A treasure trove of skate culture is being saved
huckmag.com
huckmag.com
I mean it was shocking to me. There were other cliques, but those guys were obsessive. And I was amazed at what they did on their boards. They did stuff that truly seemed impossible to me.
I was amazed by the boards themselves too. We didn't have anything like those in the mid-west and I'd never seen anything like them.
Compared to the tiny steel wheeled skateboards I'd seen those laminated and curved plywood boards were huge and the plastic wheels and "trucks" were way more high tech than I'd ever imagined anyone would apply to a skateboard. I remember asking them "They make these wheels and axels just for skateboards?" because I really thought they must have some real industrial use and were being re-appropriated. They thought I was a dumbass for asking.
I learned fast to not touch anyone's board, and don't even ask if you can ride it. That, to me, was funny because I'm thinking the best I can do is not fall off if I can get both feet on it going as slow as I can and I'd watch them jumping curbs and making the board do flips and catching air, but they were convinced I'd bust it? I couldn't imagine how?
Listening to a group of them talk was also impressive. They had their own accent and lingo and, again, I'd never really seen anything like that before. They didn't sound the same as kids who weren't skaters and they didn't talk about the same things. They mostly talked about skating and everything else didn't matter. I would listen to them and wonder "how can they only talk about skating?"
Those hardcore skaters were truly a mystery to me, but learning they're preserving their history doesn't surprise me. They really were different, and that history should be preserved. It was as unique as anything I've ever seen in modern American culture.
I remember getting off Bart in the middle of the city and having no idea where I was. This guy skates by as I’m standing there looking clueless and asks if I needed help finding any spots. Once he realized it was my first time in the city, he spent the “entire” day showing me around to every spot. At the end of the day I bought him a sandwich and he pulled out a giant blunt (I used to smoke).
One of my favorite memories of skateboarding and of SF.
That didn't work..
I ended up renting a really bad pay by the week hotel where I had to sleep with the lights on because the roaches were aggressive.
It took about 36 hours to realize I would quickly run out of of money and end up back in Eugene living on my sisters floor. So I just rolled with it.
I would catch the bus from downtown to La Jolla and skate back downtown. I loved the long stretches of smooth path that ran along the beach. It is nice to just do flip tricks going pretty much as fast as you can without a tree root messing up a sidewalk. Like butter.
But I broke a kingpin about four days into what was now my vacation. So I was at the skateshop getting a new one and ran into this kid I met a few months earlier in Sacramento when I was on my way to The Tibetan Freedom Concert in S.F.
So we hung out for a few days and he showed me some lesser known spots in San Diego. He also called in a favor to get my stupid broke ass back to Eugene.
I was 30 when I discovered I could no longer skateboard. Nasty handrail thing and I was just done. I could have kept going but I wanted to go out on the top like Seinfeld. So I gave my board to my sisters son who had been rolling a Razor scooter. I would no longer hurt myself daily and maybe he would get a girl to talk to him.
Now I just think about what I would do with stairs and curbs when I walk down the street.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/322122905/rad-the-book-...
They’re able to run it from donations, Patreon, and merchandise sales. I support them on Patreon, and I think it’s great what they’re doing!
I've been pretty consumed by skate nostalgia and can't get enough of stuff like this!
The only problem is it'd very likely attract a bunch of vandalism to my cabin :(.