A Kindred Spirit

I first met Walter in the mid-’50s, when I was a 4-year-old, peeling-nose, sun-bleached beach kid. My mom, a divorcée with three children, had planned on subletting the spare room off the garage of our old clapboard rental on Balboa Island, Newport Beach. It was a typical summer day in the little island community when I ran across the linoleum floor to answer the knock on the front door. There stood a huge mountain of a guy in a sleeveless “Makaha” sweatshirt, denim trunks, a ukulele under one massive arm, and bare feet. I knew he was a kindred spirit instantly.

Walter had grown up in Hollywood and started surfing the California coast with his brother, Phillip, aka “Flippy,” in the early ’40s. Their father, Rube P. Hoffman, was a textile converter. Walter joined his father’s fabric business in the garment district of Los Angeles after returning from Oahu, where he’d spent his four years of naval service on night radio duty in Pearl Harbor and his days on the beach in Waikiki or Makaha. It was a long commute to LA from Balboa and a big transition from the casual tropical lifestyle to the world of business suits and woolen fabrics. 

It wasn’t long before Walter would change the direction of Hoffman Fabrics by catering to new postwar consumers who were hopeful and prosperous with the nation finally at peace. The advanced technology developed in the aerospace industry made it possible for designers to push the boundaries of traditional craftsmanship, directly affecting surfboard building with the introduction of foam and fiberglass. With boards going from 100-plus pounds of solid wood to around 40 pounds, surfing and the casual beach lifestyle, represented by aloha shirts and trunks, was poised to become part of the lexicon of the midcentury modern American Dream. 

My mom and Walter married within a few years of meeting. My older sister, Joyce, my younger brother, Tony, and I moved to Capistrano Beach, where many of my dad’s friends would follow. These young men would go on to create the magazines, films, surfboards, and clothing that would define California beach culture for decades. Their influence changed the way people across the globe aspired to live. Most of these men are now gone, and with the recent passing of my dad, it feels like the end of an era. But I’ll always remember him standing in our open doorway, ukulele under his arm, bringing in the spirit of aloha.