Corky Smith gave himself to Laguna: now his hometown has the chance to give back
Story by MARRIE STONE
Photos by Mary Hurlbut
These days, it’s easy to take Laguna’s clean ocean and pristine surf spots for granted. The undeveloped hillsides behind our town, home to hidden waterfalls and clandestine caves, almost feel fated. This wasn’t always so. It was a group of mid-century residents who ensured the preservation of our natural treasures.
Briggs Christian Morris-Smith, better known by friends as “Corky,” is one of those local institutional legends. Corky became largely responsible for cleaning up our filthy ocean and preserving the hidden history in our hillsides. All that after years of serving his country overseas. Now, at 83, the Department of Veterans Affairs is letting Corky down. They’ve denied him access to a much-needed hip replacement. For the man who gave to his community, now there’s an opportunity for our community to give back.
Click on photo for a larger image
Corky poses at home, modeling his pal Mark Christy’s Ranch apparel
The Silent Generation or the Lucky Few?
It’s fitting that Corky was born in the center of the Silent Generation, a period marked by both good and lousy luck. They were silenced by the McCarthy Hearings and scarred by Korea. Sandwiched between the Great Depression and WWII – resulting in a relatively low birthrate – members of this era were typically stoic, hardworking, and kept their mouths closed. Corky embodies all those traits.
A 2008 book authored by Elwood Carlson coined the cohort the “Lucky Few,” in part because this was the first generation in American history to be smaller than its predecessor, and because they came of age during a relatively prosperous time. Veterans of the Korean War suffered fewer casualties than their WWII fathers and enjoyed higher employment, better health, longer lives, and earlier retirement.
This duality sums up Corky’s life. Where one might see danger, Corky saw adventure. Another man’s battle became Corky’s challenge. In almost every situation Corky found himself in, there was both a silver lining and a cutting sword.
Click on photo for a larger image
A quintessential storyteller, even the origin of Corky’s moniker hints at his colorful character. As a baby, his grandparents threw elaborate champagne-fueled parties on their estate. “I’d take the corks and suck on them,” he told OC Weekly back in 1999. “I was an alcoholic at 18 months old.”
Today, unlike many of his fallen friends, he’s still standing. But it’s getting increasingly hard with a hip that’s giving out and a system that’s unwilling to help.
Korea’s youngest soldier
In 1952, Corky faced a difficult decision. He’d had a fallout with his father, and a rocky relationship with his mom. At age 16, he could become a ward of the state, reside in juvenile detention, or enlist early into the Navy. He chose the latter. His own father flew thunderbolts during WWII, so there was some military precedent.
The only man in his company to qualify for the U.S. Naval Construction Battalion (known as the “Seabees”), Corky was soon sent to Japan and told he was no longer in the Navy, but now in the Marine Corps and required to complete marine combat training.
By the following year, he found himself flying between Korea and Japan, pushing cargo strapped to parachutes out of C-119 Flying Boxcars. “We carried no ID and flew in unmarked planes,” Corky says. “I learned to never ask any questions.” Pushing cargo earned Corky $200 a month. For an extra $100, he volunteered to test parachutes by jumping out of planes. His efforts earned him Korean presidential citations. But, six decades later, he carries the reminder of those jumps in his deteriorated hips.
After a short 30-day leave in Laguna, Corky was sent back. This time to Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands – one of the largest missile tracking stations in South Asia set on a tiny piece of land that occupies just over six square miles. Corky says most people couldn’t handle it out there. He made it 18 months. When the day finally arrived for him to ship home, he was informed the military had made a mistake and extended his tour for another four months. “Typical military mess up,” he says.
He keeps a photograph of himself with five friends as a reminder of those difficult days. “When I asked about his friends in the photo, Corky took a few deep breaths and began to carefully give the name and a detailed story of each face in the photo,” says friend and local Laguna legend Mark Christy. “Where they were from. A key personality trait. Where and how they had died. Most had died in battle, another had gone by suicide. Finally, still staring at the picture, he said, “’I’m the only one left.’”
Click on photo for a larger image
Corky (far left) poses during a well-deserved R&R with his fallen friends
If early life events turn into our story’s prologue, shaping who we become, this was who Corky became – a man who never ran from risk, who didn’t shy away from a challenge, and who put his own life and well-being on the line to protect others. He siphoned that energy to protect Laguna’s greenbelt and our stretch of the Pacific Ocean.
Battling Hurricane Hattie
Corky returned from the service and settled back into his life in Laguna. He married his wife, Pat, in 1961 and they decided to join some local friends at a skin diving resort in Belize.
It was October and hurricane season was well underway in the Caribbean. Corky and Pat had been there two weeks when Hurricane Hattie struck their small island. It hit on his birthday and bore his grandmother’s name. Winds up to 160 mph pummeled the island. Waves rose 25 feet. “Men tied women to posts,” Corky says. Of the 73 homes on the tiny island, only one and a half were left standing. Corky and Pat were in the half. The death toll began to climb.
The town was described as “nothing but a huge pile of matchsticks.” Officials in Belize City declared martial law. Then the looting began. “Guatemalans came up,” Corky says. “The British from Jamaica. They started shooting people.”
Corky helped Pat evacuate back to Miami, but he stayed behind to help. Mass graves were dug, bodies burned and buried to prevent the spread of disease. He cleared a landing zone, allowing helicopters to drop aid and supplies. One of those helicopters delivered a marine lieutenant who turned out to be one of Corky’s surfing buddies from Laguna (coincidences like those often happened to Corky). He told his pal they needed water and rations and weapons.
The British soon discovered Corky was American and arrested him. Corky found himself in the middle of a race war, the only Caucasian in a sea of Jamaican looters in jail. “They were about to beat the hell out of me when someone recognized me and told them I was okay.”
Was it another case of bad luck turned good? Or, more likely, good luck turned bad? Regardless, it was another case of Corky taking significant risk and making significant sacrifice.
Click on photo for a larger image
After returning from overseas, Corky worked for Surfer Magazine and acted in several commercials with Tom Morey and Brenda Benet
Communing with the man in the cave
Whether it was his time overseas or simply his nature, there’s a significant spiritual side to Corky. While studying anthropology, archaeology, and ethnic studies at Cal State Fullerton, Corky uncovered a remarkable cave in Laguna’s vast greenbelt. It started small, only two and a half feet tall, when he began excavating it in 1960s. By the time he finished, the cave was large enough to accommodate a six-foot man.
Inside he discovered arrowheads, quartz crystals, and human bones. He contacted a shaman to bless the cave and carbon dated the human remains. They were 1,500 years old. The cave became a sacred spot for Corky, a place where he could commune with its spirit.
“An argument could be made that Corky is Laguna’s foremost archeologist,” says Christy. “In his home, there are countless books – all neatly stacked and categorized – about the indigenous people who were here centuries before us and he has an encyclopedic understanding of who they were, where and how they lived.”
While most students’ theses clock in around a hundred pages, Corky’s was close to 1,000. Local interest began to grow alongside his research. He eventually attracted the attention of Timothy Leary, Alan Watts, Allen Ginsberg, and Dr. Sidney Cohen, who he took to the cave. At the same time, Corky fought alongside James Dilley to preserve the greenbelt from development.
“I have been in Laguna my entire life and have spent literally thousands of hours in these hills exploring every nook and cranny,” says Christy. “When the massive development was proposed in Laguna Canyon, I was on the original Board of the Canyon Conservancy. Corky took a few of us on a deep dive tour of Laguna Canyon’s hillsides. With palpable reverence, he revealed hidden Native American sites. He demonstrated how they would hunt and harvest only what they needed to survive. They used micro-dust from fungus to determine which way the wind was blowing on a windless day, staying downwind of prospective prey. To date, it was the most fascinating few hours I’ve spent in Laguna’s hills.”
Before Corky’s hips went bad, he led student tours through the preserve. Inner-city kids, disadvantaged youth, those without access to nature. He delivered lectures about environmentalism and preservation at UCLA, the Bowers Museum, California State University Fullerton, and Scripps Institute of Oceanography. On one notable occasion, Corky led a small group of blind students from the Braille Institute in Santa Ana. About 10 children, all 10 years old, tied themselves together with a long rope, and hiked into the hills. They sat amid the grasses and trees and identified the sounds of birds. “The stuff they could hear and smell,” Corky says, looking a little choked up. “It was so far superior to anything I’d seen.”
It’s easy to see he’s itching to get back out there.
Corky’s Erin Brockovich moment: Battling Big Water
In January 1997, like he did every day, Corky went for a run along Aliso Beach. He dove into the ocean and swam along the shore. Two days later, his skin exploded. “Everything was swollen,” he told OC Weekly in 1999. Soon the skin on his hands and feet began to split and bleed. It lasted nearly two weeks.
The cause? Raw sewage – 440,000 gallons of it – had been dumped into the ocean. It was the equivalent of 100,000 toilet flushes. And it was neither the first nor last time. In 1997, Aliso was deemed the second dirtiest beach in the United States.
What ensued was a multi-year legal battle between Corky and the Moulton Niguel Water District and the South Coast County Water District over what we argued was their failure to provide adequate pumps and backup precautions when the systems overloaded, resulting in multiple and routine sewage spills into Aliso Creek and, ultimately, the ocean.
Although Corky lost the suit – at tremendous personal expense – during the course of their fight, the water district made several critical improvements. But the battle essentially bankrupted Corky. He lost his home and all his financial reserves, while Laguna gained much cleaner water.
A local surfing legend
In 1989, Corky became the co-founder of the Surfrider Foundation in Laguna. “Corky is deserving of a place on the Mount Rushmore of Laguna’s surf legends,” Christy says. “When I was a kid, during the nastiest of big winter storms, there were only a few that would paddle out in the ‘victory at sea’ conditions. Corky, Big John Parlette, Joe Epps, Mike Armstrong, and a few others. The rest of the tribe would sit on the rocks at Brooks and watch these warriors navigate the huge and random peaks breaking beyond second reef. It was Laguna’s version of Da Bull (Greg Noll) at Makaha.”
Click on photo for a larger image
Corky around age 21
Maybe it’s his membership in the Silent Generation. Or perhaps because he spent his formative years in war. Or maybe it’s simply built into his DNA. But Corky’s many sacrifices – both physical and financial – are remarkable.
“It literally breaks my heart to see this proud man hobbled and in need of a little help,” Christy says. “He has done so much for this town, Laguna’s legacy, our oceans and our hillsides, and this country he loves so much.”
To date, Corky is two-thirds away from his financial goal. For more information on how to help, click here.