Your Life is Your Art: Remembering Ray Kunze
October 2, 1936 - November 4, 2004
Friend, are you there? Will you touch when you pass, like rain? William
Stafford
I figured Ray would always be here, dispensing stories, wisdom, and opinions. I loved his easy smile and gregarious personality and the way he called the ladies sweetheart when we came through the gate. Ray was loud and expansive, robust and good-natured, optimistic and resilient. He had a colorful and remarkable history but was fully immersed in the present. He had a definite sense of the way things ought to be (and wasn't shy about telling you) but he never stopped learning, either. He had devoted friends all over the world but was so much a part of the Hollister Ranch it is impossible to fathom his absence. Ray slipped away suddenly, and some of us wish we had paused a little longer the last time we saw him to chat or grouse or remark about the day. Too much love remains unspoken as we hurry along in our routines; now and then we are stunned into seeing that we really should slow down.
But Ray knew where he stood with the world. He simply held his strong arms open to the amazing experience of life and embraced it completely. "Your life is your art," he famously proclaimed, and that's the way he lived. He started out body surfing as a young boy in Hermosa Beach. In 1948, on a trip to Doheney Beach, he saw someone stand up surfing, and he thought he'd like to try it. Large, powerful, and a supremely gifted athlete, Ray became a well-known figure at Malibu in the '50s and '60s along with the likes of Dora, Doyle, and Mysto George. "Great surfers?" he once said, "I've seen them all. But the best surfer is the guy having the most fun out there." And Ray always had the broadest smile of all.
Ray did a stint in the army in the early 1960s and was proud to have been an L.A. County fireman for 25 years. He was physically active all his life, even playing professional baseball for a time, but he was perhaps best known as The Malibu Enforcer of the surfing world. "I got that name from John Milius." he explained, "He's a famous movie producer now, but when I first knew him he was a young boy at Malibu. I was like a big brother around the beach; I had just come from the army and was trying to get back into surfing, so I spent a lot of time at Malibu. And I used to try to keep kids from getting in trouble or fighting. One day, John showed me he had a handful of pills, and I made him throw them away. Then I made him stay out in the water until dark -- I wouldn't let him come back in. He told me about this years later, and when he made the film Big Wednesday, he had a character called The Enforcer and that was supposed to me."
According to Ray, surfing was not so much about the waves you rode as the friends you made. "I've made lifelong friends everywhere I've gone, and that's a gift," he reflected. He recognized the exhilarating and addictive nature of the sport, but he was modest about his own impressive achievements and he knew that a life needs balance. "Think of a good life," he told a group of middle school kids, "Think of yourself becoming something. Everyone should help others and contribute to the world."
Ray was as good as his word. He was a champion helper of others and was profoundly loved by countless friends, many of whom gathered at Big Drake's on Saturday to remember him and celebrate his life. It was a grand day, epic and Ray-esque. The sun shone and the water sparkled, and two hundred surfers, young and old, gathered in the water and formed a circle at the place they knew Ray would have been, scattering ashes, flowers, and prayers. A pair of dolphins joined them.
Afterwards, friends and family lingered on the bluff, remembering Ray
with laughter and tears. A small plane inexplicably dipped and whirled
in the empty sky above the Ranch, a strange ship passed, someone played
Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's Hawaiian-style version of Over the Rainbow, and
a shiny fire engine led Ray's last procession through the dark. It was
a wondrous thing.
Cynthia Carbone Ward
