Encinitas: Our History and People

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Article reprint courtesy of Encinitas
Magazine Editor in Chief Chris Cote.
RIGHT PHOTO COURTESY OF WAX PHOTOS.
BOTTOM, LEFT PHOTO COURTESY OF
LINDA BENSON.
BOTTOM, RIGHT PHOTO COURTESY OF KYLE
THOMAS PHOTOGRAPHY..
surfing double in the “Beach Party” films, and
as Deborah Walley’s surfing double in Gidget
Goes Hawaiian. She appeared in Bud Browne
and John Severson films, and she was in the
first Surfer Magazine in 1960. She was also the
first woman to grace the cover of a surfing
magazine, Surf Guide 1963.
Reflecting back, Linda remembers getting
her first surfboard. “When I was eleven,
there was a water-soaked balsa board for sale
for $20.00 and my Dad let me get it.”
“John Elwell was one of the lifeguards at
Moonlight Beach,” Linda recounts. “He
really took a lot of us under his wing—
Rusty Miller, my friend Nikki and myself.”
“Our parents drove us on the weekends
to Swamis. We walked to the beach in the
summertime. We could be down there as
long as the lifeguards were there. So
grateful to have parents that let us do that.
They trusted me. When wintertime came
then everyone went to Swamis. “So the
weekends, my parents and Nicky’s parents
took turns driving us to Swami’s and that’s
where we were all weekend.”
If you ask Linda today what her
philosophy on life is, she’ll tell you, “Keep
on paddling!”
7 2 F E N C I N I T A S : O u r H i s t o r y a n d P e o p l e