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 WOODY BROWN 1912-2008
It is with a heavy heart here at CSM that we mourn the passing of a special friend, Woodbridge Parker Brown, better known as Woody Brown. We first met Uncle Woody at the San Diego premiere of the locally-produced film, Liquid Stage, when he had been flown out from Maui by a bunch of his old Windansea pals. There he was introduced to Faye Baird Fraser, San Diego’s first woman surfer. Woody asked Faye when she had taken up surfing and she answered, “1925.” He was blown away. “You beat me by 10 years,” he exclaimed.
The two were seen talking animatedly throughout the rest of the evening.
Soon after, Woody became one of the stars of “Surfing for Life” and “Of Wind and Waves,” his biographical film, and was a regular visitor at the annual Windansea reunions and the California Surf Museum. He had a great influence on San Diego surfing, designing some short hollow boards in the late ‘30s, and was among the first to tackle the surf at Windansea.
 A world-class glider pilot, he was also a successful advocate for the preservation of Torrey Pines Flight Park above Black’s Beach. He was very enthusiastic about our museum’s efforts to collect surfing history, and came to our events whenever he was on the mainland. It was a place to find old friends, he said.
I have a visual memory of Uncle Woody forever etched in my mind. It was at one of the Windansea gatherings, perhaps 1998, and Woody was standing there with a borrowed shortboard under his arm, checking out the waves, baggy red striped trunks, no wetsuit, cumbersome leash fastened about his waist, wispy white hair tousled by the breeze. Next to him stood a blond pre-teen grom, color-splashed tri-fin tucked under his arm, tautly wet-suited from neck to toe – also checking out the waves. It was a terrific image, a contrast of the old and the new…oh, to have had a camera!
 Finally, I just want to say that Woody Brown had the ability to make one feel better about oneself, about being a better human being. He had such warmth and generosity of spirit, one just came away from his presence wanting to be a better, kinder person. CSM was honored to have had such a friend.
Jane Schmauss April 21 2008
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1 - photo by Nathaniel Welch, from an article entitled “Life’s a Beach,” by David Noland, Modern Maturity magazine, March/April 2001.
2 – Bill Thrailkill, Woody Brown and Al Nelson check out Mike Dormer’s Hot Curl statue at the Windansea reunion, 1997. David Jones photo
3 – Uncle Woody, on a visit to CSM in 1999, stands next to the hot curl-shaped board he designed and built for La Jollan Towny Cromwell around 1951. Woody Ekstrom photo
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