Mike Bright

Story by Mike Bright,
written by Tom Takao

Mike “Bones” Bright an Outstanding Waterman of Surfing, Paddleboardering, and Diving. A State Champion in Beach Doubles Volleyball and a 3 time Olympic participant, once in paddling, twice in volleyball. And who glassed boards for Bing Copeland, Rick Stoner, Greg Noll, Dewey Weber, Sonny Vardeman, Hap Jacobs, Dick Mobley and others.

Mike grew up in Hermosa Beach and remembers the time when he was 6 years old and was on the old Hermosa Beach Pier. Seeing a few fishermen running around a fellow angler who was trying to keep his fish on the line. Looking down through the guard-rail, he saw a monster of a fish. It was a Giant Black Sea Bass swimming ever so close to the barnacles that were sprouting from the Pier's pilings. It wasn't uncommon to see such a fish or hook one up along the Santa Monica Bay coastine prior to the 1950's.

Mike would visit the Pier many times with his dad when he was young. The Bright's lived near by, one street north of the Pier. Walking up the beach from the Pier on a sunny afternoon during a spring day in 1950, you would have seen a bunch of kids with their surfboards lined up for a photograph. The Daily Breeze newspaper was doing an article on surf clubs and had a reporter / photographer waiting in the sand. Mike Bright and the other members of the Hermosa Beach Seals Surf Club were stoked in having their picture taken. It meant bragging rights in school, and notoriety at the hamburger stand. A few remarks and laughs before the word cheese clicked.

1950 Hermosa Beach Seals Surf Club 17th St. Hermosa Beach; Left to right: Charley Davis, Mike Bright, John Rhind, Bill Bryson, Chip Post, Steve Voorhees, Jeff White, Sonny Vardeman, Jimmer Lindsay

After the picture was taken, everyone walked back to the Strand and to their homes, for most it was a few blocks away. Hermosa Beach at the beginning of 1950 was just starting to develop, but there were still a lot of open sandy lots in between the houses that the guys cut through to get home.

Mike and his friends were the 17th St. guys and only later were they allowed to hang at 22nd Street. 22nd St. was the hangout for the older guys, guys 17 to 25 years old. It had a few small hamburger stands and a small market. The guys mostly sat around the wall or was down a block or two where there were homemade catamarans parked in front of an old tiki carvings and a palm frond shack nearby. Always good stories and talented storytellers to get you through those many beach days of summer recalled Mike.

There will be days of going to Velzy’s mom's garage which was up the street from the Pier near Pier Ave. and watch Dale shape his early balsa's. A couple years later Mike would do the same at Velzy's shop in Manhatten Beach. Living around the ocean meant swimming, paddling and surfing, which was a major part of Mike's life. So glassing surfboards seemed like the next step for him. There was the time when Mike Bright's first glass job on Greg Noll’s first shape happened at Mike's backyard at 19 17th St. Hermosa Beach, next to the Strand. Both were around 13 or 14 years old.

It was foggy all afternoon, the kind that lingers into the night. While Mike poured the resin onto the cloth, ribbons of fog glided by and the moisture beaded on the house windows. Greg was watching with high hopes and Mike was glassing with a sense of urgency, both excited about the moment. It was all new to Mike, especially the ratio of catalyst to resin and the surrounding temperature. After the first couple of passes and working the resin in.

All the green resin slowly dripped off the cloth and onto the red brick patio of his parent’s backyard. Leaving Greg with a tacky fiberglass cloth on his balsa shape. Starting to absorb the siutation from what happened to being pissed, Greg took his board home. The dripped resin left a perfect outline of Greg's board permanently preserved in Mike's mind and backyard. After that Mike would dodge seeing Greg for the next few weeks.

When Mike was 15 years old he was repairing boards under the Manhatten Beach Pier, afterwards he would be glassing in friend's garages from Manhatten Beach to Redondo. Trying new ideas on glassing techniques. He used a Churchill swimfin to squeege a board, Mike liked the way the edge of the swim fin worked the resin, but the fin was to bulky. Back then anything was possible since no one did it before. Mike mentions Bill Bahr was the first to get glassing down, most of the early guys kept the information and technique of what they did to themselves. So you learned on your own.

Stopping by Velzy’s shop occasionally, Mike remembers how Dale made coffee by boiling grounds in a pot and pouring it into a cup, grounds and all. And after having a cup of coffee, Dale would look at Mike with his huge smile and the grounds all over his teeth.

While in High School, he and Johnny Rice went to Rincon one day. Johnny says they didn’t stop once while going to Rincon from Hermosa Beach. They hit all the signals green. If one of them got tired of driving the other would slide under as the other would slide over. The waves were small at Rincon that day. After coming in and drying off, Mike was watching Johnny paddling in. He notices 2 large dorsal fins a few feet apart serpentining behind Johnny.

I don't think he heard me or saw them said Mike, but they came within inches of his board. At that moment there must have been a few different scenarios running through Mike's mind. All of them not good. Just as Johnny stood up to wade the board across the rocks, the sharks disappeared. Johnny thought Mike was joking with him as he placed his board down on the shoreline rocks. It was a nice trip up and a safe trip back. Mike and Johnny were on a roll that day.

Back then Friday and Saturday nights along Hermosa Avenue could be challenging. Mike Bright and Mike Stange tried to see how many quart bottles of beer they could squirrel away in their pants. Stange got three and Bright got four. That night Stange was bullfighting cars on Hermosa Avenue and was gored by a V.W. Bug. He was really hurting, but his shoes were still in perfect position on the street, right where he was wearing them at the time the bug hit him.

They got him to bed that night and Mike would visit him the next day. Bright went to the Foster Freeze before going over to Stange house and got him a malt. Malts were the rage for the guys then and so Mike thought it would cheer him up after having one. He drank it and became violently ill. The malt was a peanut butter malt and after finding out that Stange is very allergic to peanuts, Bright made a quick exist.

Mateo Creek was a route to take to Trestles in the 1950's and early 60's

One of Velzy’s friend was Billy Ming, who became close friends with Mike and Sonny Vardeman. Never in Mike’s life has he been associated with a more laid back guy. Nothing disturbed him. He was a small red haired guy that was a tad older than the rest of them. He had a deuce pickup, a 32’ yellow customized Ford.

One day during the time when the guys were in high school (1952-1955) Mike and Sonny went to Trestles with Billy. The surf was a perfect 8 ft. with no one out. Perfect weather and glassy all day. You had to sneak by the Marines. In those days it was sometime more fun than surfing. They were out in the water all day, except for having a lunch break when the marines were gone.

They sat on a big old trunk of a Sycamore tree which had become driftwood. Mike and Sonny forgot to bring a lunch, but Ole Ming pulled from his backpack a couple cans of pork and beans and made the day perfect. On the way home they stopped for supplies, Sonny dropped his jar of peanut butter and made a scene at the market. Mike got a laugh from that as they drove away.

1955 Catalina Race, Left to right Mike Bright, Bob Hogan, John McFarlane, Chip Post, and Greg Noll

Mike was a good paddler who got better and better as the 1950’s went along. The 1955 Catalina race was the first of many Catalina races. Mike’s boat skipper for the 1955 race was Dave Perumian, known as Black Bass. Black Bass was the skipper and Fred Kerwin was his first mate. Actually Fred was a fine skipper himself, so Mike had two skippers who knew the waters around San Pedro Channel.

They went to the Isthmus the day before the race and were ready to go. Mike had come in first the last few races he was in and was pumped for this one. The night before the race Mike and Greg Noll got a jug and decided to sleep on the beach by the starting line. This way they would be awoken before the 5 a.m. start.

Mike and Greg did not go to the pre-race instruction meeting. Since this was the first of the Catalina Races there may have been a miscommunication to some of the skippers. As it turned out neither Bass or Fred was at the pre-race instructions. Race officials did not have written instruction for the skippers, just in case there was a misunderstanding. One skipper didn't even fuel up for the race?

The day of the race was pea soup fog. Mike was even more confident in his skippers of finding their way to the finish. The gun sounded and the race was on. They passed Birdshit Rock without seeing it, but could smell it. Mike’s boat guided off to the left or more north of the pack.

Mike figured that they had been studying the currents and would give them a hell of an advantage to finish with the current behind him. Around a half mile out Bass gets a radio message from one of the other boats. It seemed he had forgotten to fuel up for the race and would have to leave his paddler. It turned out that his paddler wouldn’t get in the boat and wanted to finish the race.

After a lot of cussing, Bass was ordered by the race committee to stand by that paddler and escort him the rest of the 31 ½ miles to Manhatten Beach. While Bass and Fred went looking for and finding their second paddler. Mike went from a knee paddling position to sitting on the board and waited for the boat and the other paddler to catch up.

It was so foggy Mike was going in a circle while keeping them in sight. They would catch up and Mike would start paddling normally for a while. Then went into a sitting position for the other paddler to catch up. It was a routine that repeated itself again and again. Eventually Mike gave up hope of winning and just sat and paddle next to the guy for about twenty more miles.

The other guy just wouldn’t get out of the water, thinking he was doing well. A bit of luck came Mike’s way. Some black dorsal fins were breaking the surface outside of them. Bass mentions to the guy they were Killer Whales, while Mike stayed quiet, knowing they were porpoises. The guy got in the boat finally, but as Mike put it, we were screwed from the start. By missing the meeting, we were some forty-five minutes from my house in Hermosa, heading for Point Dume. After getting in they heard that they were supposed to round Pointe Vincente light-house at Palos Verdes, a disappointing way to end the first Catalina Race. Mike Bright would come in first at the 1956 and 1957 races.

The standing for the 1955 Catalina Race: 1st Ricky Grigg, 2nd Charlie Reimer, 3rd Greg Noll, 4th George Downing, 5th George Chalekson, 6th Donald Anderson, 7th Allan Nelson, 8th Larry Cocke, the following were DNF or DQ. Mike Bright DNF, Tom Zahn DQ, Bill Graham DNF, Bob Hogan DNF, Sheridan Byerley DNF.

Paddling through the shore break at Hermosa Beach on his Velzy Jacobs paddleboard 1956

House by Makaha Point, Left to right Rick Stoner, Mike Bright, and Sonny Vardemann photo Bing Copeland

After the Catalina Race, in October of 1955; Mike Bright, Bing Copeland, Rick Stoner, Sonny Vardeman, Steve "Hog" Voorhees; somehow he got the name of Hogan Twanger and Velzy changed it to just Hog, and George Kepo'o went to Hawaii. George was born in Hawaii and was returning after a couple of years to visit family. Mike, Bing, Rick and Sonny would rent a place out by Makaha Point. They would surf Makaha, Town and the North Shore. While living at Makaha the guys bought a 1937 Plymouth sedan.

Sunset Beach after the ride around Kaena Point, Left to right Rick Stoner, Mike Bright, Sonny Vardemann and Bing Copeland

This part is the contribution from Mike to Bing's story "The Best of Times"

One day they drove around Kaena Point to get to the North Shore. Following the tank tracks, the dirt road went along the side of the mountain. The side of the road became cliff and plunges into the breaking waves below. At one point making a turn around a corner, one of the wheels hung over the side of the cliff while making the turn. Nervously they all shifted their weight to the mountain side as the Plymouth slowly rounded the corner.

The dirt road turned paved as they made it to Waialua. Around the traffic circle at Haleiwa and out to Sunset Beach. Stopping frequently at every gas station along the way to re-supply the car with reused oil. Whenever they drove over a puddle of water, the hole in the rear floorboard acted like a blowhole and the muddy water would splash the guys inside. They arrived at Sunset Beach in one piece, to captured the achievement of getting there, a picture was taken and then they all went surfing. On the returned trip, they took the long way around.

Surfing Point Zero 1956

The following year Bing and Rick enlisted in the Coast Guard, while Sonny and Steve joined the Navy. Mike moved into Waikiki and stayed in a flop house at 219 Liliokalani and trained with Tommy Zahn and Charley Reimers. "I had gotten so fast that Tommy decided to temporarly retire from paddling and helped me to get in better shape. He would row in a racing skull with his stop watch and time the paddling" said Mike. Mike would break the current half mile record by 25 seconds and would make a new unoffical record for the mile. Joe Quigg was in the 1955 Diamond Head Race and took second. Joe would miss the Catalina Race and let his body rest.

Joe Quigg at the Ala Wai channel 1955

Notes from back of the photo from above

Tommy Zahn 1956

After winning the 1956 Catalina Race, Mike was on a plane for Down Under with Tommy Zahn, Greg Noll and the rest of the US Life Saving Team. Australia was hosting the 1956 Olympics and their exhibition sport was life saving which had a lot of paddling. So there was Mike, Tommy, Greg and the others in the thick of things in the 1956 Olympics, paddling away. At this same time the yanks brought over the first Balsa Malibu boards, it would change Australian surfing from that day on.

1956 US SLSA SURF TEAM, Mike Bright right side standing

After returning from Australia, Mike would win the 1957 Catalina Race and retire from competition paddling. Having been glassing a board here and there, Mike started a surfboard glassing business with Sonny Vardeman. Nobody really knew how to glass a lot of boards at that time. Mike give credit to Dan Bendikson for figuring out a way of making the gloss really shine. He would lay the first coat on and before it completely set up, he did another one on top of the first. The heat from the first one made the second one go off perfectly and caused a lot of wax to stay in the solution. Rather than float up and seal the resin off as it supposed to do. The result was a shinny and zit free coat.

Occasionally they would get spied on. One day Richard Dees who was Dewey’s glasser came by one day. As a practical joke Mike had rigged up some wires from a battery to a shinny gloss job. For all intent and purposes it looked like electricity was making the boards shinny. Dees was told all about the effects of electric-magnetic gloss coats. As the saying goes he took the hook, line and sinker. He went off to try it, later Mike was told that the gloss job came out shitty.

A lot of boards in those days were just finger wiped instead of taping the gloss coats, Mike recalled. There were no labor pool to speak of, and to have quality work done by someone on that many boards in all kinds of weather was impossible. The only way to get good work was to do it yourself. One Christmas eve Mike had worked a 36 hour shift with no drugs. After that shift he fell asleep on James Arness’s board because it seemed the most comfortable.

Mike and Sonny had 14 surfboard accounts to service and the reason for having that many accounts was that they were charging $22.50 for glassing a board. With the advent of color foam, which was 40% weaker than the regular foam, the board as a whole became weaker. You could stick your thumb through the glass when finished. Mike who was also the sander got the blame for what they thought was the cause, which was sanding through the overlap.

In those days almost no one knew the trade. Pollard had figured out a way to do a flip hen wet treatment and Mike would have to tell you that the results were genius. If it were Mike’s board though, they seemed pretty heavy from the amount of resin used. Still, they were the best for the time.

When the demand for lighter and lighter boards came about, problems with pin air and thinner laminates presented cosmetic problems. Timing the “go off” for the resin was critical. A little slow and pin air occurred. The knife rails some of the shapers liked to make on the boards were impossible to wrap around. Do to the available materials, giant air bubbles appeared if your timing was about 45 seconds off.

Remember that these boards were around 25 lbs. And would be damaged by their own weigh if lost on the rocks. So 20 oz. nose patches and giant overlaps on the rails were the thing of the day. There was this one board says Mike that he glassed and was lost at Sunset Beach, Hawaii and it drifted the Pacific until it was found in the Philippines. There were only minor sun damage to the glass. “Those glass jobs in them days would preserve a mummy for a thousands years”.

After retiring from competition paddling Mike became more serious about volleyball. In 1960 Mike Bright and Mike O’hara won the State Beach Open Doubles Tournament. At the time, this tournament was considered one of the biggest in Beach Volleyball.

They had defeated the legendary team of Selznik and Lang in the finals by a lot of points. That same year Mike joined the Hollywood Y team that was the best team in the country in the six man type game. Still in the same year he joined the national team and went to the world games in Rio de Janeiro.

From then on it would be at a level consider being one of the best. Besides having been on the national team for twelve years. Mike won the first five Manhatten Beach Open with Mike O’hara and win 4 other tourneys with other partners.

Back in the beginning of Beach Volleyball there were only 7 or 8 tournaments a year, compared to the 50 that are run today. Even though Mike won 18 tournaments total, the years involved are comparable to those with much more wins. After retiring from Beach Volleyball Mike’s friend Lang would go on to win 50 tournaments. Mike says “If anyone is to claim the best beach volleyball player ever, it is this man”.

Mike was a member of the 1964 and 1968 Olympic Volleyball Team. The 1972 team had to qualify in pool play. They went to France and were required to win their pool of five teams. In their pool was the Polish Team, which were the reigning world champs. They had won all of their other matches and had the Polish Team down 9 to 3 in the final game of five. The Polish Team pulled it together and eliminated the US team from the final ten that would go to Munich. The Polish team ended up winning the gold.

In 1969 Mike founded Malibu Diver, a place for diving supplies and diving classes. During the mid 1970’s Mike had a diving accident that would curtail his activities in the ocean. In 1979 Mike sold the business to an associate at Malibu Divers.

Through the years his contributions and achievements have faded to the pages of yesterday's magazines and books. Those who know him can attest to Bones being the best paddle-boarder in the world during the mid 1950’s, a Beach and Olympic Volleyball player of the 1960’s and early 1970's.

And in regards to surfing, he was a surfboard glasser who glassed Greg Noll, Bing Copeland, Rick Stoner, Sonny Vardeman, Dewey Weber, Hap Jacobs, Dick Mobley and a list of other surfboard makers at the beginning of the foam era. Those boards are part of Surfing's heritage and a part of Bones's legend.