An interview with Robert August Back in the late 1970s, on the Atlantic coast of the United States, there weren't too many surf shops quite yet. So I sent a big container filled with surfboards and shirts from California to Miami. From there, I rented the biggest van I could to transport the merchandise up the East Coast for distribution. I was alone on the trip. The idea was to cruise the whole coastline, going to different surf shops and showing them what we had.