Larry Capune
[Februrary 2004] Here’s to you Larry Capune. Lifeguard, paddler, movie presenter. All around great guy. You think you got it made, and it all goes downhill so fast. So here’s to you, my friend.
Larry holds the record for longest paddles. He estimates he has gone around the world 2.5 times. I met Larry more than 10 years ago, as he was showing the movies down at Newport. Starting around the early 60s, Larry would start showing movies once a week for a few weeks in the summer. In 1993 I started helping him do set up and tear down, and contiuned to the present. He introduced a large group over the years, including myself, to many movies we had never heard of, all shown on his 16 mm projector. To top off the summer, at the end of the season, he would always show Big Wednesday or the Endless Summer.
Larry can spin a tale like no other. The time he came into the Kennedy estate in the middle of a storm, to be greeted with warmth and kindness, or the time he was denied entry to a beach, because George H.W. Bush owned the property. Or coming into a harbor with Buddy Ebsen in a hurrican on a catamaran. But for us of Balboa Island Yacht Club, Larry is forever a lifeguard, movies and a friend.
[May 31, 2004]
Larry passed away Tuesday May 25, 2004 at age 61 after a long battle with cancer. I am proud to call Larry a friend of mine. I met him many years ago down on Balboa Island, during one of his movie showings. I first knew who he was though, in 1993 when I started helping him set up and take down the movie screens. Listening to his stories and tales, I knew then that he was a man to emulate. I loved hearing his stories of washing up half dead at the Kennedy Compound, or being turned away from the Bush estate. Or the people he knew, like Buddy Ebson and their catamaran hurricane ride into New Orleans. I don’t know how much was true and and how much was not, but it all had some orgin, and to me, is the telling of a great man.
[6/1] A public memorial of Larry will be held during a potluck at Dover Shores beach on June 22nd. More information as I discover it.
Here are all the links I have found about him to date:
Interview with Marty Capune by NPR
Craig Lockwood’s Obituary for Larry
Craig Lockwood’s Larry Capune page
AP copy of Obit on Mercury Tribune
Dennis McCellan’s LA Times Obit
Larry’s interview upon arriving in Corpus Chirsti
Link to the full page of the Corpus Christi as it happened in 1976
January 8th, 2005 at 12:09 pm
I saw Larry when I was about 11 years old. He spoke at my School…it was kind of an attempt by
the staff to keep “on the right track”
His antics introduced me to the notion that Adults could enjoy Jackassery as much as I did as a
child…maybe more.
Real adventure is all over the world and is waiting for who-ever wan’t to tap it.
His thoughts and logic became the foundation for much of my own questioning of the norm, and
idea that I could go and do what I want.
Since then, I have lived in Remote parts of Austrailia with Aboriginals, gone down the Amazon,
and run an ultra-marathon.
Though I hadn’t seen him in over 30 years, his death struck me hard. I hope his life planted seeds in
other people who have gone out and experianced life, and I hope those people can show others to do the same.
Cheers to you!
Thanks for the fortitude you showed me I had.
Paul Anderson
August 23rd, 2006 at 8:53 am
I remember Larry speaking at our school. I was around eleven years old and had just started surfing. After the assembly, I remember shaking his hand and thinking that he was, other than my father, the coolest person in the world – he reminded me that I could do anything I set my mind to. He was a very thoughful person and spoke to us as though we all mattered. His stories were just fantastic and all I could do was dream about paddling to some distant place. It turned out that my aunt, an avid paddle boarder in Newport Beach, knew Larry and after telling her about his presentation at my school she said, “Aww, he’s such a sweetheart, bless his heart”.
February 26th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich this morning. I don’t know why, other than the fact that I felt like having peanut butter. I so seldom have peanut butter any more; but when I do, it always reminds me Larry Capune.
I used to paddle every day from Wood’s Cove in Laguna Beach to Abalone Point and back. Craig Lockwood got me started on it back in the early eighties. One day Craig took a few of us up to Balboa to meet Larry. I remember helping Larry carry his projector and film reel from his little studio apartment that he was paying fifty dollars a month for. We set it up in the street, waited for dark, and then watched Breaking Away with about forty-five other people I didn’t know.
Larry and I paddled together a few times after that. He used to show me his news clippings of his adventures and he would tell me the story about receiving words of encouragement from Rose Kennedy one stormy night when he was just about to throw in the towel on one of his east coast journeys.
I would still run in to Larry just cruising around the island from time to time up until about 1989. That’s when I moved further south, and then only frequented the island maybe once or twice a year. I paddle just as seldom these days. But when I think of peanut butter, I think of that tub that Larry always had strapped to the nose of his board, and how Larry always told me that peanut butter was the perfect source of food energy for long paddles.
After swallowing the last bite of my sandwich, I decided to go on the Internet to see if I could find any evidence of Larry and his antics. To my sad surprise I found nothing but obituaries in his honor, dated nearly three years prior.
Larry was an odd character: a loner, yet a friend to many. He was a little bit competition and a big bit inspiration. He was a teacher, a motivational speaker (before there was such a thing), a maverick and a pioneer. He new something about life that most people will never know exists, and yet he shared those secrets with anyone who would take the time to listen. The next time you have a PB&J, listen… and you just may hear Larry Capune.
November 1st, 2007 at 6:41 am
In the early 1960s my mom owned the Island Kitchen a block down from the ferry on Balboa Island. Larry was friend of the family and frequented the hamburger stand frequently.
I remember one day during the summer when he had just received a new paddle board from Hobie. The board was about 15′ long, hollow and had a rudder! Hobie and Larry had designed the board for his long distance paddling.
Larry needed a little weight for a good workout. I was about 7-8 years old at the time, he eyed me up and down and said you’ll do. He took me, placed me on the front of the board and we paddled around the island, down to the bay club and back to the ferry. What shape that guy was in!
I often wondered what happened to Larry. He truly was a Balboa icon.
We’ll miss you Larry,
Joseph Miner Jr.