Some Like It Cold

by William Povletich

  With Larry’s passion for surfing reinvigorated, he introducing his son, Tanner, to the sport. An energetic ten-year-old, Tanner had already developed a keen appreciation for skateboarding and BMX dirt bike racing. His highly skilled hand-eye coordination helped him make a smooth transition into skimboarding, bodyboarding, and surfing. Father and son became inseparable with every available moment spent at the beach or in the garage designing their toys. Larry turned every activity with Tanner into an education. If dad were going to spend eighteen hundred hardearned dollars on a single-speed bicycle and drop an additional thousand dollars on a rolling toolbox, the two of them were going to construct it piece by piece from the ground up.

  “Listen here, kid,” Larry would tell Tanner. “If you want a bike this expensive, you’re going to learn to work on it.”

  Those mechanical skills helped elevate Tanner into a local hero among the younger kids in the neighborhood as he fixed their skateboards, bikes, and surfboards. He knew all the lingo from reading every surfing, biking, BMXing, and skateboarding magazine in circulation. Just like his father a generation earlier, Tanner dressed to be different, often wearing tassel hats in the middle of summer, pulled down as low as possible. His long hair hung down to the middle of his back. He copied West Coast fashions as portrayed in his magazines, having Larry drive him down to Chicago for the big baggy pants, shoes, and stylized flannels. Tanner was not only dressing the part of a rebellious surfer but also separating himself from the wannabes who tried to emulate the scene just because it was popular.

  Larry and Tanner surfing Lake Michigan in 1988

  From the first time he caught his balance on a longboard, Tanner strived to become a professional surfer. Willing to get out on the water under even the most harrowing conditions, he showed no fear when passing on smaller waves for the opportunity to surf the bigger, more challenging ones. He developed what is often called the “athlete’s mental edge.” Dedicated to practicing the five Cs—curiosity, consciousness, confidence, calmness and consistency—Tanner began to exceed even his own expectations.

  After months of coaxing, he was finally able to convince Larry to enter him into his first surfing competition in the late summer of 1990. Tanner had just turned 10. At Grand Haven, Tanner competed against the best surfers throughout the Great Lakes, regardless of age. “The Gales of November Contest,” as it was nicknamed, would play no favorites that weekend as an aggressive near-shore wind swell created treacherous water conditions, which even the most skilled Lake Michigan surfer considered “monster scary.” The wind gusts blew so hard only one surfer had made it past the outside break before Tanner’s first run.

  When he dropped his six-foot ripstick shortboard into the water, he was determined to paddle past the break. Navigating through the choppy surf without capsizing should’ve earned him a trophy for perseverance alone, but the only hardware Tanner was focused on taking home was for being the best competitive surfer on top of the waves that afternoon.

  On his first run, he made it past the break, much to the judges’ surprise.

  Patiently waiting for the next big wave to roll toward him, he trusted his instincts as several sets passed him and petered out before reaching shore. When his wave approached, he maneuvered for the take-off, chased it down, and felt the tail of his board lift, thrusting him forward into the first drop. Cutting through the wave, he followed the rolling sections as they evolved and dissolved. His near-perfect ride ended with a kick out and fast turnaround to paddle back into the choppy surf for his next wave.

  On his next run, Tanner wiped out almost immediately after his surfboard got caught in a thirty-five-mile-per-hour wind gust, punching him in the mouth. The wicked smack echoed all the way to shore, where Larry cringed alongside the rest of the anxious parents in attendance. When Tanner washed up on shore, he was still dazed from the hit. With blood gushing from his nose, he sat on the wet sand wearing the blank stare of a prizefighter struggling to survive the late rounds.

  “Aren’t you going to do something?” one of the attendees asked Larry. “He’s still in the competition,” Larry replied. “I’m not going to touch him and jeopardize his eligibility. It’s all part of the breaks.”

  Ignoring his parental instincts to comfort his son, Larry remained in the designated viewing area. Tanner just stared out at the water, not even blinking as the wind and waves flopped and churned his orphaned board alongside him. As he glanced over at it, the board flipped up, slapped him in the mouth, and knocked out his two front teeth.

  Larry couldn’t contain himself, and he raced to his son with a cold towel, which he placed over Tanner’s bleeding mouth. “We’re going home,” Larry said. “Get in the car.”

  “I thought we were camping tonight,” Tanner mumbled through his bloodied, broken teeth. “You promised.”

  “We’ve got to get you to a dentist.”

  “We’re five and a half hours from home,” Tanner argued.

  “This isn’t a democracy. You don’t get a vote. Get in the car!”

  On the ride back to Sheboygan, they stopped only for gas. When Larry finally connected with the dentist from a filthy gas station pay phone during the middle of the night, he was able to arrange an appointment for nine o’clock the next morning, a Sunday.

  They had Tanner in the dentist’s chair and fitted for caps before the first Mass of the morning let out. In typical Williams fashion, less than an hour later, Tanner and Larry were riding waves just as large as the ones in Grand Haven. Since freshwater waves of that magnitude were rare, how could Larry keep his son from pursuing his passion after surviving such a traumatic situation?

  Just as devoted to fatherhood as his brother, Lee introduced his own son, Trevor, to the beach, taking him for strolls along the Sheboygan shore as soon as he could walk. A weekend never passed without father and son wandering along the shoreline to skip rocks, examine driftwood, or collect washed-up bottle caps. On the drives to and from the beach, Lee would point out where the surf was breaking or how the weather was going to affect the waves later in the day.

  While driving north along Third Street one afternoon, Lee pulled the car to the shoulder to gaze from the bluffs with Trevor. As the seven-year-old eagerly jumped out of the car, he slammed his hand in the door. When the automatic lock clicked shut, terror overtook the boy. He couldn’t move his hand; he couldn’t cry; he couldn’t even scream. When Lee noticed that his son wasn’t at his side enjoying the view, he looked back at the car and saw Trevor peering at him through the window with a look of terror.

  Lee vaulted over the hood of the Impala with the grace of an Olympic gymnast, stuck the landing, and quickly unlocked the door. By that point, Trevor was a slobbering and screaming mess. As his hand swelled up like a cupcake, Lee gunned the gas. Making every light along the way, they were able to apply ice to the throbbing appendage before the swelling got too severe. Fortunately, Trevor’s hand didn’t suffer any lasting damage. He recovered so quickly, in fact, that a few weeks later Lee got Trevor on top of his first surfboard.

  From an early age, the Williams brothers would dress their sons in wetsuits and place them on the Lake Michigan shore break alongside each other with bodyboards in hand. Although the boys were less than a year apart in age, they couldn’t have been more different. Tanner was long and lean with the build of an athlete. Trevor was muscular and shorter. Tanner filtered everything through the adrenaline rush he felt each time he straddled a wave, while Trevor never seemed to quite connect on that physical level. Rather, he possessed a more sensual perspective, enjoying the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells more than the ride. Not inclined to endure extreme amounts of pain like his cousin, who was constantly getting thrashed on his BMX bike or skateboard, Trevor followed his passion for music and comedy. At any opportunity, he’d whip out his acoustic guitar and throw a handful of change and dollar bills into the empty case to encourage passersby to contribute. He thrived on the attention and laughter he received when cracking jokes between song
s. In contrast, Tanner never craved the spotlight, despite being one of the most decorated surfers of any age on all of the Great Lakes.

  A couple weeks after returning from the Grand Haven competition, Larry decided to head home early from work one afternoon to grab a nap before waxing boards later that night with Tanner. A short time later he awoke to see Barb standing over him with an angry look on her face.

  “This isn’t going to work anymore,” she said. “I just left my attorney’s office. You’ll be getting divorce papers served in ten days.”

  “You’re just going to leave us?” Larry said. “After fourteen years? I can’t believe you’re quitting on us.”

  “I’m out of here,” she said and walked out the door.

  As Larry wiped the sleep from his eyes, he followed her outside and saw that she was almost finished loading the car with her belongings.

  “You really think you can do better than us?” Larry said.

  She continued to load the car as if he wasn’t there.

  “And don’t think I haven’t heard how popular you are with the boys around town,” he said.

  She slammed the trunk shut, jumped into the front seat, and turned the ignition key. As the engine revved, Larry walked up alongside her window. “Tanner and I are going to make a difference,” he told her. “We’re going to go on living life without you, and you’re going to miss it all.”

  By the time he finished speaking, she had pulled away, leaving him to watch her turn signal blinking back at him. She sped around the corner and disappeared.

  In hindsight, Larry should have seen it coming—all the signs were there. Barb had grown increasingly distant in recent months, refusing to talk at dinner or while they watched television.

  Following an ugly divorce in which he received joint custody of Tanner, Larry focused on becoming the best parent possible. Avoiding the urge to jump into some new relationship just to numb his pain, he started taking Tanner to every Great Lakes surfing competition scheduled.

  Because all of the events were organized through the Eastern Surfing Association, Tanner was able to accumulate enough points that season to enter the northeast regionals in Montauk, Long Island, New York, by May of 1991. That year was the first in which Great Lakes surfers were allowed to participate in the event. A few days away from his eleventh birthday, Tanner was not only the first Great Lakes surfer to compete in that major surfing contest but also the first to finish as high as sixth in the standings. His placement earned him an invitation to the largest amateur surfing competition in the world, which was to be held in Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, in September of that year and hosted by the ESA.

  Back in Sheboygan, word quickly spread that if Tanner finished as one of the top four competitors in the event, he would be able to travel around the world and surf in competitions with all expenses paid. As soon as his school recognized his accomplishments during the morning announcements, everybody wanted to talk with him. He was mobbed and congratulated in the hallways between classes. Several local television and radio stations interviewed him, and the newspaper featured his story on the front page. Through it all, Tanner seemed unfazed, dismissing it as more of a nuisance than a pleasure.

  “Aren’t you excited about what’s going on?” Larry asked his son.

  “What?” Tanner responded in a subdued tone.

  “It’s got to be exciting—being as young as you are with all of your accomplishments.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” Larry said, taken aback. “If I was accomplishing what you’re accomplishing at your age, I would have been passing out from the excitement. How can you not be stoked?”

  “It’s cool,” Tanner replied, without much emotion. He refused to allow his accomplishments to inflate his ego, as it had with some of his friends. Instead, he spent his entire summer vacation perfecting his techniques of leaning in, arching back, and standing tall atop Lake Michigan’s wind-driven waves.

  By the third week of September, Tanner was as prepared as he could be for the competition in Cape Hatteras along North Carolina’s Outer Banks—home to the East Coast’s best surf break. When he arrived to compete in the ESA’s Outer Banks Surfing Championship that weekend, he was aware of the significance of his inclusion as a freshwater surfer. Founded in 1967 by East Coast surfers looking to promote, preserve, and protect the sport of surfing, the ESA only invited surfers from the Atlantic coastline from Maine through the Gulf Coast of Florida to Alabama. Prior to Tanner’s invitation, Great Lakes surfers weren’t eligible to compete in their national contests. As the ESA grew in size and stature, much like the reputation of the Great Lakes surf scene, it expanded competitions to include surfers of all ages and abilities from anywhere in the United States. Today the organization hosts qualifying amateur events for the American Surfing Championships, the USA Surfing Championships, and the US National Surf Team. National winners then compete across the globe through the International Surfing Association (ISA), which is officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee.

  As Tanner let the North Carolina beach sift through his toes, he gazed at the pounding waves. Much like the Great Lakes, the quality of surfing in the Tar Heel State depended primarily on the numerous sandbars that allowed rolling waves to regularly reach the shoreline. Dressed in his wetsuit in anticipation of unseasonably chilly waters, Tanner felt his experience surfing the slush of Lake Michigan provided him a slight advantage over his competitors who surfed in the more tropical water temperatures of Virginia, Georgia, and Florida.

  After the horn blew, Tanner and the handful of surfers in his heat paddled into the aggressive waves. Even when the surfers found a rideable wave, they were barely able to stay balanced, often falling off into the brutal surf. Competing against nearly a hundred surfers from ages six to fifty-five, Tanner performed tricks and stunts he never would have attempted on Lake Michigan’s shorter sets. Although disappointed with placing twenty-second at the event, Tanner knew he had accomplished something even more significant than winning a trophy. He had earned the respect of his ocean-surfing counterparts while proving that Great Lakes surfers could compete on a national level.

  During the twenty-hour drive back to Sheboygan, Larry and Tanner talked about the challenges of their lives without Barb. Larry struggled to afford raising his eleven-year-old son on a single income.

  “We can’t afford to live in our house anymore,” he told Tanner. “But we’ll move to where you can stay in school with your friends.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Larry nodded. “You need good friends right now.”

  “That’s cool,” Tanner said. “Thanks, Dad.”

  Looking his son in the eye, Larry said, “We’re going to make a difference. Regardless of how uphill the journey is.”

  A few months later, father and son moved into a modest two-bedroom, two-story house three blocks from Lake Michigan. As Larry hung his favorite Greg Noll surfboard poster in the kitchen, he couldn’t help but feel the move closer to the lake signaled a new beginning for him and for his son.

  Larry and his Hobie Phil Edwards longboard in fall of 1992

  Reconnecting with his surfer roots, Larry opened his house to any surfer passing through town that summer. During busy weekends, his house became a surfer’s Howard Johnson’s. His guests loved the surf memorabilia decorating the walls, the longboard fins dangling from the ceiling, the ornamental coral sitting on the tables, and the shark jaws hanging over the kitchen stove. For Tanner, the constant flow of people deepened his love for the sport and the lifestyle, and it also improved his skills, as surfers shared their techniques and perspectives with the whiz kid.

  Some of Larry’s most frequent visitors were his friends from Northern Minnesota’s Lake Superior Surf Club who, when in need of a new, freshwater surfing fix, made the ten-hour drive through the night so they could arrive in time to grab the day’s first waves. They’d help each other squeeze into wetsuits and wax each other’s boards as soon as their car
s rolled into the parking lot—all for the chance to get into Lake Michigan as soon as possible. By the time Lee and Larry met up with them just minutes after first light, those cold-water boys had already ridden a handful of waves and were waiting to catch another set. The blustery winds creating the barreling waves at the Elbow along Sheboygan’s North Pier only seemed to get bigger as the sun arced across the blue afternoon sky. Although Sheboygan was often celebrated as the ideal place to surf on the Great Lakes, the water could just as easily become treacherous, as Larry found out on the ominous evening of August 19, 1991.

  What had been a glassy lake surface only minutes earlier had churned into tumbling chaos as dark clouds moved over the North Pier lighthouse around six o’clock. A cold front blustered its way across the water, carving deep ridges into the Lake Michigan waves. Sheets of spray ripped across the pier, leaving no distinction between water and sky. Knowing the power of such violently unorganized waves, Larry left his board in the car, choosing instead to sit on the rocks next to a Sheboygan municipal utility beach house and sip on a beer. As the waves crashed against the pier, he noticed two boys around eleven years old running onto the pier toward the lighthouse on the far end.

  “They’re about to get themselves killed,” he said to himself. Racing to the pay phone alongside the utility house, he called 911. “Send somebody right away before it’s too late!”

  Never taking his eyes off the boys, Larry saw them run nearly one hundred yards toward the lighthouse while dodging waves that exploded into the pier, arcing nearly seven and a half stories in the air over the fifty-five-foot-tall lighthouse. Realizing that the huge plumes of water would engulf the boys before help arrived, Larry chased after them.

  As he reached the foot of the pier, a wave clobbered him, knocking him onto the slippery concrete, where he fell on his hip. Before he could get up, a huge wave pulled the kids off the pier, sweeping them into the harbor’s raging waters. Regaining his balance, he limped toward them. He reached the five-foot utility ladder concreted into the pier and hoped it would serve as his anchor while leading him down into the churning waters that pushed the boys into the harbor. As he climbed down the ladder, he coaxed the boy nearest him, Michael Burt, to swim toward the pier.