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Makaha's Buffalo Keaulana: Surfing's Living Legend
By Bunky Bukutis

It was a feast fit for kane o ke kai {men of the sea}, set in the shaded cradle of Makaha Valley. A huge white tent covered Makaha Resort luau grounds -- adorned with banana trees from Harry Ige’s farm in Waianae Valley, kahili-like ti plumes, ulu branches, and sugar cane stalks from West-side family yards, as well as tropical flowers from the Big Island.
Just past noon Sunday, Sept. 5, kumu hula Tatiana Tseu’s Kamehameha Schools Hawaiian Ensemble placed finishing touches of lauwai on a sea of white tables, and some 1,500 people from all over the world began streaming in to greet the birthday boys – Richard “Buffalo” Kalolo’okalani Keaulana, 70, and Edward Ah Fan Tseu, 84.

As the long line of well wishers swelled, it became an unusual mix with Bandai Corp. President Takasu and his entourage from Tokyo standing alongside legendary surfers Greg Knoll of California, Rabbit Kekai and Henry Preece, and other not-so-well-known surfers and fishermen from Hanalei to Kona.

Although the party invitation requested no gifts, two head tables soon filled with fishing lures, a refurbished long board with the late Rell Sunn’s name printed on top, a huge conch shell, a life-like miniature statue of Buffalo, fishing knives and mountains of lei.

K-105 morning-drive disc jockey Brickwood Galuteira got the party rolling with emcee duties by first introducing Makaha kahu and Hawaiian scholar Kaupena Wong. In the spirit of giving, Kahu Wong created his own tribute for the kane o ke kai, a chant which located the men in Hawaii’s ocean by naming all eight ocean channels between Hawaii’s main islands.

The tributes continued to run through performances by Weldon Kekauoha, Darren Benitez, Augie T, Eddie Kamae, Melveen Leed, Amy Hanaialii Gillingham, fire dancer Kap TeoTafiti, Danny Kaleikini, Robi Kahakalau, Jeff Rasmusen and the finale by Cecilio Rodrigues.
Rodrigues chose the occasion to break out a new composition entitled “Keaulana.”

With the chorus repeating, “Keaulana. You can feel the sea call his name,” the operative word that raises the listeners’ understanding of this man and his connection to the ocean is “feel.”
Keaulana and the sea are unified in the most basic human instinct. And according to Cecilio, you don’t just hear the sea call Keaulana. Our mother ocean tells us that he comes to us through our sense of touch, like raising the hair on your body (chicken skin), or a slap on the head from Makaha backwash.

Cecilio’s song is the fourth musical tribute written in honor of Buffalo. They include a song sung by Dennis Pavao and written by Adam Holbron entitled “O Wai Kou Inoa,” Ledward Ka’apana’s “Buffalo’s Song,” and The Ka’au Crater Boys’ “Makaha.”
Who else could inspire such an outpouring of aloha, or have brought this massive birthday festivity to fruition!

“Buffalo, he’s moi (king) lineage,” said Leighton Tseu, main organizer for the party which also honored his father, a very successful fisherman in his own right.
“Buffalo’s lineage goes back to Kamehameha on his father’s side and Kekaulike of Maui on his mother’s,” Tseu said.

So what was this ehu (blond-haired) Hawaiian royalty doing out in the hot sun cleaning the parking lot the day before everyone sang Hau’oli la hanau?

Buffalo is a humble man and a champion of common sense. He draws his power from the sweat of his own brow, mixed with the salt of the earth and sea.

He learned this mix early on in life, when, he admits, “I had nothing.”

He never knew his father, who died in a dock-side accident a month before Buffalo was born. Family trouble followed with a hot-tempered step-father who would beat his mother, Buffalo said, and who would send whatever luxuries the family could afford back to the Philippines. The home conflict soon drove Buffalo away to find refuge with other families in Nanakuli, including the Kaeos , Barretts and Lopezes.

“In order to survive with other families, you had to stay outside in the dark or shadows for a while,” Keaulana said. “Then, your friend would help you get your foot in the door. There was lots of work to do. In the early morning, we’d gather eggs. Next, we’d go diving for fish. And the rule was, ‘Don’t come home, until a whole pakini (washtub) is full.’

“I know what it is to be homeless too.” Keaulana said. “Sleeping in a cardboard box down the beach. You got to keep moving.”

School wasn’t any easier. “I had no money for lunch. So I’d go fishing on lunch break and bring the school cooks my catch for eat,” Buffalo said.

One of the hardest lumps to swallow was when he worked a week picking up kiawe beans so he could buy a $1.25-pair of slippers to wear to school. When he showed up at Waipahu High School classroom in slippers, the teacher turned him away because he wasn’t wearing shoes.

“I had a few words for her (the teacher) that probably I shouldn’t have said. But that was it. I didn’t have money for shoes,” Keaulana said.

The sea became his school, his teacher and his survival.

But, a few years later, as things were going from bad to worse for him on land, Keaulana got a second chance.

“I believe in that you know,” he said, “Everyone deserves a second chance.”
Russ Takaki, his court-appointed counselor advised Buffalo to join the Army. His entre was to tell recruit officers that he wanted to learn discipline, a word that he could barely pronounce, let alone know its meaning.

“The officer said, ‘Did you say discipline?’” Buffalo recounted, “He couldn’t believe his ears. He told the others I wanted to learn discipline, and they all laughed. But they let me in.”
In the Army, Buffalo was immediately recognized for his abilities in the ocean. And much to the disappointment of his friends like Junior Alexander who were shipped overseas to war, Buffalo went to work at Haleiwa Army recreation center as a lifeguard.

His prowess saving lives and teaching surfing to officers’ families would earn him stripes. But instances, like accidentally not saluting an officer because morning sun blinded his eyes, would bust him back to PFC rank.

Keaulana began to make a name for himself as a body surfer while in the Army. In the late 1950s, he was three-time, body-surfing champion at Makaha International Surfing Championships, which ,at the time, was the worlds most prestigious surfing contest.
“Buffalo was a fantastic bodysurfer,” said long-time surfer Fred Van Dyke, formerly of California and a teacher at Punahou School. “He did things, back then (the 1950s) like I never seen done before on waves on the Mainland. Like at full angles, he’d do spinners. This was before anyone did that, and he did it without any fins.”

After leaving the Army and taking a job as Makaha Beach caretaker, Buffalo won the International’s surfboard division in 1960. He credits his victory, in part, to the late Butch Van Artsdalen, who had mastered a key maneuver on the surfboard -- the switch stance.
Naturally, Buffalo stood with his right foot forward (goofy foot). But he was having trouble making the transition from a huge barrelling left at Makaha Bowl to a swinging deep right turn at the blowhole, where he needed to gather enough speed to make it through the reforming hot inside section.

“I ‘d been watching Butch switch stance a lot, and figured that’s what I needed on the turn at Makaha,” Buffalo said, “So I practiced. After falling down a lot, I remembered how Scooter Boy (Kaupuiki) would hop on his switch. So I did that little jump on the turn and moved up on the board. The step forward made it possible to get through the inside fast section. I used it (switch stance) at the International and won my heat. After, Butch tells me, ‘Hey, I saw that move.’ From there, I went on to win.”

Buffalo’s first surfboard was a redwook plank, soaked in creosote and shaped from a railroad tie.
“We’d be sitting way down in the water, waiting for waves. Then someone like Woody Brown or JimmyWong would paddle up on a new board -- high and dry -- looking down at us. The wind would be blowing. They were a little cold, so they’d say, ‘Hey you look warm down there in the water.’ We’d tell them that they looked a lot warmer up there,” Keaulana said ,
“We had hardly any floatation. And we’d give anything to try their boards. In fact, as soon as one of them wiped out, one of us would get to their board first and take a few rides on the inside before giving it back.”

In the 1950’s, when California’s Greg Knoll came to the islands he befriended Keaulana and Henry Preece of Haleiwa. Knoll started making his own boards and would let the two local boys use them.

“The funny thing about Greg, was that he’d take us into shops like Dick Brewer’s, and go down the line squeezing boards to show us how much stronger his were,” Buffalo said.

Until recently, Keaulana had a 13-foot Knoll board which had held up remarkably for its 40 years of use. Early this summer, however, Keaulana returned the board to his friend and rightful owner James Arness, star of the TV series Gunsmoke.

“I figured, he could put it up on his wall and bring back a lot of good memories,” Keaulana said.
Since his victory at Makaha, acquiring boards has not been a problem for Buffalo. In fact, it’s been quite the opposite. Everyone wants him to ride their board.

So the problem is: Which board to ride? Many times, the solution is much like what he does with the fish he catches - give ‘em away.

That’s not meant as an insult to the board shaper. It’s more a combination of his own generosity in wanting to see his friends get out in the surf and which board suits his weight and style.

“Most shapers give you what they think you should ride,” Keaulana said, “Not what you want.”
To see Buffalo surf, there is no mistaking his distinctive style. From afar, his upright, rock-solid posture is undeniable, and his graceful switch stance on turns blends so naturally into moving up and down on the board that an unskilled observer can miss it completely.

Studying his style is akin to studying his Hawaiian culture.

Keaulana approaches anything he does in the ocean – whether its surfing, paddling, driving boat in huge surf for film crews, sailing the double-hulled canoe Hokule’a, or spearing fish - from his unique Hawaiian cultural roots.

While assessing situations, he finds the simplest, most natural way to work with the elements, not against them. That Hawaiian trait fits an interpretation of his last name Keaulana (to ride with the flow of the ocean.) and his middle name Kalolo’okalani (brain of heaven.)

The older and wiser he gets, the more dedicated Buffalo becomes to his culture.
A recent television show dedicated to his 28th Annual Buffalo’s Big Board Surfing Classic, described the multi-faceted contest as something “new” to surfing.

“That’s like saying our culture is new,” Keaulana grumbled, “The things we do have been going on forever here in Hawaii. Canoe surfing, tandem surfing, that’s all part of our culture.”
The latest addition to his Makaha-based surf meet is a 15th division requiring contestants to stand on their boards and paddle with long paddles, a way of surfing nurtured by the Achoys of Waikiki and more recently by Laird Hamilton.

Buffalo’s oldest son Brian won the division. But what speaks more about the Hawaiian culture in this case is that Brian spent months preceding the Classic getting others involved in surfing on his large tandem boards and using his paddles.

“It’s all about fun and aloha,” said Brian, “That’s what makes my dad’s contest so different.”
Another element is family. All the Keaulanas love the ocean.

“It’s our church,” said Momi Keaulana, Buffalo’s wife of 44 years, a lady he met while playing ukulele under a coco palm fronting her workplace Hale Auau on the beach at Waikiki.

“In the ocean, you’re in heaven because you’re in God’s creation,” she said. “You feel like you’re in the arms of love. It heals us physically and spiritually. Whenever my kids were sick, I’d take them to the ocean.”

Some Keaulanas have kept close to the ocean by making their careeres in it.
In 1965, Mayor Neal Blaisdell appointed Buffalo a city lifeguard at Makaha Beach, a position he held for 35 years.

Brian followed his father’s footsteps, and helped pioneer the jet ski as a rescue vehicle for the city lifeguard service. Brian has gone on to work as a stunt coordinator for the film industry.
Second son Rusty is a three-time world longboard champion, and, at the age of 38, still has a good chance for a fourth title.

Jimmy, Buffalo’s third son, is a construction worker and surfs on his father’s Real B Voice team.
Last April, Jimmy wowed Japan youth by taking them for their first-ever, out-rigger canoe rides at Shonan, Japan. The occasion was a Buffalo-style surfing contest, the fourth of its kind held in Japan. Over the years, the turnout of Japanese surfers and lifeguards has steadily grown to massive proportions.

And Buffalo’s hanai sons include Oahu water safety officers Melvin Puu and Terry Ahue, both rescue jet-ski operators and instructors, Kona tropical-fish diver Alfred Estencion, and Tahiti black-pearl farmer Eric Cavera.

The Keaulanas future in the water holds a host of grandchildren – Keoni, also a Real B Team rider, Brandon, Bubba, Noelani, Nolan, Haa, Keanu, Tiare, Rayden and Kelii – all of whom are developing gills, and the bulk of whom helped secure this summer’s junior lifeguard competition trophy for the West side.

The impact of Buffalo and the ocean grows as do his descendants. With them, he steers a steady nurturing course, from their early days of nene bottle, diapers and playing water. Buffalo’s dearest-held hope for his family members is that they see the beauty that surrounds them (Hawaii) and give back to that beauty by showing respect and aloha for it.

His biggest challenge, and possible the greatest source of frustration for one who has been raised with no material wealth other than his own abilities, is to give his grandchildren a sense of how good they have it. Hidden in that lesson is the knowledge that there never will be another man like “papa.”

In a recent interview, big-wave-riding legend Knoll (aka – “The Bull) captured the significance of his close friend of some 50 years .

“He’s a man of few words,” Knoll said, “his actions speak for him.

“Buffalo is the one who has gone on to carry the banner for Duke Kahanamoku, the guy who most people think of as the father of modern day surfing. And since the Duke has passed away, Buffalo has picked up the gauntlet,” Knoll said.

“He’s been the guy, if you were to ask local people from the islands who best carries the aloha spirit forward, it would be Buffalo and his family for sure.”

And finally any story about Buffalo would fall short if it did not mention his own sense of humor that mixes so well with his “one liners,” and his own ability to tell stories.

Recently, a relatively new surfer at Makaha, Jesus Navarro, came to Buffalo beaming about a past surf session. “You should have been here, yesterday,” said Navarro, using the old surfer refrain, made famous in Bud Brown’s film classic “Endless Summer.”

“That’s nice,” Keaulana replied, “You should have been here 40 years ago.”

After his 70 birthday party, Keaulana took time to reflect on how well everything had gone:

“Well, maybe in another five years, we’ll throw another party. I just hope we’ll all be able to recognize each other.”

As for his story-telling abilities, stay tuned for Buffalo’s book, which we are hoping to publish before he turns another year older.