TONY DODERO -- Editor’s Notebook

It’s kind of hard to do right now with the chill of winter still hanging

in the air and the water, but try to picture summertime in Newport.

The beaches are filled with people. Warm south swells are pumping in from

Baja and the Wedge is pushing 20 feet.

While most wouldn’t even dare to get close to the water’s edge on those

days, much less take a dip, there’s one thing for certain: A close-knit,

sometimes mysterious, band of watermen will appear and make this

treacherous domain their playground.

These are the same guys you see pictured in newspapers and magazines

hurtling along the face of a monster mountain of water, braving life and

limb, literally, for the thrill of riding one of the scariest waves known

to man.

Kevin “Mel” Thoman is one of those guys. And so is Ron Romanowsky, Bill

Sharp, Tom Kennedy, Fred Simpson, Terry Wade, Al Lehman and Danny Kwok,

to name a few.

I bet a lot of you are saying “who?”

That’s why Thoman has this great idea. And I think it’s a pretty good one

too.

He wants, with the help of the Newport Beach City Council, and maybe some

motivated community activists, to create a Wedge Hall of Fame for Newport

Beach.

“It’s the most famous wave in the world, next to the Pipeline,” Thoman

said. “It could be a boon to Newport Beach. Good for the sport and good

for the city. It could become a tourist attraction.”

Thoman said that Huntington Beach, which is known as Surf City, has a

Surfing Walk of Fame and even a sculpture of a surfer that stands as a

monument to the sport on Pacific Coast Highway.

Newport Beach and the Wedge should get equal treatment, he said,

sculpture included.

Truly, the Wedge is well-known. Aside from its notoriety in bodysurfing

circles, it has been featured in books, music and movies, including Bruce

Brown’s immortal, “Endless Summer.”

“It (the walk of fame) would add to the lore of the Wedge and show

respect for people who have contributed to the sport of bodysurfing,”

Thoman said.

Those people include the Daily Pilot’s columnist, Judge Robert Gardner,

who wrote a book on the Wedge. In fact, it was that book, which drew

Thoman, who grew up in Culver City, to town originally.

“The Wedge got me down here and basically, here I still am,” he said.

But Thoman said many people don’t even know how to find the Wedge and

when they do, they don’t know much about it. So his proposal would be to

place the Wedge Walk of Fame at the West Jetty Park, which is only steps

away from the famous spot.

And Thoman would include more than just the body surfing crowd on the

walk. He’d include Sharp and Romanowsky, who are knee boarders, and Kwok,

one of the few surfers who dared to ride the Wedge, as well as Gardner,

and surf guitarist and former Balboa Peninsula resident Dick Dale, who

wrote a song called “The Wedge.”

If anyone can get this walk of fame idea moving it’s Thoman.

It was he, Kennedy and a few other body surfers, who, about 7 years ago,

coaxed the Newport council to initiate a no board blackball at the Wedge

10 a.m. to 5 p.m. starting May 1 and ending Oct. 31.

The impetus for the ban was the belief that the influx of foam bodyboard

riders was threatening the very survival of the sport of bodysurfing.

The board ban, which ran into opposition by board riders like Sharp and

Romanowsky, has been successful so far, Thoman said. So maybe this dream

will be too.

Hopefully the City Council members, especially Tod Ridgeway since this is

his district, will look into this idea.

Thoman, who once operated a Wedge Museum out of his home, can be reached

by calling the Wedge Preservation Society at (949) 721-8526.

* TONY DODERO is the editor of the Daily Pilot. He can be reached at

(949) 574-4258 or via e-mail at [email protected] .