Top row: Dave Devine, Diane Devine, unidentified Bottom row: Gretchen, Peter, Fred and wife (can’t recall name), Gene and Betty Van Dyke
Far left, Dave Devine; below him in white, Gene Van Dyke. Kneeling, white shirt, Fred Van Dyke
Gretchen had lost a leg — sliding into home plate while playing baseball, getting injured, and gangrene eventually set in, resulting in amputation. All the Van Dykes were great athletes, and Gretchen didn’t give up surfing. That she could get up was remarkable.
Betty Van Dyke at the Wild Hook
Charlene Mohus and Peter Van Dyke
Fred Van Dyke, Waimea, 1959 (From Maui Surfer)
About Lloyd Kahn
Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the
Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include
Shelter,
Shelter II (1978),
Home Work (2004),
Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008),
Tiny Homes (2012), and
Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:
on fred
> What was the high point of your surfing life?
>
> The first time I rode a 20-footer at Makaha. Without a doubt. It was my first winter over here, and at that point I really had no business being out in big surf, but I was just so determined to do it. And the very first wave I caught that morning was a 20-footer, and I shot down to the bottom, looked up, tried to climb back into the pocket, then just got buried. It was the most memorable wipeout of my life, because I really seriously didn’t think I was going to come up. When I finally did make it to the surface, my whole life had changed. That really was the wave of my life. I was screaming, out of my head, all the way to the beach. I caught five waves that day, all 20-footers, and wiped out on all of them. And I loved it. It was the biggest thrill of my life, and I spent the next 30 years trying to recapture the feeling.
> And now?
>
> As far as big waves go, what I like to do now is rent a car in San Francisco and drive north up Highway One during winter, along the coast. I love looking at huge waves still. But I have no desire whatsoever to be out there.
https://www.surfer.com/blogs/eos/fred-van-dyke-interview/