Episode 37 - Pete Townend: From First World Champ to Grand Marshal

Mel and Don welcome back Pete Townend—"PT," surfing's first men's world champion and one of Surf City's most beloved legends—for a second visit packed with history in the making. The headline: the International Surfing Museum is moving uptown. After a two-and-a-half-year quest that began over a cup of coffee with Senator Tony Strickland (whose advice ahead of the Olympics was simple—be bigger and better), PT pushed the relocation through city council to a final, unanimous yes. The current home—"the box" on Olive and Main, a historic building that was a doctor's office in the late '80s and, before that, the legendary punk venue Safari Sam's and a home base for TSOL—is now closed to all but docent tours while the move comes together. The bigger vision is to extend Main Street and turn the fifth block into a cultural downtown destination anchored by the art center, the surf museum, and the library, which stays put and gets enhanced. PT is even moving his private collection in as a surf-studies center, with Danny Morris working to turn it into an accredited program at Huntington Beach High School.

The grand opening lands July 24th with a brand-new exhibit on the 50-year history of pro surfing, timed to this year's US Open and the WSL's 50th anniversary. Instead of opening with the usual hierarchy of board history, PT is debuting fifteen world-champion boards—used, story and all—gathered from legends like Tom Curren, Kelly Slater, and Lisa Anderson, with a used Stephanie Gilmore board being collected on his trip to Australia this week. (At year's end, a permanent history of the surfboard will run from Duke Kahanamoku's wood planks all the way up to current world champ Yago Dora.) Mel is on deck to repaint the museum's Silver Surfer back to its old shine—and in a small miracle, whoever stored the statue after its fingers broke saved them in a plastic bag, so Dave Reynolds simply reattached them instead of rebuilding from scratch. The museum's events keep rolling too, from Ricky Blake's packed Surf Science Night—four years running, with Bolsa Chica Wetlands, Surfrider, live animals, and eight kid-friendly stations—to the long-running quest to break the giant-surfboard Guinness World Record (their board holds 66 riders; PT swears they can fit 70) before the Olympics.

This year PT becomes Surf City's first-ever surfing Grand Marshal for the Fourth of July parade—an upgraded, nationally televised affair for America's 250th birthday—made even sweeter by the 50th anniversary of his first world title. He tells the story of how the news nearly leaked while he was live on Facebook, before Don raced over to make it official. PT also shares the origin of his trademark pink: as the oldest of six, he asked his mom what color his next board should be, and she told him hot pink "so they'll never miss you"—a look that made him unmistakable out at Sunset and still has companies mailing him pink gear (most recently a box of pink Vans). He looks back on trading an architecture scholarship for a spot on the Australian team on his dad's nudge—"you're pretty good at this surfing thing, why don't you have a go"—and ahead to a dream of finishing his days the way his father did in Coolangatta: trunks on, walk down, dive in. Forty-six years in Huntington Beach, three kids raised here, and a daughter who was homecoming queen at HB High—PT may not have been born American, but as he puts it, it doesn't get more American than that. A must-watch episode.