tMo
By Tom Modugno of Goleta Surfing
Mike Furner has been a fixture in the Goleta and Santa Barbara surf scene for a while. We thought it would be interesting to learn more about the man they call “Furn dog”.
Before surfing, he was busy with the usual kid stuff, and growing up on Center Avenue in the early 1960s was pretty rural. Mike and his friends enjoyed driving go carts, having lemon fights, flying kites with fishing poles, building forts, shooting BB guns, camping overnight in the fields and being Boy Scouts.
When Mike was at La Colina Junior High, a friend was shaping a board in shop class and he knew then he wanted a surfboard of his own.
That healthy ding on the tail is from his board sliding out of the trunk of his mom’s Buick. He says it wasn’t as bad as it looks since they glassed boards real heavy back then. And the flood pants were a result of a serious growth spurt!
Furner met Joey Moreno while surfing College Beach and they became good friends. The Moreno family had rented a shed behind their house to a local shaper named Doug Roth and that became a social hub for local surfers. Mike’s new friend lived at the coolest place for a young surfer to hang out!
Mike doesn’t remember all the guys names at Roth’s shop, but he knows Roth was partners with Dewey Schurman, who later started Islands Magazine. Lots of the hottest local surfers were in and out of the Doug Roth shop. If you know where to look, you can still see one of those surfer’s names carved into the concrete in front of the old surf shop in Old Town Goleta.
Mike joined the United States Surfing Association, sort of an early version of Surfrider. The USSA tried to promote a good image of surfing and provided general information about what’s going on in the surfing world. Surfers in the 60s and 70s had a reputation as good for nothing bums that just wanted to hang out at the beach all day everyday. ( Like there’s something wrong with that?). This 1963 issue mentions how UCSB wanted to make surfing illegal at Campus Point! Evidently there was a lot of vandalism, and punks burning tires on the beach…..
The club would surf in contests with other clubs from up and down the coast, have car washes and surf movie showings to raise money for a variety of things including our blue nylon jackets with white competition stripes, patches and visors. They even had cards that said “you have just been helped by a member of the El Capitan Surf Club” that would be given to someone that was in need to help improve surfing’s image. Some of the members he can remember; David Kuzen, David Dennis, Spud Miller, Marc Woerful, Paul Morales, Lloyd Hembre, the Glenn Brothers, Tim Marquez, Sherry Stump, Alice Burtless and others.
While the early and mid 1960s were the Golden Years of Goleta Surfing, there was a big elephant in the room that everyone was worried about. The Vietnam War and the mandatory draft were breathing down every young man’s neck, all the time.
Furner had to endure the miserable bus ride down to L.A. for a military physical with a bunch of other petrified young men, many of them sobbing and vomiting on the ride. Luckily, Mike ‘s family situation exempted him from being drafted. He dodged another bullet!
Mike didn’t surf from about 1965 to 1985. He got married young, had a baby and was pre-occupied with other things in life. But really, he wasn’t a fan of the shortboard revolution. He is a self proclaimed long boarder for life.
For a while, Mike worked at Wilcox Nursery, which is now the Douglas Family Preserve. He lived in an old ranch house on the property for $25 a month.
In the late 1970s, Furner got hired by Madame Ganna Walska herself to work at her Lotusland. He has been working there ever since. After 45 years, Mike’s hard work has become an integral part of the popular botanic garden.
After surfing C street one day, he went to Waveline surf shop and saw a fun shape with a Hap Jacob’s logo called a Cabo Model and it was so clean, he had to get one. He asked Paul the owner who the shaper was and he told him Wayne Rich down in Oxnard. Mike contacted him and they met up at Rudy’s restaurant in SB to talk about his order, and they’ve been friends ever since.
Furner was never really into competition. But when he became a member of the Santa Barbara Surf Club, he started doing a few contests. He eventually got into some Malibu contests and got to surf with some of his idols when he was growing up, like LJ Richards, John Peck and Henry Ford. Plus, he made a lot of new friends….
After years of experience, walking to the nose and hanging five seems to be routine for Mike.
But the drop knee turn is his favorite move that he never stops working on.
Mike enjoying a solitary wave at the Ranch.
Mike got the name Furndog from another local charger, Char Harris. They shared this board for a while and surfed together a lot. Like all good nicknames, Furndog stuck.
Furner is still a regular at all the spots he surfed as a young kid growing up in the Golden Years of surfing on the coast of Goleta. That’s him going left.
We all know where this is.
Here he watches a surfer enjoying a set wave at S-Tubes.
Old habits are hard to break. Like knee paddling….
Tom, Thanks for this! …so they’re called “flood pants” 🙂 good to know.
We would always see mike out at campus and he is such a nice guy and great surfer. Thanks for sharing this and love the great pics!! See you out there mike 🙂