Matt Warshaw interviewed Joey Cabell in 1995, when Cabell was 57. Quotes from this interview were used in “At Speed: Joey Cabell’s Life of Precision and Control,” which ran in the Summer 1996 issue of Surfer’s Journal.

December 10, 1938, here in Honolulu. I was an only child.

My mom taught first grade. My dad was an accountant.

Pearl Harbor was bombed three days before my 3rd birthday, and there was a big evacuation off the island. My very first memory is of sitting on the railing of a destroyer, wearing a life preserver, sailing off for the Mainland with my mom. We went to live with her parents on their farm in Minnesota.

Yeah, he was in the Army, and became a major.

Well, they separated when I was three, got divorced, married other people, then ended remarrying each other again after their spouses died.

My father wasn't around when I was growing up. He played a lot of golf; he was one of the best here in Hawaii. So there was no man in my life, which is a really important thing. So I ended up learning a lot of things the hard way. As far as influences, so much of that comes from family, and it takes a lot longer to learn things when you do it the hard way. Anyway, I didn't see him much at all until he and my mom got married again, but by then I was already an adult, so . . .

My father died in '63; mother died in '94, age 96.

My mom and I spent two years in Minnesota, then six months in Palo Alto, then we moved back here just before I started second grade.

No, not really. Not as a kid, anyway. I was a C student at Roosevelt High.

1956. I was 17. I went to Orange Coast College right after that, and did better there; mostly As and Bs.

For whatever reason, I guess because my father wasn't around, I kind of ran wild. I didn't really get into big trouble, but I had a lot of freedom early on. And I guess that makes you an independent person. I learned to fend for myself. Part of that I guess was just working my way up the pecking order in the surfing world. But with all the freedom—well, it's good in some ways, but in other ways it slows you up; it slows up your development. In other words, it was good for my self-sufficiency, and later on my business sense was better because of it. But my sense of sharing, of communication, all the things that should be helped along by the family—that all came at a much slower pace.

I had to go through Waikiki on the bus to get to school, and I remember in second grade looking out the bus window seeing guys out surfing at Queens. I knew right away that I wanted to surf. By the time I was seven, I was surfing every day

I started surfing at Queens on an eight-foot solid redwood hot curl. No fin. It was painted yellow. I'd get out of the water and hide it behind a hedge next to the first apartment up from Queens. I asked some people who lived there if I could leave my board, and they said I could. So I just had to carry it across the street and walk one block. This is when I was seven, eight, nine years old. Eventually, we started seeing the first real light balsa boards, mostly made by Dale Velzy. I mean, really light—like 21-pounds. At the time, that was unbelievable.

Rabbit Kekai tells stories about local surfers stealing loose boards and reshaping them on the spot.

[Laughs] Well, yes, we got a few boards from who knows where. Usually it was from visiting California surfers.

First, you'd figure out what board you wanted. You'd see it in the lockers there on the beach, or you'd see it in the Outrigger Canoe Club. A lot of the local kids didn't have any money, and here these guys from California are showing up with some really hot boards. So you'd keep your eye on that board, go swimming on the inside, wait for the guy to paddle out. When he fell off and the board came in, you'd grab it and be gone. Three days later the thing has been stripped, re-shaped, re-glassed, and back in the water.

Ahh, I maybe I got one that way. I wasn't much of a thief. It wasn't really my nature. In fact, I didn't even do the actual stealing; the board was sort of handed off to me later on.

Yeah, I shined shoes right there on the beach at Waikiki. Me and three other boys had the spot right under the banyan tree at Kuhio beach. We'd leave our shoeshine boxes in the tree at night. Every morning we'd come down, get set up, and wait for the sailors to come through. For a kid, it was a good way to make a living. I was nine or ten years old. I'd surf three times a day and shine shoes in-between. Fifty-cents a shine, so I'd go home with five or ten dollars in my pocket. We had this whole routine for the sailors. "Hey, buddy, you looking for a piece of ass?" The guy says yes. "Okay, first take a shine here, and I'll you where to find a piece of ass." Sailor takes a shine, wants directions, and we'd say. "Reach into your back pocket and squeeze!"

Did you have a hard time at all, being a haole?

Well, you weren't a haole. You were a fuckin' haole. But [shrugs], local haole is different.

They did, yeah. And we helped them out. A couple of those were making coconut hats for the lei stands down there on the beach. They'd get orders, for like 100 hats, and they'd have us kids climb the trees to get the fronds. I was kind of the mascot, but I could make a hat pretty quick. We'd get paid for that, too, so between the hats, and shining shoes, plus I had a paper route too—I had money. And like I said, plenty of independence. I had to be home for dinner, and that was about it.

Who was the best surfer in Waikiki when you were a kid?

Squirrely Carvalho was the best, here in Waikiki and probably the whole world at the time. All the people that visited here from California, even Phil Edwards, they weren't even close. Squirrely was the best.

Squirrely was sort of the generation after Rabbit. He was in between me and Rabbit; about four years older than me.

But I read that somewhere that Rabbit was one of your big early influences.

Oh yes. Him and George Downing. I think my first surf lessons might have been from George, but Rabbit really took me under his wing. He droves me out to the North Shore for the first time; we went to the movies together. Rabbit had a blue '36 Ford touring sedan, a convertible four-door soft-top, just beautiful, and we'd go off to Makaha with our boards sticking out the back. So that was pretty memorable—hitting Makaha at nine or ten years old, in this classic car, with Rabbit driving.

Well, Rabbit wasn't into the big surf that much. Georgie was. He was the dominant figure around here in those days. In all ways. He designed and made great boards, and he was a tremendous paddler.

Do you remember your first time in big surf?

I'm not sure if this was my very first time, but I do remember being a junior in high school, so I guess I was 15, and getting really cleaned up at Point Surf Makaha. Didn't even ride a wave, just got caught inside, dove under a bunch of waves, and when the set was over I was so far out at sea. It was probably 20-foot. I ended up getting pulled down past Clausemeyers, around the point. I was trying to get in against the cliffs, and there was just so much energy pushing in right there. Walt Hoffman was down there, too, standing on the cliff, looking for his board; he'd got caught inside too, but had made it in. Anyway, he came down, grabbed my hand and just yanked me out of the water, up onto this ledge.

I don't know. He made it easy for me, I guess. I was really tired. But I would have dealt with it, somehow, if Walt hadn't been there.

There's a Bruce Brown shot of you riding a huge wave at Makaha, from a few years later. Was that the biggest surf you've been in.

Maybe. I don't know. After 20- or 25-foot, it's just wild. Maybe I rode Hanalei a little bigger. Both are really long, driving walls. Waimea never excited me the way those two breaks did Most days at Waimea its a pretty safe thing—same takeoff spot, the big drop, then right into that huge channel. But once you drop into a big one at Hanalei, there was a good chance that you'd have to deal with a massive tube section. Or at Point Surf Makaha, you'd have to backdoor the bowl section, and that could throw out into a gigantic tube. The big difference, for me, between those two waves, is that at Makaha there were always people to surf with. Hanalei, I was there so early, and there were very few people, so I was actually 

 to bring people there, anybody, just to have a companion. I surfed it alone pretty often.

You were really into cars for a while; how did that happen?

That was high school, and just after. It started junior year. I had an uncle, or just a friend really, not an actual relation, who kind of took me on because I didn't have a father; he kind of adopted me. He was part owner of a car dealership that used to be here in Honolulu called George Motors. He and I rebuilt a '39 Ford coupe, then did a '32 Ford roadster—that car I actually shipped to California when I moved there after high school.

I did, yeah. I began in the parts department. then did office work, mechanical stuff, started selling cars, right on through. In fact, I was being groomed to take it over. They were supposed to put me through school on the Mainland. Although at first, when I first got to California, I worked as a foreign car mechanic. I was just a baby from Hawaii, just 17 years old. I went to Santa Monica, and the guys from George's had lined up this job for me.

No, I was staying in San Pedro, driving back and forth.

Not at all. Zero. I had my red hot-rod, that '32 roadster, and for six months I just went to work. Then it was like, "Hey, you guys [George's] aren't going to put me through school, like you said? I'm outta here, I don't want to be a mechanic anymore, I'm going to school." So I moved to Pasadena and went to Pasadena City College. I still hadn't been in the water yet. I just wasn't into surfing at all. Even back in Hawaii, junior and senior year, I wasn't surfing. I think just one or two big days at Makaha. That's all I can remember, anyway. Rebuilding cars is really time-consuming.

Man, that is so weird, considering how most surfers feel about it at that point in their lives.

I know! I mean, this is like the most influential time of your life, right? And I just wasn't into surfing at all. By that time, you know, I'd already surfed so much. That was part of it. And plus it was kind of a movement. The 

 movement. James Dean took us in that direction for a couple of years.

At school, I met a guy named Phil Stubbs, and that got me started again. We drove down in his woody wagon. I remember Phil had the biggest surf knots ever seen.

No, for a while there I just borrowed board, from whoever was on the beach.

How did it feel getting back in the water?

Weird at first. I felt kind of kooky. But I remember those other guys saying something like, "This guy knows what he's doing." I hadn't surfed for almost two-and-a-half years. But right away, that first day at Brooks Street, it was like, "What am I doing? Why did I ever stop?" So I got right back into it, and it was great, I'd drive to Laguna with this new board in the back of my roadster.

For a little while. I sold it and bought a '49 woody wagon. That made more sense. I also transferred to Orange Coast College, which also made sense.

I never actually bought a board. Hobie started giving me boards immediately. I was riding for Hobie the whole time I was in California. Velzy gave me a few boards, too, but I pretty much stayed with Hobie.

Were you with Hobie when he switched from balsa to foam?

Yeah! I got the first foam Hobie and Grubby [Gordon Clark] ever made. They gave me their very first one to try out—this swiss-cheese looking thing with a light green tint in the gloss. I think that was '57.

Were you going back to Hawaii at all during that period?

I was almost always in Hawaii for Christmas vacation and during summers.

You were part of the Windansea Surf Club a few years later.

I was there when it started, yes. Windansea started because of that Malibu contest. [Windansea founder] Chuck Hasley had this idea, Let's get the best surfers in California together, we'll all go up in a bus and just take over Malibu.

Chuck was just the man. He had the charisma, he was the head party-man. For such a young guy he just had it so together.

It was all designed as a big prank; a big party. Get drunk on the bus, party all the way up the coast. And it was a classic trip. Bobby Patterson was there, Butch van Artsdalen, Mike Hynson, Dickie Moon, on and on. Teenagers on a bus, with a ton of alcohol, going surfing—I mean, what else do you need to say?

I went a few times the first two years I was in California, but I got serious about at the beginning of 1960, at Alta, Utah. I finished at OCC in January and drove my VW bus straight to Alta, and spent the rest of the winter up there. That was the same year they had the Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley. I got to Alta and had no idea where I was going to stay, or how I was going to make any money. I ended up getting a job as a handyman at the Alta Lodge and did that for six weeks. Which was great because, as the handyman, they put me right on top of this A-frame building, in this classic old lodge. I had my cot pressed right up against a window that looked straight out at a run called High Rustler—just a fantastic view.

I talked to Munoz, and he said you got really good really fast.

Well, I just loved it so much, so I was on the mountain all the time. I ended up hanging out with the ski patrol guys up there, and they were always looking for the heaviest runs, so I just followed along.

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