‘Doheny Crazed’ Shares Stories of the Golden Age of Surfing

BY BREEANA GREENBERG

In his debut book, Doheny Crazed, San Clemente resident Chuck Bassett gives readers a sense of what it was like to grow up surfing at Doheny State Beach in the 1960s.

Doheny State Beach served as a community magnet, drawing hundreds of young surfers during an era that Bassett views as the “golden age of surfing.”

“It was just a big social scene,” Bassett said. “Everybody that would surf Trestles during the day, or San Onofre, they always came to Doheny to see their friends.”

Iconic surfer Jean Pierre “The Fly” Van Swae added that it was a “happening place for families” to enjoy the barbecues and firepits along the shoreline.

The first time Bassett visited Doheny was in 1961, he said. At the time, beachgoers could walk 50 yards out in the water with the water only hitting waistdeep, Bassett said. Because the water was so shallow, Bassett could surf for five years before he ever learned to swim.

In the early ’60s, beachgoers could park right up against the sand, which is depicted in a photo Van Swae took that now graces the back of Doheny Crazed

The book is a collection of short stories, memories of growing up on the water, but they’re all connected, Bassett said.

“I’ve always been long-winded and always telling stories; and my wife, early on, she would always go, ‘I’ve heard that before,’ or ‘Why do you keep telling old stories?’ ” Bassett recalled. “So, my kids grew up hearing funny stories, and the ones they enjoyed were the ones that were funny.”

Friends often asked Bassett why he wasn’t writing down his stories from a bygone era.