By Butch Freedman
Nobody thought it was a good idea when Wimpy opened the surf shop. But we also knew there was no stopping him. Maybe we were also secretly hoping we could score some free boards. Wimpy was one of the first serious surfers on Long Beach Island, and got a lot of us started on riding waves; there was a crew of 5 or 6 guys, and one quiet girl, whose name I forget, who rode waves like she was dreaming. Wimpy was a compact little guy, stumpy, but on the board he was the master. No wave was too big for him. The word was that he had moved to the island, for reasons unknown, from his native California. There was talk of trouble with the law back there, but nobody knew anything for certain. Wimpy didn’t talk much. He had started building his own boards, originally from planks of balsa, then later using fiberglass. He sold a few, gave away more of them, and then thought, why not try to make a living at it. He somehow scraped up enough cash to buy an old driftwood shack and the corner lot it sat on. We helped him put up a sail-cloth banner with the name Wimpy’s painted on it. That day we were all stoked.
But after the first few months, it became clear that nobody but us few surf rats were coming to the shop. I was only 20 at the time, still in college, still living with my parents, so I didn’t have anything to lose, but still felt torn up that Wimpy had put all his money into this store and now it looked like it would have to shut down.
“What do you think, kid?” I remember Wimpy asking me after we’d come back to the shop after a late surf.
The waves had been choice and I was still high off that, so said, “You gotta stick it out, man. This place is magic.”
“I don’t know about that.” Wimpy looked puzzled, even sad. I’d never seen him like that before. I looked up to him, thought he was the coolest person I’d ever met. “Magic doesn’t sell surfboards.”
“It will,” I said, sure of myself for no reason I could determine. There were so many things I was unsure of at that time in my life. “You need to hang in, man.”
Wimpy laughed. “Alright, little brother. We’ll hang.”
Wimpy did stick it out. We all pitched in and manned the shack when Wimpy was out on the waves. He wasn’t about to give that up. And after a few more months, surfers all over the East Coast started finding their way to the little shop, which had developed a good stock of custom boards, and other gear. Wimpy’s was making money, at least enough to stay open. Wimpy even told me, it was almost too much and that he was a little bit scared that he’d become someone he didn’t want to be. “What do you mean?” I asked.
Wimpy just shook his head. “I don’t want to change, you know. All I ever wanted to do was surf.”
After college, I lost track of Wimpy. I even gave up surfing. Got married, moved away from the ocean. Tried to become an adult. You know how it goes.
Not too many years ago, I traveled back to New Jersey and visited Wimpy’s, not sure if it would still be there; it was, but now covered the whole corner lot with a three-story lap-board sided building where the driftwood shack had stood. The place was packed with boards, wetsuits, all sorts of branded tees and clothing, and four or five young surf-punks tending to sales. But no Wimpy. I bought a tee-shirt and asked about my old friend. I was told he sold the place back in the 90’s. Probably made a small fortune. I don’t know. But I hope he did. Sometimes dreams do work out, and sometimes they don’t.
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