Fred Simpson sat in a Xerox conference room in Santa Monica, wearing a Speedo hidden under his sales suit.
“This number isn’t in our call area. Guess we can stop making calls to Newport and Huntington Beach,” the branch manager said.  
Busted.
The numbers were to a surf forecast phone line - and if the swell sounded good enough, Simpson, then in his early 20s, would peel off his suit and drive down to Newport Beach for one reason: The Wedge.

(Click on the link to see a multimedia interactive with video, history, and explaination of the Wedge.)
Simpson – a legendary bodysurfer who revolutionized the sport with the creation of the Viper Surfing Fin – is celebrating his 70th birthday this Saturday at Old World Village in Huntington Beach, where friends, fellow bodysurfers, and anyone interested plan to celebrate with cocktails, old stories and a slideshow presentation.
“It’s 70 wasted years of hiding my birthday,” Simpson said, vowing to never forgive longtime friend Kevin “Mel” Thoman for putting him in the spotlight.
“We idolized him,” said Thoman, who met Simpson about 30 years ago out at the Wedge, and hopes to  one day see his name on the Surfers’ Walk of Fame.
Simpson first caught wind of the Wedge back in the early 1960s. A Long Beach lifeguard at the time and Huntington Beach Pier bodysurfer, a friend recommended he go down to Newport to check it out.
His first encounter with the now infamous wave was nothing special. It was medium size, no big deal.
Then it hit.
“You could tell it was going to be a challenge, it scared me – which was a good thing,” he said. “It’s like trying to describe how a banana tastes… It got in my blood. It’s quite a work of nature.”

The Wedge was formed after a man-made jetty structure was put in at the Newport Harbor entrance. Waves bounce off the rocks, then wedge together with another incoming wave to double in size. The Wedge is known world-wide among surfers, bodysurfers and bodyboarders – captured in countless surf magazines and once even featured in the New York Times. Every time a big south swell hits, news vans line the sand - along with hundreds of spectators - to watch the action.

Simpson’s  love for the freakish wave was so strong, he packed up his bags and moved to the Newport Peninsula so he could be near it. 

Simpson – who would take on the 30-foot waves at the Wedge - soon became the face of the monster break. At age 29, he was on the TV show “To Tell the Truth,” where a group of celebrities tried to guess who the real guest was who rode the big waves. Bald at an early age with an appearance older than he really was, no one guessed it was him. 
Then Simpson did a voice over for “Thrill Seekers,” a movie where the Wedge was highlighted. In the 90s, he was featured on a show called “How Did They Do That?”
But what Simpson is probably best known for is the creation of the Viper fin.
Simpson and partner Don Redington tweaked an existing design for fins, channeling water off the tip, making them work somewhat like a surfboard fin. The new design kept legs from sliding out of the waves – thus allowing for longer, bigger rides. 
The fins didn’t take off until the 1990s, when bodyboarding came onto the scene.
 “If it’s part of you, it takes the edge off a lot of stuff. It’s fun. No one is rich, but it’s fun,” he said. 
When asked about the injuries he’s sustained at the Wedge – known to give poundings to the best of them – he ticks off a laundry list of painful experiences:
- Compression fracture on second lumbar vertebrae.
- Broken wrist
- Concussion (He didn’t know what day it was as they took him away in the ambulance, he said)
“It comes with the territory, everyone gets hurt out there,” he said.
Along with the pain that came with the years spent at the Wedge, he also made great friendships with many who will celebrate his life this Saturday.
 “He’s just an absolute classic,” Thoman said. 
Fred Simpson’s guide to newcomers at the Wedge:
- Don’t make the locals mad.
- You aren’t born with skill, you have to learn it.
- Don’t get in anybody’s way.
- Start small and then go big. And don’t push it, don’t rush it.
- Don’t ever lose respect for the ocean, it will spank you if you do.
- If you’re any good at all and you’re courteous, the older guys will probably help you out.

TEST YOUR WEDGE KNOWLEDGE:

For more on Orange County beach life, go to ocregister.com/beaches

Check the Outdoor section in the back page of Sports next week for the answers!

- Laylan

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