If a surfing stone mason were to ascend the hills behind Malibu, California, grunting under the weight of a canvas toolbag filled with chisels and hammers, with the intention of carving surfing’s version of Mount Rushmore, he’d need carve only two faces: Duke Kahanamoku, who introduced surfing to the world outside of Hawaii and was an Olympic champion and an immeasurably important figure in surf history; and Tom Blake.
It was Blake who took an ancient Polynesian sport of kings and translated it into the pole around which his entire life revolved — an all-consuming passion that in turn paved the way for the modern surf lifestyle. Blake reached through history to today and taught us dreamers, malcontents, and ex-landlubbers what it meant to live as a real surfer.
Oh, and he single-handedly revolutionized the actual physical act of wave-riding, too.
Thomas Edward Blake was born not by the shores of a palm-fringed beach but in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on March 8, 1902. His mother
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