Unlike you fellas I did not pick up a board until 76. I came across my now best friend when I was 15, he was riding slalom between butter dish tubs on a sidewalk. One week later we were loading up my first quarter pipe to drag down to his house a block away. He rode in the 60's but was riding a skinny blue plastic "kicktail" with urethane. Maybe made by Makaha? Not sure. My first board was made by Montgomery Ward with Red urethane. In 79 I got my first Dogtown Wes Humpsten model Indy's and Sims.
Later Skaters
Wow, Mike, the THP skaters have way too much in common to be mere coincidence...It's spooky...I also had a Makaha, my second board...It was a fiberglass piece of crap, no-name trucks, and shitty urethane wheels with open-race bearings. After that was the Hobie, then I bought a Dogtown Paul Constantineau "P.C. Tail Tap" model, with Indy 151s and Kryptonics C-70 red 78 duro Downhill wheels...What a sweet board. I took it with me to geology camp in the mountains around Silver City, New Mexico, summer of '81. (AC/DC's "Back in Black" was brand new and we were crankin' it.) I had never ridden hills that steep, but I learned how from a little thrasher kid around town that could bomb those mountain roads with absolutely no fear. Downhill is still my second favorite terrain, after ditches...
I really don't have the morbid sense of humor that you may think. It took Sissy begging for 10 minutes to talk us into it. We figured something was gonna happen.
The Holliday boy was practically unscathed (couple of scratches) except for the fact that he couldn't breath while he was balled-up under that old car!
Anyway, it struck me hilariously funny upon remembering it. I'm sure you guys must think I'm some kind of old sado masochist.
Ray
It's cool Ray, you are totally preaching to the choir. Back in the 80s I was in my mid-20s, but all the kids in my crew were teenagers, so I was the only one with a car, a honking huge 4-door Chevy Caprice oil company car, with a company gas credit car...We would go on weekend-long skate safaris, searching out
da kine ditches, banks, hills, pools, and half pipes all over Northeast Louisiana. When we were skating downhill we would use the car to tow everyone back to the top of the hill. One day a kid wiped out and his leg slid up under one of the back wheels...We must have all had guardian angels, because he was only bruised a little. A sobering day, but from then on we always walked up the hill...
There are other such stories, but that's the one that always makes me shiver a little bit, and appreciate the Grace in my life...
Not at all Ray, back then we'd laugh at each other when we bite the bullet ... till we found out how serious it was and den the tune would change. Funny enough with all the years of half pipes, pools, drainage ditches and other stuff we rode I never broke a bone but many a friend did get seriously hurt. This is one of the reasons I cooled off early on some of the crazy stuff I was doing by mid twenties as surfing was and is my true passion. I had started surfing at 12 and by 14 was ripping, so skateing became secondary for me and a way to pass the flat spells. Now it's funny enough at over 50 now and I can still skate & keep up with dem half my age ....
Edit I'm bowing out on this conversation as I don't want to turn Gary's glog into skateboarding total recall
I broke my wrist in '78 skating a big quarterpipe in my home town of Mansfield, Louisiana. But that was before knee pads and wrist guards...and we were pretty toasted too...It
was the 70s after all...
My sailing friend in Brazil, one of the best racing sailors I've ever known, took up surfing a few years ago...There are some sweet spots down there, and I'm always jealous of the photos of the gorgeous tubes she posts on the FB...A couple of days ago she told me that she wiped out and ruptured a disk in her back. Out of commission until further notice...Now I'm not so jealous, and glad to be a lightweight skater!
Dude you can talk about skating as long as you want! It's my thread and I say it's cool!
