CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The unceasing song of the Texas surf is a sensational sound. The breaking waves draw you in as the lone star state sun shines down and taming the fairly timid waves has created a culture and history that’s well document in downtown Corpus Christi at the Texas Surf Museum.
Brad Lomax is the brain child behind this stockpile of surfboards.
“The surf museum was my version of middle age crazy,” Brad said. “And it almost cost me my marriage. Like most middle-aged crazies.”
Situated between several restaurants Brad owns, the Texas Surf Museum tells the story of some of the most sincere positive thinkers you’ll find in the coastal bend, Texas surfers.
“I tell people that to be a surfer in Texas you need to be an optimist with low standards,” Brad said.
Considering our state isn’t really known for its crashing waves, I mean not everything can be bigger in Texas, these dedicated dreamers still have created a culture to celebrate the occasional day when the conditions are just right.
Brad started this collection when his good friend and Texas sized surfing legend Pat Magee closed down his Port Aransas shop back in 2005. 36 years after Pat opened the store at the age of 18.
“One of the first people that I met in the surfing world was Pat McGee,” Brad said. “Pat is really a great story of surfing. He’s a surfer and he’s a business man and he’s a pioneer. “Pat over the years had amassed an amazing collection of surf memorabilia. It was stuck under beds and in attics and in store rooms.”
So Brad bought it all.
“I wanted to tell the story,” Brad said. “It’s a cool story how the people who pioneered it got started and stuck with it and made a niche in the surfing world on the Gulf Coast and in Texas.”
Built on a backbone of boards, each one of the colorful creations has a connection to the Lone Star State.
“These boards, you know, they’re not just a piece of Texas history,” Brad said. “They’re a piece of Corpus Christi, Texas and Port Aransas history, and those guys had a lot to do with getting me and other people kind of in that second wave out in the water.”
Having the physical history of hanging ten gives the museum a tangible taste of what cruising the gulf coast back in the day was like. But for a more colorful account, the ever changing wall of history has a few more personal stories.
“This is a living wall where we allow people to come and they bring various photographs, memorabilia, ephemera,” Brad said.
From South Texas to the Sabine, all 367 miles of coastline are covered with this chronicle of hodgepodge.
“This is a part of Texas that most people don’t understand,” Matt said. “You know, we know the ranches, the cattle drives. We know the big cities, but this is a little tiny museum in a small town that’s in it of its self a wonderful place to come visit.”
So don’t bail on this opportunity to see some gnarly narratives of Texans who took to the tides and turned up with totally tubular tale to tell.
“This is important stuff,” Kent said. “This is our culture and this is America. This is what we’ve made, so you need to come see it.”