Tom and Marchia Morey celebrating the International Boogie Board Day. Screenshot from YouTube.

With the most vivid memories, I recall the first time I rode a Boogie Board in the Pacific Ocean. Like so many other young Southern California kids, I was out trying to learn the rhythm of the sea – waiting and waiting and then paddling and kicking like a runaway riverboat to catch a wave. The older wetsuited surfers may have resented us salt-water-swallowing groms pilfering their waves, but the ocean didn’t seem to play favorites. I learned nothing but respect for the mystical magic of currents, waves, and tides.

The durable and spongy Boogie Board was a great equalizer in the water – allowing the young, gawky, uncoordinated, and amateurish our opportunity on the bullride of the sea. Yippee-ki-yay, dude!

All of this is to say mahalo to Tom Morey, inventor of the Boogie Board who died last month at age 86. “That single device introduced more people to the joy of waveriding than any other person in the world,” said Jim Kempton, president of the California Surfing Museum. “His simple gift – a design that allowed anyone from paraplegics to Pipeline pros to boogie their brains out on a wave – will be his joyous, lasting, legacy.”

Kempton, former editor of Surfer magazine, called Morey “the Ben Franklin of the surfing world. Like Franklin, Morey was a jack of all trades and the master of so many it is almost dizzying.” Morey was a jazz drummer, surfing design fabricator, ukulele player, and an engineer.

The first Saturday of November is International Boogie Day — or the International Bodyboarding Day.

Morey sold his stake in his invention back in 1977. “I got a good chunk of money,” he would later report. “I spent some of it wisely and I spent some of it unwisely. I’ve been up and down and over and out.” When asked at age 72 if the Boogie Board made him wealthy, he said: “I can surf. I’m healthy. I’m creative. Hey! A lot of my multi-millionaire friends … they’re gone. Nobody’s trying to kidnap my kids, because they don’t have no money! I’m not running from the IRS. I don’t have any kind of income that’s of importance. Life is about riding in the curl.”

RIP Tom Morey.

Pretty stoked to be in Hawaii on Duke Kahanamoku’s 131st birthday. It would be have been a great gift to him to know that Carissa Moore won the first gold medal in surfing at the Tokyo Olympics. She did Hawaiians proud. “Stopped by to share my leis with Duke to honor our father of modern day surfing and the ambassador of Aloha 🌺 Surfing wouldn’t be what it is today without him and all those who have come before,” she wrote on Instagram.

Duke’s love of the ocean — manifest through his Olympic gold medals in swimming and pioneering expertise in surfing — has been a total inspiration and has only deepened my love for Hawaii and the values of Aloha. Happy birthday Duke! Mahalo.

Many years ago when high school life was simple and zesty in the early 1980s, I was more than mildly obsessed with an Orange County rockabilly band called the Red Devils. My friend Jonny Ray slapped a blonde doghouse bass while his brother Dave Lee shredded a Gretsch Silver Jet and Scottie Campbell beat the drums. In the center of the stage was siren who shipwrecked the hearts of many young fans. Emy Lee had a voice that was created to shake rafters. Regrettably, the memory of that foursome’s time on the stage is only preserved via a few YouTube videos.

Through the miracle of technology, I was blasted back to yesteryear last Sunday afternoon when I was able to see Emy Lee perform online with fabulous musicians such as Kid Ramos (Fabulous Thunderbirds) and John Bazz (Blasters). Spectacular. One of the strange and wonderful sensations of life is being able to close your eyes and find yourself transported through well-preserved vocals and piping hot music. The brief set with selections from legends such as Billie Holiday, Ruth Brown, Wanda Jackson, and Janis Martin went by with the speed of a bullet train but brought a truckload of satisfaction.

The Los Angeles Times once described Emy Lee as a “magnetic singer” and the OC Weekly referred to her as “Ava Gardner in cowboy boots.” In her brilliant essay in John Doe’s book, “More Fun in the New World,” Maria McKee of Lone Justice fame described Emy Lee as “a gorgeous Puerto Rican girl dressed in perfect 1950s clothes” who “played a Charlie Christian guitar” and was being compared to Patsy Cline. It was all truth. Decades later, I can’t be more grateful for  Stellar Shows and Concerts as well as Campus JAX in Newport Beach for my nostalgic Sunday afternoon Zoom call to less complicated days.