excursions occurred on a beautiful, clear, and calm day. A newspaper photographer wanted to get some local surfing photos, and the idea of having Leah in them seemed novel enough. She thus became the first female surfer in Northern California., riding waves tandem on Keating's big paddleboard.

She was having the time of her life. But, as wonderful to be around as the younger brother was, his attractiveness and easy-going ways, didn't spell out stability to Leah. Though they would remain friends, older brother Bob got the nod as her beau. The two corresponded regularly, became close friends, and a romance developed. By war's end, he had built her a house just behind the levee, and the couple married and had an infant son they named Richard.