Buzzy Trent (May 13, 1929 - Sept 27, 2006) |
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Surfers can be easily divided into two camps. First, you have those doing it for someone else, be it for judges, sponsors or the almighty ego. These people always have a patsy when things go awry. Then, there are those who surf for themselves, just because it's fun. To them it's pure leisure, a cleansing of the soul. Our heroes overwhelmingly come from that first group -- cool-guy pros who haven't worked a day in their lives and are idolized by the masses. The other group has Buzzy Trent.
Born in San Diego into old California money (mom's family owned Parkinson's Ranch, where Palomar Junior College now sits and dad was an engineer for a mining company), Buzzy was raised in Santa Monica. He bodysurfed as a tike and delivered newspapers along Highway 101 at age 12. On his route, he witnessed lifeguard Chuck King surfing, and the next day, he had procured a solid redwood board. He hitched the 127-pound plank to a wagon behind his bike and pedaled to Malibu. He enjoyed surfing, but never one to waste away his days at the beach, he enjoyed boxing and dreamt of becoming a bullfighter. A star football player in high school, Trent received a scholarship to the University of Southern California, but broke his leg in a game against Ohio State. He returned to surfing after the injury healed and worked as a lifeguard in L.A. County. In 1950, he saw George Downing's surf movies depicting Hawaiian surf, and by 1953, he had to experience it for himself. As a deckhand on a catamaran, his crew unofficially won the First Trans-Pacific Yacht race (catamarans weren't recognized in the event). He continued on the vessel as it ventured throughout the Pacific before settling in Hawaii. Holed up in a Quonset hut at Makaha with a handful of mainlanders, Buzzy became immersed in the Hawaiian lifestyle. In his spare time, he dove, read (mainly German war history) and rode the biggest waves he could find. Makaha was his ultimate arena, not the bouncy shorebreak photo gallery, but 20-foot point surf. He scoffed at spinners and head-dips, preferring to sit farthest out on the gnarliest days and wait for the entire horizon to rise and greet him. Intent on iron-legging though the heaviest sections imaginable, a Makaha lip once snapped his leg like a toothpick. Trent rode the first of Bob Simmons' foam prototypes, then settled into a long relationship with George Downing, whose surfing he admired as much as his shaping. Although surfing was nothing more than recreation to Buzzy, he trained vigilantly to counteract the ocean's fury. The much-ballyhooed practice of carrying boulders along the ocean floor was something he pioneered in the '50s. As the Waimea curse was lifted in 1957, he shot to the forefront of the big-wave frenzy, earning a heavy reputation among the heaviest in the business. No one sat deeper or farther out than he; while most scratched for their lives, he stroked into the pit. Trent married a West Side girl named Viola in 1955. The couple had two children -- Anna, a former surf shop owner living in Santa Barbara, and Ivan, a big-wave surfer/retired Navy Seal in Virginia Beach. Buzzy supported the clan first as a fireman, then as a construction worker for the Dillingham Corporation (formerly Hawaiian Dredging, the company that built Ala Moana). One day on the job site, a coworker accidentally knocked him off the 14th floor of a building while carelessly wielding a two-by-four. Buzzy fell about 50 feet, grabbed onto a 12th floor girder and pulled himself back up to resume work. "He came home and talked about it real casual," remembers Ivan. "He was a caveman, just dust himself off and go surf." When shortboards entered the picture in the late '60s, Trent was unimpressed. He called bullshit on hotdogging as well as competitive surfing, reasoning that surfing was purely a hobby and judging who's best is impossible. His own surfing career ended abruptly in 1973 purely by choice. "I asked him, 'Why did you stop?'" said Ivan. "He told me, 'I went for this wave and backed off. I knew what was going to happen to me. It was nature's way of protecting me.'" Buzzy left gracefully and never looked back. He became an avid hang glider and retired from the Dillingham Corporation in 1980. Viola passed away in 1988, and Trent has since remarried a woman named Gladys. Now residing in Oahu's Aina Hina section, he has six grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Walking provides his major source of recreation, but he still enjoys diving. He doesn't much like to discuss his surfing days. -- Jason Borte, October 2000
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