Then followed a quick exchange of four-letter insults that only teenagers could decipher. Lee, tired of arguing, walked behind the counter and yanked the board out of the grasp of the stoutest of the three without saying a word. Never short of pleasantries, Lee politely obliged with, “Thank you.”
The gunfire of insults silenced into wicked glares. With board in hand, Lee and Larry walked out of the lifeguard station. Not a fist was raised in solving “the case of the missing surfboard.”
Once word spread around school of how the Williams twins commandeered their surfboard back from the seniors, it seemed that everybody tried to test Larry’s volatile temper. Not a week went by when he wasn’t involved in a pushing or shouting match, often including a few flying fists or somebody getting driven into the ground gripped in a headlock.
Tired of being sassed and harassed, Larry decided to make an example out of a foulmouthed runt two years his junior during one of the Great Lakes Surf Club’s weekend surfing excursions. After ignoring nearly two hours of insults and innuendos that would make a Las Vegas prostitute blush, Larry buried the loudmouth up to his neck in sand. Knowing the brat was unable to move, he proceeded to drop a big rotting fish on his head, leaving him there to bake in the sun.
For the next hour, the brat struggled to wiggle himself free—to no avail. A passing police officer realized he was the victim and not a willing participant in a prank, and after fifteen minutes of digging, the officer exhumed the kid from the sandy grave. But the smell of dead carp would linger in his hair for days, reminding him of his place on the surfers’ hierarchy.
Despite their growing confidence, Lee and Larry were still taken aback when Rocky Groh insinuated to them that the Lake Shore Surf Club was getting together for a little holiday debauchery at the local Pizza Hut. They interpreted the hint as an unofficial invitation to join them that night, knowing it was conditional.
“If the three of you sit quietly at a separate table and don’t cause any trouble,” Rocky said, “we won’t shove you away. But one squeal out of your corner and we’ll bounce you out of there higher than a Super Ball.”
Although offered in passing by one of Andy Sommersberger’s lieutenants, the invite was monumental on several levels. For the past two years, the Lake Shore Surf Club members had been the kings of the Sheboygan surf scene with Lee, Larry, Kevin, and the handful of other Great Lakes Surf Club members serving in their loyal court as silent observers. Not only was it the first time the Lake Shore Surf Club extended any sort of courtesies to the younger generation of surfers, but never before had the group included anybody outside of their tight clique to join them, in any capacity, for any function of any kind. If the boys had been offered the invitation while surfing, their excitement might have allowed them to walk across the waves without getting their toenails wet.
That night, as soon as their shift of washing dishes and bussing tables at Geno’s Top of the First ended, they raced to Pizza Hut. It was Christmas season, so the restaurant was packed with dozens of college students home on break with their families. Right in the middle of the restaurant five tables had been pulled together to form one master table with at least thirteen guys from the Lake Shore Surf Club sitting among the pizzas and sodas and beers.
All of the Lake Shore Surf Club regulars were there, and from the way they guzzled pitcher after pitcher after pitcher, they seemed to have just returned from a desert retreat. At the head of the table, Randy Grimmer shoved a whole slice of pizza into his mouth while still carrying on a conversation with Mark Hall and Bill Kuitert. Cheering Randy on was Johnny Rusch, who looked more like an accountant than a surfer. It would have seemed like the club kept him around to keep up their grade point average, if they had been recognized by the high school as a legitimate organization. He mostly served as the target of their teasing, often receiving atomic-wedgies, where the back of his underwear was pulled over the front of his face. Everyone knew when he got one, as his bow-legged gait through the high school hallways was a dead giveaway. But tonight, he was a part of the festivities and sat right in the middle of the drinking and eating.
At the other end of the table, Rocky Groh showcased his ability to eat pizza and drink beer while keeping his unfiltered Camel cigarette balanced on his lips. When he noticed Kevin, Lee, and Larry’s arrival, he gave them only a slight glance implying, “Don’t make me look bad.” Tom Ziegler and Andy Sommersberger sat at the opposite end of the table from where Genyk Okolowicz chimed in on sing-alongs whenever the verse struck him, adding to the already obnoxious scene created by the group. Although never acknowledged amid the hooting and hollering, an awkward silence occasionally fell on the table. Those brief moments of silence were reminders that the night’s dinner was the last hurrah for several of those guys before being forced to face adulthood. Some were only a few months from high school graduation, and the Vietnam War loomed in their minds. At eighteen, they didn’t want to be forced to pick up a gun and shoot people halfway across the world.
Some tried for college deferment. Others faked illnesses. Andy Sommersberger, in typical fashion, went to another extreme. Remembering Rocky’s rash from earlier in the summer, he had soaked his wetsuit in gasoline a month before having to go down for his entrance physical. On the day before his entrance exam, he slipped into the petroleum-soaked suit. As gasoline seeped into his pores, the eye-watering sensation intensified. Convinced that pain is weakness leaving the body, Andy kept reminding himself it was all worth the price he was paying. No amount of burning, itching, or nausea compared to the months of hell ahead of him if he couldn’t scheme his way out of Southeast Asia. He wasn’t a soldier; he was a surfer, and failure on this mission was not an option unless he wanted to exchange his board for a rifle.
The next day an ecstatic Andy Sommersberger exited the US Army Examination and Entrance Station. Uncle Sam had issued him a medical deferment. All thirteen of the Lake Shore Surf Club members, despite being of draft age, avoided serving a day in camouflage fatigues through one means or another.
Maybe Andy’s recent victory over Uncle Sam was cause for such loud and brash behavior at the Pizza Hut that night. As the group’s leader, he set the tone for the whole evening. Since he was smiling and laughing that night, the rest of the table was throwing food and making obnoxious noises with various appendages. Quietly sitting in a corner booth, Kevin, Lee, and Larry just observed.
The group’s shenanigans went on for quite a while until the restaurant got very quiet. At first, the boys continued their conversation, not paying any attention to the rest of the patrons. They figured Andy and the gang were having a moment of reflection, until. . . .
“Son of a bitch,” screamed an angry waitress. She slung four-letter words while slashing at the empty cups, plates, and napkins on the table. Customers at the other tables stared in wonder. That’s when Kevin noticed: “They dashed without paying the bill.”
“Amazing,” Larry said with a smile. “They can turn an average pizza- and-beer night into a chance to push the limits.”
Lee nodded, though he clearly was less impressed.
“Aren’t they great?” Larry said.
“It sure is typical of those guys,” Lee answered.
Lee and Larry began getting invited to hang out in the water just on the outskirts of where many of the Lake Shore Surf Club members rode the waves. As the youngest of the group, they were still trying to impress. They tried to be as stylish and outrageous as possible. But when they looked down the beach and saw a couple of kids riding in waves on a break just south of them, they couldn’t help but feel as if their thunder had been stolen—especially when Andy, Rocky, Randy, and the rest of the older boys noticed.
“Who are those guys?” Andy asked his gang. “Anybody ever seen those boards before?”
“I think they’re from Black River,” Randy said. “I heard a couple of guys are surfing there now.”
“What a bunch of kooks,” Rocky chimed in. “Probably driving in every day from Fond du
Lac.”
For the next few weeks it seemed every time the Sheboygan surfers hit the water, those two guys from Black River were paddling out and riding in with them wave for wave just to the south. Proving they weren’t one-wave wonders, the two freelance riders began earning the respect of the Sheboygan surfers. So when the “Black River surfing rats”—as they were nicknamed by several of the Lake Shore Surf Clubbers—decided to wander north, Lee and Larry introduced themselves on behalf of the group.
Even the most cliché of surfing jargon seemed fresh when the Williams brothers began chatting up the Black River surfing rats—Mark Rakow and Mark Wente. Since all four were about the same age, it didn’t take long for them to bond over the adage, “You really can’t have a bad day at the beach.” After about twenty minutes, when all four decided they were wasting the opportunity to ride some good waves by standing on the sand, they began shoving their surfboards into the water. For the next couple of hours, the four boys took turns on the crest of a wave, hot-dogging, gliding, and inhaling the freedom of the surf.
Since most of the Lake Shore Surf Club members were on the verge of graduation, the Great Lakes Surf Club continued to attract new members their age. As the weather got nicer in the spring of 1968, parties at the beach became more prevalent. Even with the increased foot traffic on the sand, it still wasn’t busy enough to scare away foxes, coyotes, and all sorts of birds. The Lake Shore Surf Club’s favorite spot for hosting hooters was a cove near the C. Reiss Coal Company on Sheboygan’s south side. It was so hidden nobody could see what was going on from the road or anywhere else on the beach unless they were right on top of the outcropping. Even when the police drove by, they didn’t bother to get out of their squad cars to patrol the area, knowing that as long as everyone was tucked away from sight, the situation didn’t require their attention.
The sun shines on Larry and his board.
“You could walk around naked and nobody would know,” Lee often joked. Thanks to the magical mix of alcohol and young people, several of the partygoers did eventually walk around the cove naked, much to the enjoyment of everybody who was there.
Eager to learn anything about the surfing lifestyle, Lee and Larry picked up whatever they could find regarding the Hawaiian and Californian surf scenes, while incorporating their unique Sheboygan flavor. If there was a decal, a sticker, or a t-shirt they could get their hands on, they made sure everybody within the Great Lakes Surf Club had the chance to buy one. As the school year transitioned into summer vacation in 1968, their little entrepreneurship wasn’t necessarily turning a profit, but it wasn’t breaking them either.
The 1968 Lake Shore Surf Club poses in front of the Sheboygan County Court House. Present for this photo: Chuck Reis, Tyler Cooper, Mark Rakow, Bill Kuitert, Tom Grabielse, Jim Schmidt, Chuck Koehler, Jeff Sherman, Rocky Groh, Ron Wilke, Rich Kuitert, Al Kuitert, Mark Wente, Mark Hall, Don Wilds, Andy Sommersberger, Tom Ziegler, Larry Williams, Lee Williams, Kevin Groh, Larry Sommersberger, and Randy Grimmer
Their success did garner an invitation that summer to participate in one of the earliest group photos of any surfing organization in the history of the Great Lakes. Standing on the stairs of the Sheboygan County Courthouse, front and center were Lee and Larry Williams with twenty-three of their fellow surfers, including Kevin Groh, Mark Rakow, Mark Wente, and Chuck Koehler standing alongside Lake Shore Surf Club members Bill Kuitert, Rocky Groh, Randy Grimmer, Mark Hall, Tom Ziegler, and Andy Sommersberger. The photo captured the magnitude of the Sheboygan surfing scene that summer, successfully bringing together both generations of surfers before events outside of anyone’s control would alter many of their lives forever.
For the Lake Shore Surf Club, the photograph signified the last time they gathered as a group since the reality of adulthood had reared its ugly head only a few months earlier. On Friday night, February 16, 1968, Lake Shore Surf Club members Genyk Okolowicz and Andy Sommersberger met up with classmates Bill Karl and Craig Schwalenberg, who drove them from bar to bar on dirt-covered Sheboygan County roads.
In a scene right out of Animal House, they pulled into the dusty parking lot of an old, three-story, Victorian, beat-up-piece-of-crap of a tavern known prophetically as “The Bitter End.” Within moments of their arrival, a gorgeous woman rushed up to Genyk’s friend Johnny Rusch, who was far from being a lady’s man with his collared polo shirt and color-coordinated shorts. His favorite line when trying to pick up a date, which often resulted in rolled eyes or a slap in the face, was “Nice legs. Are those rentals?”
So when she propositioned him with a seductive, “Let’s go out to your car and make love,” Genyk, never one to interfere with another’s attempt at finding happiness inside someone’s pants, wished his friend well and struck up a conversation with a group of friends next to him.
Johnny chugged the last of his beer and slammed the empty mug onto the bar quoting Kaiser Wilhelm, “Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the world!”
Eagerly following the mysterious buxom blonde out the door and across the parking lot, Johnny navigated the maze of treacherous tire ruts and tree root knots, knowing his window of opportunity would slam shut if he wiped out. Thanks to his strong sense of balance from endless hours on surfboards atop Lake Michigan waves, he was soon sprawled in the backseat of a Pontiac Tempest.
Sparked by her hypnotic seduction, he tore off his clothes in less than a minute. Just when she reached down to unbutton her blouse, a couple of country thugs in denim swung open the car door. She winked at him and hopped out as the burliest goon grabbed Johnny’s pants, wallet, and everything that had been on his person in one quick motion. Before Johnny could surmise what had happened, the girl and two guys had run off into the woods. There he was left in his birthday suit with nothing to show for his backseat tryst other than a bruised ego.
“I’ve been raped,” a stark-naked Johnny cried as he stormed into the packed bar. “Help me. Two thugs just stole everything.”
“Except your dignity,” heckled a girl from the back of the bar. “But you lost that when you ran in here.” When the crowd laughed, Johnny broke into tears. A sympathetic bartender draped him in a tablecloth and escorted him to a back room away from the snickering crowd. A few hours later, while riding home in the backseat of a police cruiser, it dawned on him that his embarrassment would be the talk of the town. “I should’ve known she was a setup,” he later told friends. “Honestly, who giggles at a quote from the German Emperor who lost World War I before getting laid?”
Back in the bar, Craig, Genyk, Bill, and Andy were the life of the party. Ordering shots all-around before hitting the road, they soon found themselves stumbling down the deteriorating Victorian stairs and across the hardened tire ruts without even an ounce of grace. Once behind the wheel, Craig tried his best to navigate down the unlit, two-lane county road.
One thing led to another—and the jeep flipped.
When Bill and Andy came to their senses, all they could hear was the jeep’s twisted metal groaning like the final cry of some wounded beast. Wiping dried blood from underneath his nostril, Andy noticed a faint smell of smoke and oil hanging in the air. Covered in slivers of glass from the windshield, they looked around and saw how far they had been tossed from the crashed vehicle. At first, all they could make out was the jeep’s front end crumpled into the front seat with both the steering wheel and dashboard compacted into one mangled mess. Getting to their feet and staggering to the mangled mess, they saw that the passenger door was torn free from its hinges and its two front-seat passengers unaccounted for. After that, all was silent for a while.
Craig was jettisoned from the vehicle and killed instantly. Ten yards from the overturned jeep, Genyk lay on the side of the road and would die a day later from his injuries. It was the first time anybody from the Lake Shore Surf Club had to look death directly in the face. For Bill and Andy, it was bleeding in their arms at the bottom of a ditch.
Weeks passed but the horror and grief over
Genyk and Craig’s deaths seemed to grow rather than fade. Any attempts at trying to “turn back the clock to the way it was” before the incident failed miserably. Andy Sommersberger, Tom Ziegler, Randy Grimmer, Rocky Groh, and the rest of the Lake Shore Surf Club were forced to re-examine the purpose of their lives. As eighteen-year-olds on the verge of adulthood, life had slapped them upside the head with a cold case of reality.
The reverberations went well beyond the universe of fourteen-year-old surfers, most of whom weren’t old enough to know Genyk like the Lake Shore Surf Club guys did. They could, however, see from a distance how his death shook the entire Sheboygan community, especially their surfing idols.
Over the course of the summer, the Lake Shore Surf Club began to quietly dissolve as members drifted away to begin their futures. Some guys got married; some left for college; others just disappeared after successfully dodging the draft. Although there was no formal announcement or specific moment when it was decided the group was disbanding, by Labor Day of 1968, the Lake Shore Surf Club was becoming a topic spoken of only in the past tense. The Sheboygan surfing legacy was now left in the hands of the Williams brothers and the Great Lakes Surf Club.
Second Wave
Chapter Four
During the last few months of 1968, the Sheboygan surfing scene found itself in a state of flux following the tragic deaths of Genyk Okolowicz and Craig Schwalenberg. Only a few brave souls found the passion necessary to withstand the harsh conditions of frigid Lake Michigan with a board that winter. Although deeply affected by Genyk’s death, the Williams brothers were eager to revive the stagnant Sheboygan surf scene. As part of the area’s younger surf regime, their destiny wasn’t tied to the older generation’s fate. Instead, they found themselves with the tools to begin carving a new chapter into Sheboygan’s burgeoning surf history. But they were burdened that winter with weather that would not cooperate with their wave-riding aspirations.
Some Like It Cold Page 6