Note:
Former Laguna Beach Lifeguards, Craig Lockwood and Mitch Ridder discuss the sometimes contentious relationship between surfers and lifeguards in Laguna Beach.

Mitch Ridder (left) & Craig Lockwood (right). Recorded for OC Surf Stories; Laguna Beach Library, Laguna Beach, California

Transcript:
Craig Lockwood: To ride big waves, even semi-big waves, to do it well, takes an enormous amount of concentration, skill, and ability. And many , I would say probably in California and Hawaii, if you were to take a poll of who surfed, you would find that a pretty sizeable majority of the lifeguards surf. It goes well. It's a good way to be able to afford to be a surfer. To have a legitimate job, at least part of the year. Mitch Ridder: But also, it doesn't mean that surfers and lifeguards get along all the time. Because , well, I guess, once, one of the other shifts I saw early in the seventies is, as a profession, lifeguarding was really working at trying to become more of a profession, and really thought more of as first responders and public safety. And , CL: And law enforcement. MR: Yeah, and there was a clash, I'd say, going back to the seventies, because surfers back then, tended to be very territorial and they had their own surf spots, their favorite surf spots that they liked and those were kind of theirs and they didn't so much like people from out of town coming in to that spot. And at the same time, they also didn't really appreciate a lifeguard saying Ok, it's 10 am, you guys have to get out of the water or you have to move down to the official surf beach. And so that led to clashes, but there came a period of time, a transitional period there, where I think surfers finally began to realize that, ok, the lifeguards aren't going away. They have their job, they have to do what they have to do. But the reverse of that was, well wait a second, the lifeguards are actually helping us surfers out because they're keeping the swimmers out of our surf areas , CL: Yeah MR: - and keeping us from having to go around them and possibly hit them and so it's a two-edged sword. They're kicking us out from where we wanna be but when we have the time period where which we have to be within a restricted area they are keeping the swimmers and the boogie boarders out of our area, and so it got to a point where it evolved. There was a mutual respect. CL: It's called the Hodad Factor. Keep those Hodads out of our surfing area. And a Hodad was kind of a multi-level, multi-faceted pejorative that defined anybody who , MR: I'm glad you're defining this because this is before my time, the Hodad term. CL: Well then they just were bozos in your time. Get those bozos out of our way, you know? Hey lifeguard! Be a lifeguard! Get those bozos out of the way! That was what you'd get. And you would manifest authority and move the bozos, Hodads, whatever they were out of the surfers area and they were grateful for thatif little else. But that's okay. I understood.


For additional information see California Revealed.

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