A former high school basketball coach, Chuck Hasley was known for his organizational skills, sense of humor and for having what his son, Chris, called “a little bit of the devil in him.”
Back in the early 1960’s Hasley suggested starting a surfing club of their own called the Windansea Surf Club. He knew there once had been a surf and ski club in the area and wrote, “I figured the people up the coast would remember there was a club at Windansea and think it was the same club.” A club logo was quickly created, and Hasley was named president and t-shirts were printed.
“He was a Pied Piper kind of guy,” said Carl Ekstrom, an early member of the Windansea Surf Club. “He was fun to be around, and people were attracted to him.”
During its heyday under Hasley’s direction in the 1960s, the Windansea Surf Club, boasted some of the best-known names in surfing, including Hobie Alter, Del Cannon, Mickey Dora, Phil Edwards, Joyce Hoffman, Margo Godfrey, Mickey Munoz and Donald Takayama. Others like Billy Andrews and Dickie Moon also got fame by being some of the first to surf Black’s Beach.
Hasley was working at the Hobie Surfboard Shop in Pacific Beach when he and several other local surfers began talking about the Malibu Invitational in 1963, in which the surf club took top honors during competition.
The club afterwards and its members won numerous surfing contests. But, according to surf historian Matt Warshaw, the organization that is named after La Jolla’s premier surf break was even better known for the Mac Meda’s hard-partying style and rebellious attitude shared by most of its members, like Butch Van Artsdalen.
His house on Waverly Street in La Jolla was the scene of many all-night partying. One of the cool things that this editor remembers, is that, I used to babysit for his kids. He always paid me double of the going rate, which was .50 cents an hour at the time. A buck was big money back in the mid-1960s.
“There was this really raucous sort of blond-haired, beach-rebel image that surfing had in the early and mid-’60s, and it was very much typified by Windansea,” said Warshaw, author of the recently published “The Encyclopedia of Surfing,” which includes an entry on Hasley.
Locals who surfed at the Windansea surf break were known as fun-loving rebels long before the Windansea Surf Club was formed. This was captured by young Windansea surfers and riding Flexy’s down a La Jolla storm drain to the beach wearing Nazi uniforms that had been “borrowed” from a film/costume company in LA.
Hummm, borrowed? Gee … were they ever returned?
“By the time the club was formed, it was drawing from that pool of surfers: They really had that Windansea sort of mind-set,” Warshaw said.
In the mid-1960s, Hasley and club member Mike Hynson opened Windansea Sport, a La Jolla surf shop right on Coast Blvd and Prospect St. But in 1970, Hasley got popped for pot, and was convicted of selling and served four years of a 15-year sentence and the sports store closed shortly after that.
On Jan 2, 2004, on a rainy night in Pacific Beach Chuck Hasley, owner of a silk screen and embroidery business in La Jolla, died of injuries suffered in a single-car accident in Pacific Beach when his car hit a tree.
Chuck was one of the first locals to welcome me when I ventured down south from Malibu in the late-50s. I thought the North Bay and South Bay crews were mad until I got a taste of SD/LJ. Great times. Great memories. Great people, and Chuck was one of the greatest.
When I worked for Surfguide magazine I looked forward to my advertising sales trips back down to the deep south and the shop owned by Chuck and Mike Hynson. It would take me a week to recover.
Later, in the early-70’s, I think Chuck co-owned a natural foods shop cum juicebar in LJ with Hynson. By that time I was a partner in an organic foods retail/wholesale company called Back To Eden and tried to make a point of accompanying the delivery truck from our LA warehouse to the LJ shop. It had the most amazing stereo system with a reel-to-reel tape machine that would play non-stop music that had been dubbed and edited seamlessly. I dreamed about having a set-up like that for years after.
Chuck made knowing him a pleasure.
Requiescat in pace
Semper culti in memoria
Hey Hasley was THE PIED PIPER…..he pointed the way and we ALL followed……never had SO MUCH fun being in his band…Hanky
All is well with the Hasley family, appreciate all the good memories about my dad. He lived to love, he loved to live, and Windansea Surf Club was a big part of his life.
Omg, I remember you as a 3 year old little blonde child! Boy do I have some exciting true stories about designing clothes for the shop first just above Yourmaline and then on prospect/Gerrard in La Jolla. Karen Dowell-Henley
I’m on it Stirnkorb-Dotson
Not jeds dad. Im the Stirnkorb of Stirnkorbs reef. Jeds older brother. Jed was the good part of the family
Are you jed’s dad??? uncle or what???I was his little league coach for a coupla years….
Hey Ryan Good to see you back drop me an e-mail at Jstirnkorb@yahoo.com. Great to see you alive.
Hi Folks, I know I’m coming in after the curve, but I’m a LJ ’63 grad and charter member of Windansea surf club, both of which very proud. I learned how to surf @ W/S & LJ Shores in ’58. Chuck Hasley, along with Diff and Curren were pretty much mentors. Chuck was the one who asked me into W/S Club. At the time I was a gremmie, it was Diff who made it mandatory.I am noone to talk about arrest records, but choose to focus on Chuck’s amazing organizational skills while having a good time.I had already moved to Hawaii when his shop was in it’s glory years. I admire him for following his heart into the dream…surfing-Ryan Dotson/Surfer/Viking
My dad is H.Fish his cousin is mike aka Diff
My dad hired Chuck to teach me how to surf in 1959 out front of PB Surf Shop. I had a balsa 9’1″ with a white nose fix-it job. We would get up super early, drive down a surf in 1′ waves.
The shop photo with Reggie in front, Me and Lee painted the 1st 6 feet before the scaffolding was set up. Lee used Acrylic paint(in tubes) to get the sheen, along with the 2″ brushes. After one color was to fade into the next, Lee and I would take advantage of our work from across the street over “bowl”. The “color” always looked good from our vantage point.
Is that you Dave Osborn??
I remember when Pat owned the old Sip & Surf, for a while, during Velvet Hammer days. Between the Sip, the Hatch Cover (Old RMI across the Blvd), Rudies Hearth Side, the VH, the Whale and Bullies, Bird Rock was a barrel of monkeys in those days.
For readers outside of San Diego, Pat Shea played professional football for the Chargers. His brother, Bob Shea, was Captain of the Lifeguards. Pinky Shea was a mixture of Joey Heatherton, Suzanne Somers and Pamela Anderson.
Extra…
1. Nice photo of Reggie in Jon Sarrett’s classic 1968 Mac Meda Convention series…she is photographed in back of a crowded paddy wagon…standing alongside another Windansea lady holding a wee babe.
2. Lee Kiefer a friend of Mama Cass.
3. Another painting story. As told by Jack Macpherson. Some time in the 60s, everyone was drinking at Maynard’s. Pat Shea came in and said his wife Pinky (Pat Shea had wives with names like Kitten, Bubbles, Peaches etc.) wanted their house painted. So everyone drove over to Coast Blvd. and started painting. Pinky Shea wasn’t there to supervise. Things got carried away…each room was painted a different color…the bathroom and the bathtub painted black. Mrs. Shea came home and wasn’t too enthusiastic about the work done.
In 1966 I got to know Chuck Hasley when his girlfriend Reggie was a bartender at the Red Mountain Inn. Some days Reggie would bring in there new kid Charlie (Hasley) to work with her. I would have to say that would make Charlie the youngest person that could say he was at the RMI on a regular bases.
Chuck was like Macpherson in one big way, it was always a good experience wherever you ran into them. The big difference was with Hasley there was a higher level of peril. Almost everyone mentioned on this site also was a player in the Hasley world to one degree or another.
In the late 60 and early 70’s (5years?) I was on a roll with Chuck and involved with his Wind an Sea Sport Shop on 8008 Girard Street in La Jolla, CA. Chuck got Lee Kiefer (Artist) to paint the shop, (Photo of shop on this site-if you haven’t seen it it’s worth looking up) Jeff Mullis, Me and my Brother Robert helped. Eric Carpenter rigged up some scaffolding and we hand painted entire exterior with little 2” brushes changing color on each (3”) slat. Some days the scaffolding felt like you where riding storm surf on an old tire tube. The shop was lit at night with multi colored floodlights. As I recall the conservative business district was a bit distraught.
I think the rolling Hasley show hit full stride (Around 1970) when he rented a house on Narragansett (Street) in Ocean Beach. The house was an old big New England type beach home sitting cliffs overlooking the OB pier with a wall of windows with views of miles of beach. The house was a little rough but a crew of dedicated workers (Including me) showed up with one big motivation; the end of the day sunset party that was always more than worth a days work. As I recall the parties started when the Margarita making blender started humming. When the house was finished it came out totally cool.
At the OB house there where a lot of serious players, famous surfers etc. Not for the weak of heart. One legendary 4th of July party, I recall hearing stories of people that showed up not know what they where getting in to and left in a sort of a another universe, one might even say they had a the ol ‘far away eyes’ look. The rent a cop at the front door was quoted as saying he would work at the next party for free if he could just get the recipe for the punch.
Chuck quote: “Please, Please turn ..off ..the ..Paralyzing Ray!”
It was all so… beautiful!
Dave Osborn
boregodave@gmail.com
Favorite stop: Turkey Inn, Ramona
Still has a (Macpherson installed?) MacMeda Sticker on the bathroom mirror
narragansett 1970 redwood shingled house was filled with music /chuck, ken Boyd-frog, and tom chapman-lizard…lifeguard at the cove/windandsea.. dropped fresh fish/abs. on my doorstep -ob pier cottage 22.. bob oaks played Iive jazz. great times.
Doug…Good one
I think Chucks son Charles is just as wild as his dad.Someone you would love to have in your corner if “shit goes down”.Charles has just as big a heart,consumption rate as his dad,great friend,person…
Chuck helped put a far away look in lots of peoples eyes!
Corrections…
He played Basketball at Whittier College.
I grew up in Whittier, a nice, inland Quaker town, which also had major beach lovers. Whittier people generally went to Balboa Island, the Peninsula, Corona Del Mar, Newport and Laguna.
A few years ago, I was talking to one of Whittier’s art teachers and I mentioned the La Jolla surf scene, and the art teacher mentioned she had dated a La Jolla surfer when she was at Long Beach State in the 50s…she mentioned the name Chuck Hasley and got a far away look in her eyes…
Chuck Hasley was a legendary character in both the Huntington Beach/Long Beach surf scene and the La Jolla/Windansea surf culture.
He played football at Whittier College, under coach Don Coryell.
Weren’t he and Skip Frye married to sisters at one time?
There is a great painting of Huntington Beach surfers, done by John Severson of surfers, showing Hasley’s back.
On the 60s…an unusual time to be young in America.
Chuck and Del Cannon were married to sisters
Who’s the guy who loves to print other peoples he arrest records? great post until that!
Bad thing about Chuck, his arrest was front headline – including the LA Times – so it is not like no one who knew or knew of him would be shocked to see it printed again, it just a piece of LJ beach history. ;-). The “true” stories about Chuck are infamous… and a part of LJ beach culture… including the arrest part among other things….