Terry “Tubesteak” Tracy, the legendary Malibu surfer who reportedly kicked off Hollywood’s love affair with surfing by loaning Kathy Kohner “a surfboard in exchange for a peanut butter sandwich” has died, according to a story in the OC Register. He was 77 years old.
As he told the Register in 2002, he took to sleeping on the beach at Malibu in the mid 1950s and built a wooden shack that included palm fronds and thatched bamboo mat. He lived in it for two years, holding court there as many of the best surfers of the day would surf at Malibu. A girl appeared one day at the shack – which eventually was bulldozed – and she wanted to surf, Tracy said. The girl reminded Tracy of a short girl he’d once met at a party, named Gidget. He said he told this newcomer to the shack that he’d loan her a surfboard in return for a peanut butter sandwich she was carrying. He took to calling her Gidget.
The girl’s father wrote the book Gidget and we all know the rest of the story. Tracy later became a fixture at San Onofre beach. According to the story he “died peacefully at his home Wednesday.” Our thoughts are with his family and friends.
[Link: OC Register]
I never heard of this man b4 but as I read the succinct story of his life I admire his free spirit, his lack of concern for material wealth, his love of life -LIFE that is.
Personal anarchy at its best. Harmed no one, pretended to be nothing more than what he was, non-attached, needed nothing more than what he had or was at hand. What a guy!
THanks Tracy, yours is a good example of a life well lived.
I’m sure that there’s minutia of different shades that coloured his life, or perhaps there’s more than an ounce of serious sins to consider but, why aren’t they mentioned? For what I read if there’s a punishment for this soul he gets the Seaweed Noodle award so we can all beat him with it and absolve him of his bad deeds.
He will live long in our minds because of the good ones.
Isa
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