"If indulgence is an art Tommy Peterson transcended the highest levels years ago."
There was a time in the mid-nineties when the idea of owning a Tom Peterson-shaped Fireball Fish would send you crying, with happy, into the silk folds of your kimono.
And, as fate would play it, Tom, then known as the little brother of the very famous Michael aka MP, had his shaping bay around the corner from my first job. Tom would visit every day, terrible breath but a lovely spirit, and regale with tales of his brother.
I didn’t buy one of his Fireball Fishes because, then, as today, money finds it hard to escape from my zippered pockets, much to my regret etc.
Two days ago, and shortly after his seventy-first birthday, Tommy Peterson joined big bro MP up there in the heavens, riding their dagger-sharp single fins along pale-green sandbottom points.
Surfing World ran an excerpt from an old magazine describing, perfectly, the wild man that was Tommy Peterson.
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Tommy Peterson is the personification of the outrageous surfer, both in and out of the water. If indulgence is an art, Tommy transcended the highest levels years ago. Outrageous people have always given surfing its character, so formulating the collective profile was a must to include someone a bit to the left and right of the straight line.
Though I’ve learned a few things about him, there’s no way we could possibly use anybody else to represent the ranks of the radical. Just for a bit of an update, Tom has been surfing around 16 years, always on the edge. He’s been shaping boards on the Gold Coast for a long time, but currently works at Pipedreams.
Okay, so rather than go through the usual personality ebb and flow we’ll select an antidote from the Tommy Peterson encyclopedia of Totally Outrageous Behavior for your entertainment.
Guy Ormerod tells us he was fishing off the bridge at Tallabudgera and less than straight Tommy cruised up to say hi. Upon questioning as to the depth of water there under, Guy maintained it was deep enough to dive into. Tommy, not being one to disbelieve a friend, proceeded to shed all his clothes, climb the railing and dive gracefully into the brine below.
Now it seems that Tom got quite a kick from this performance after swimming to the bank and sprinting naked up the Gold Coast Highway. He continued to repeat the whole performance with likes of high-powered real estate salesmen and middle-class southern state holiday makers.
Obviously someone was so impressed by Tom’s foray into the genitalia-flapping realms of nude ballet that they thought the local constabulary might like to observe the finer points of youth culture on the Gold Coast.
As the police car pulled up, Tom, in all his ringing wet glory, piled into the back seat and said to the boys in blue, “Got a durrie on ya?”
Then there’s the one about Tom’s venture into winemaking. At a recent presentation dinner, Tom decided the excellent cuisine deserved better than the carafes of rough red, provided for, drained one and substituted a fine vintage Peterson yellow Hock, later consumed by southern wine connoisseurs on the other side of the room.
All surfers haven’t got styled hair and satin smoking jackets. This is the real world where most surfers are looking for a nice wave and a good time. The Tommy Petersons are just as much a part of surfing as the mass media stars, and it would be bloody boring without them.
