Randy Crawdaddy Miod, a Malibu Surfing Legend, Dies in LA Fire at 55 – WSJ

Since he was a kid, Randy Miod wanted to be at the beach. Once he got there, he never left.

Growing up in Southern California s San Fernando Valley, Miod skipped school as a teenager to take the bus to Malibu s famous Surfrider Beach. He was missing so many classes in high school that his mother was worried he wasn t going to graduate, so she hid his board.

She had reason to be worried: Instead of a high-school diploma, he got his GED, and instead of a 9-to-5, he worked restaurant jobs that afforded him maximum time at the beach. In his 20s, he started renting an apartment in a faded red house in Malibu that was built in 1924. It sat right on the Pacific Coast Highway, across from the beach and a short drive to Surfrider and its famous Malibu Wall. He never moved. Over the next 30 years, he became a fixture in the Malibu community, described by friends and locals as both a character and an icon.

Malibu has a pier and it s got many, many, many different pilings in it that hold the pier up, said Jean Pierre Peli Pereat, a Malibu-based therapist who uses surfing to help patients. And Randy was one of those pilings.

via www.wsj.com