Ron Sizemore is a natural, a living legend at Brooks Street. For 55 years he has been taking off deep, finding his line and keeping his surf stoke alive. In 1961, Sizemore won the U.S. West Coast Surfing Championship by shooting the pilings of the Huntington Pier backwards.
A feat aired nationwide on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. The summer of 2011 Laguna surfers have been on a holding pattern for the 50th Annual Brook Street Surfing Contest, the longest consecutive running surf event in the world. To this day Ron surfs in any and all divisions they let him in;
“It’s incredible to slide across a 6ft. wave on a kneeboard, body board, long board, short board and bodysurf with five other guys in the water”.
I was more than ‘stoked’ to kick back at the Sizemore Aliso compound and get to know him a little better. – Hans Hagen
Name:
Ron Sizemore
Occupation:
Retired from Bill Stroppe and Son, we did work for the Ford Motor Company west coast press demo fleet and also raced for many years in the Baja 1000 and was never defeated for all those years.
What is your surfing equipment of choice?
- 11 ft. Hobie Single Fin
- 8’7″ Fly quad fish
- 8’8″ Fly twin-fin fish
- 10’2″ tri-fin gun from Pearson Arrow (a.k.a. war canoe) It would really be fun to ride that in something, at 66 years old you got to have dreams, it’s my dream board.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Waking up in the morning, seeing the sunshine, no wind and a little northwest swell for Thalia St or south swell, it really doesn’t make a difference and no tourists in town (laughing).
What is your greatest fear?
(Laughing) Getting pick-pocketed on a crowded day in Laguna on Forest Ave., it’s getting worse than Disneyland, they are coming from everywhere and flocking to the beach like lemmings or something!
What is your favorite journey?
If you get rid of the negative things in it, my favorite journey was my 18-month tour in the Vietnam War. I can find positive things, I had the opportunity to surf during the daytime and work at night. The government fed me, clothed me, they didn’t get in my face and I got to go to Australia for a week. (At the expense of the taxpayers) Although I was doing a job for them, I was keeping communism off our doorstep, or that’s what they told me, anyway.
What living person do you admire?
Tom Morey; he is just a rare individual and his mind is always going. And if he’s not laying on the deck at Oak St. like a lizard looking for warmth or smoking eucalyptus leaves in his car with all the windows up and having a tap on the window to say ‘your busted’. (Laughing) or telling his wife to floss with plastic bags from the market, using strips of the plastic to floss your teeth with. He’s amazing!
What living person do you despise?
At 66, I don’t have any. You seem to come in harmony with everybody no matter where they are coming from or where they are going.
Which words or phrases do you over use?
Wow!! Wow, look at that! Or wow! Did you see what Alex Knost did?
Words to live by?
Peace, love and all that other hippie stuff, respect your fellow human.
What talent would you most like to have?
To play the ukulele as well as Jake Shimabukuro.
What is your most treasured possession?
Everything is just so transitory, it was not until the last Laguna fire where a lot of people lost stuff, I realized how fleeting all that ‘stuff’ is.
