My story post 28

How I ended up leaving MP in the Spring of ’69 and moving on to Wilderness was pretty impulsive. But the story goes like this…..

After the winter layoff Morey-Pope had got their new factory set up in Saticoy. So everyone reported out there for work. The shop was big and being set up for a production of 200 surfboards a week. I say being set up because when we all started working out there the place needed tweaking to get up to speed. One of the problem areas was the sanding booths.

My friend Mike Cundith was the MP sander. The sanding room at the Front street shop he had was vented very well, Mike was very happy with it. However the sanding rooms in Saticoy didn’t vent well at all. Mike had nothing but trouble with them and was continually frustrated because the shop manager was unwilling or unable to get the venting problem fixed. I don’t know how many days and weeks went by but eventually Mike had enough. It must have been mid morning when he threw open the sanding room door one day ripping the mask from his face in a cloud of sanding dust and yelled “ I’ve had it…. I quit “ …. Right then and there he left and didn’t come back.

My other Friend Richie West laminated for MP. I honestly don’t remember when he left, was it the same day? Something tells me no, but if it wasn’t it was shortly after. So there was some unrest in the place and frustration…. Mostly management issues. Then one day I found out the head shaper, Richard, was making a buck off of every board I shaped. Looking back I don’t know if it should have bothered me or not but at the time it did. Maybe it was because he never told me… and I felt left out of the loop… I don’t know but my friends leaving out of frustration, the management issues, the buck a board thing was the last straw and I decided to quit too.

When Mike left he went and started setting up the Wilderness shop in Santa Barbara in an old ice house between E. Cabrillo Blvd. and the rail road tracks along East Beach. And me…. Quitting and walking away from a good paying job? Well I had been talking with Mike about joining up with the Wilderness guys…. Which was Mike, Richie and Peter Moscogenis. So after walking out of the MP shop I went to my place on Buena Vista in Ventura, packed my stuff and moved in with Mike, his wife, Richie and Jamo at their place in Rincon Valley and started setting up at the ice house… shaping boards at Wilderness.

D.R.

A veiw just up the over grown driveway above the Rincon Valley ranch house were the Wilderness gang lived. Me sitting on the ground playing my guitar.