OCEANSIDE -- When Tommy Lewis fell off his surfboard sometime around Thanksgiving, his girlfriend said he panicked. Sure, the water was cold and he absolutely couldn't stand cold water -- but it was more than that.
 "He just never falls off his board," said Mary Beth Howard, who had lived with Lewis the past 10 years. "He was such an accomplished surfer. He knew something was wrong."
 Lewis, it turned out, was suffering from inoperable brain cancer. He passed away Jan. 2 in his Oceanside home. He was 62.
Just four months ago, Lewis took the championship in his age group at the prestigious Malibu Classic surf contest.
 "It was like he was 19 years old again," Howard said of his recent performance. "This all happened so fast.
"His last words to me were, 'I want to marry you,' " she added. "I started crying. What a fabulous man. You talk about charisma, oh my God! Talk to anyone who knew him and they will tell you how he helped them and made life better for them."
The beach community will remember Lewis as a legendary longboard surfer and a successful commercial fisherman, as well as for the "amazing" surfboards he shaped.
His sister said he certainly was all that, but more than anything he was a free spirit who had a live-long love affair with the ocean.
"He had a real simple life," said Sandra Undraitis. "He always got to do what he wanted and not many people can say that. He marched to his own drum. He didn't follow the rules."
Tommy Richard Lewis was born Sept. 4, 1946, in La Jolla. He was the younger of Stan and Mae Lewis' two children. He grew up in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, in a house on Chesterfield behind a hotel, post office and grocery store.
His father was a commercial fisherman and when Tommy reached the third grade he and his sister would sell fish once a week by pulling a wagon up and down the unpaved streets.
"We did real well at it, but Tommy didn't like it," said Undraitis, 64. "He wanted to be at the beach. He loved the beach more than anything.
"If it was a nice day, my mom would let him stay home from school and go to the beach," Undraitis added. "He wasn't an ordinary kid. He was going to be a fisherman and school didn't matter to him."
Lewis did graduate from San Dieguito High in 1964 but by then he already was making surfboards and fishing for a living.
He competed on surf teams and got to travel. His favorite places were Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Mexico. He eventually built a house in Todos Santos, Baja, Mexico, where he made his part-time home the past six years.
Besides fishing, he ran a quasi surf shop from his backyard, which is how he met Howard after his marriage ended.
Howard lived in San Clemente and surfed regularly at San Onofre. One day her board needed repairing and a fellow surfer recommended her to Lewis.Â
"He brought me down to Tommy's house and I never left," Howard said. The couple eventually moved to Oceanside.
Lewis made a name for himself in surfing, even though he didn't enter many contests "because he didn't like anything that was structured," his sister said.
He did win the fabled Stone Steps Beach Encinitas Surfing Contest in the 1970s, and along the way impressed fellow surfers with his wave knowledge and timing, and thrilled spectators with his switch-stance roundhouse cutbacks.
 At the recent Malibu event, he turned some heads. One of them belonged to Scott Bass, one of the judges.
"It was incredible," said Bass. "Tommy was in great form. He was stoked to win that. He was well-known around here, but to go up to Malibu and compete against some of the legends up there, and beat them -- he was pretty stoked.
"He may have been a laid-back dude who didn't do a whole lot of competitions, but he was ultra-competitive when he did enter a contest," Bass added.
Bass, 43, said he relished the times in the past few years that he was able to spend with Lewis after they became teammates on the Swami Surfing Association squad.
Bass said he grew up in Del Mar practically idolizing the guy. He said Lewis took after his father, Stan, a well-known surfer and fisherman "who was cut from the cloth of Hemingway."
"I looked up to Tommy," Bass said. "He was the red-hot surfer from the area."
Lewis' sister said that when the end was near, she discussed with him plans to have his ashes scattered at sea.
"He said, 'OK, but wait till the water is warm' " Undraitis said. "He didn't like cold water. That's why he went to Hawaii so much."
 A memorial service and a paddle-out ceremony will take place at Pipes in Cardiff at a future date, sometime after the weather warms, Undraitis said.
She also said a similar celebration will be held at his favorite surf break by his home in Todos Santos.
Lewis is survived by his longtime girlfriend, Mary Beth Howard; daughters Amanda Lewis and Jessie Maynard; sister Sandra Undraitis, a niece and a nephew.
