Gallagher Maximalism
The iconic chic of a West Side Santa Cruz Original
Beachtown Bohemia is paywall free. You can support me by liking this post (heart button above) and sharing it with anyone you feel would appreciate it.
There is a sub-genre of surf town fashion that has never been named yet occupies a tender real estate in my heart. It’s a mix of kitsch, exuberance and carelessness. I call this sartorial niche Gallagher Maximalism. Let me tell you why. Bob Gallagher was a fixture of westside surf town Santa Cruz my entire youth. A former professional baseball player turned-high-school-civics teacher, Mr. Gallagher could be seen pedaling his rusty cruiser bike to school at 7:30am every foggy weekday morning in the following ensemble:
Wild Hawaiian shirt
Clashing seventies polyester bell bottom pants
rubber flip flops, and
a tattered straw lifeguard's hat.
His briefcase would be slung, nonchalantly, across the handlebars. Anything this loud and cartoonish, on any other civilian, would have been clown-like. Les Nesman-like. But on Mr. Gallagher, this joyful uniform was the epitome of suave. Mr. Gallagher’s panache was made possible by the man's towering athletic build -- broad swimmer’s shoulders and back, shocking shock of red hair and full beard, the whole shebang edified with the unmistakable tawny complexion of an outdoorsman.
Although he was gregarious, Gallagher was no foolish comedian. He was a serious mind: a Stanford-educated lover of history, literature and a believer in discipline and work – all communicated via a tone that was decidedly playful. He maintained nicknames for the neighborhood kids, like “Hey Freckles” and held a keen memory for inside jokes. Gallagher and his irrepressible style represented a certain jaunty, smart California specific to our beach town life in Santa Cruz in the 1980s and 1990s. His positivity, the relentless charm, the courtly manners and big heart — cheering for the straggler on the track team, driving a Ford van full of nerds to the Model United Nations conference, windows down, blasting Steely Dan. Mr. Gallagher was inadvertently an icon of irreverence and good manners and polyester. He knew every student’s name. Hearing your own bellowed, in his deep baritone down the hall, damn near burned you with its sunshine.
It is impossible for one person to encapsulate a town of thousands. But Mr. Gallagher represents a slice of Beachtown Bohemia that I still find endlessly appealing, worthy of celebrating, and perhaps even emulating. He was smart, attractive, generous, surprising, and ultimately, as irreverent as he was radically kind.
