I think I first hopped on a skateboard around 1984. It was a blue plastic shark looking thing with plastic (not urethane.... plastic) wheels and maybe a 2" hanger on the trucks. My friend Nadeem and I would go as fast as we could down "the big hill" I went back to that hill a few years ago and... oddly..... not that big..... anyway, I got my first wooden deck in 1985. It was a gorgeous White and Pink Santa Cruz Special Ed.. Cruising around on that thing was so much fun.. Around '87 I got this crazy Mike Vallely (SMA?) that was unlike anything I'd ever skated before, it was narrower and lighter and had a nose that would make my Uncle Jim feel better about his own. We'd set up launch ramps and jump it over and over again until the sun went down, or sometimes, until Tuan's mom called him inside. Man, we'd skate everything, a bench was great for stalls and board slides. Heck I remember stacking parking blocks on top of each other and skating those for hours. The best spot in town was a drainage ditch outside of the community center. It was a rare treat that someone knew of a half pipe to skate, and even then the sessions were always too short because of something or other. I think it was about 1992-ish when I finally hung up my latest board, an H-Street Matt Hensley, and I haven't so much as ollied until about a year or so ago. Now I'm absolutely hooked, I'm still working on getting the basics back: Ollies, cess slides, Shuvits, No complys, board slides(remember these were rail slides 'cause we had rails?), grinds, etc.. I've almost got my FS Pop Shuvits down... I'm at about 45%.... As it is I've been skating once a week. Usually on saturdays, usually at the parking-lot of my work.
I'm working my way up to get to the new Indoor skate park that just openned up down the street. Dig this, Wednesday evenings is "Old School night". Skaters over 25 get in for $5. I'd probably kill myself if I hit transition today. I'm not 17 anymore after all.
Currently I'm nursing one of the worst road rashes I can remember... And of course I wasn't even doing a trick... Unless of course you consider drinking a bottle of water while moving forward a trick... (by the way, I highly recommend those J&J Advanced care thingies.... hydrocolloidalsomethingorother)
Well thanks for taking the time to read my nostalgic ramblegurgitation. It's good to know I'm not the only person out there that's skating even though he's 'too old'...