The hollow whirring sound of polyurethane rolling and sliding on asphalt, reverberating through the laminated hardwood they are connected to by cast steel trucks- a symphony of aggression. The pure unadulterated clap of the tail against the pavement or the grinding of the steel trucks against concrete curb- like angels singing a chorus to god. This is the music of my childhood.
Growing up somewhere between the burbs and the inner city during the 1980’s there were, for me, few choices where to fit in, there was the mainstream option, you know, the usual football games or other sports events, pop music and conservative or “acceptable” clothing from JC Penny or some other trendy department store. The other option was the “alternative” as it was referred to back then. Thrift store clothing, Hardcore-punk music and the cherry-on-top, skateboarding! Around this time, skateboarding had begun to return as a pastime for youth across the nation after a sabbatical from the 70’s.
This however, was not a “sport” that was welcomed with open arms by the mass public. To this day I’m not entirely sure what the problem with skateboarding was, most likely it was more with skaters than with the sport itself. It seemed that for some reason skateboarding attracted a less than appealing personality. Perhaps it was the fact that here was a physically demanding sport that required determination, practice, agility, endurance and most of all, durability but lacked all the usual guidelines and rules that fenced in other sports activities. Skateboarding was a sport that embraced freedom, freedom from regulations, freedom from rules, freedom from any one location, and because of that only a short lived freedom from laws. This is most likely where skateboarding lost it’s attraction to the mainstream public. With no centralized location to practice or play, skaters took their game to the streets and parking lots and public walkways and shopping centers and so on. This seriously annoyed business owners, managers and police, oh yes, and especially security guards who with their false sense of authority and self proclaimed supremacy, regularly entered into territorial pissing matches with skaters.
It was this rejection by mainstream society coupled with teenage rebellion and the desire to find ones place in the world that lead to the boom in “skate-punk” population. Here was a sport or activity that became a subculture that accepted the unacceptable. Skateboarding was no longer something to do between school and dinner; it had become an identity, a culture and community. You didn’t even need to know how to skate, some kids just carried a board or pushed around clumsily, it didn’t matter, no one else wanted them and that was for a large part, a common thread. There were kids from good homes with loving parents, kids from broken homes or abusive parents, rich kids, poor kids, black, white Asian and Hispanic kids, even disabled kids, and they came from all over town. I met people from all over the state that either came to our town to skate or we went to theirs, and if you went away on vacation and took your board, you were almost guaranteed to meet someone new while you were skating.
This was not just about the subculture or the community, it was about the board. The board became an extension of you, if you had the right wheels, the right trucks and deck, it was like God himself reached down and blessed the earth for you to skate. The slide, the kick, flip, pop, tap, clack, whirring, grinding, flying, spinning. The world saw it as wanton destruction, jumping around messing things up, we on the other hand, saw it as pure poetry, a ballet of aggression and control, an expression of our lives and trials. When you were in the moment, when everyone around was just doing their thing and having fun, no one was competing, no one was trying to prove anything to anyone but themselves, the synchronicity, of five people skating a single curb, ramp or transitioned wall, anything that spoke out to us “skate here!” -it was absolutely amazing.
That is all behind me now, as the board gave way to the car and girls, then work and college and even more work, then a wife and kids. I may never get that back, the feeling of flying, the grind, the slide, the landing, and the impact. I don’t heal as well as I used to, I may still have the determination and endurance, but I have lost the durability. No longer can I hit the pavement at 20 miles an hour and just shake it off, I can’t take a blow to the head like I used to, and leaving an open wound to bleed concerns me now. A wife and kids has softened me up considerably, but I’m happy for that. Now when I see kids out skating, I heckle them just like people did to me, but I’m not mean about it, it builds character! I tried a while back to get back into it but it ad been so long that I lost the balance, I’m not as coordinated as I once was. Now I watch when I get the chance, I like to see kids at a parking lot more than the pros on T.V., they still have the grit that I used to love about skating. Yes, I have been reduce to a spectator, but I’m O.K. with that, I’m not an armchair commentator, I watch in awe and reverence as a reminder of what fun it was and as an inspiration to pass on to my kids.
Growing up somewhere between the burbs and the inner city during the 1980’s there were, for me, few choices where to fit in, there was the mainstream option, you know, the usual football games or other sports events, pop music and conservative or “acceptable” clothing from JC Penny or some other trendy department store. The other option was the “alternative” as it was referred to back then. Thrift store clothing, Hardcore-punk music and the cherry-on-top, skateboarding! Around this time, skateboarding had begun to return as a pastime for youth across the nation after a sabbatical from the 70’s.
This however, was not a “sport” that was welcomed with open arms by the mass public. To this day I’m not entirely sure what the problem with skateboarding was, most likely it was more with skaters than with the sport itself. It seemed that for some reason skateboarding attracted a less than appealing personality. Perhaps it was the fact that here was a physically demanding sport that required determination, practice, agility, endurance and most of all, durability but lacked all the usual guidelines and rules that fenced in other sports activities. Skateboarding was a sport that embraced freedom, freedom from regulations, freedom from rules, freedom from any one location, and because of that only a short lived freedom from laws. This is most likely where skateboarding lost it’s attraction to the mainstream public. With no centralized location to practice or play, skaters took their game to the streets and parking lots and public walkways and shopping centers and so on. This seriously annoyed business owners, managers and police, oh yes, and especially security guards who with their false sense of authority and self proclaimed supremacy, regularly entered into territorial pissing matches with skaters.
It was this rejection by mainstream society coupled with teenage rebellion and the desire to find ones place in the world that lead to the boom in “skate-punk” population. Here was a sport or activity that became a subculture that accepted the unacceptable. Skateboarding was no longer something to do between school and dinner; it had become an identity, a culture and community. You didn’t even need to know how to skate, some kids just carried a board or pushed around clumsily, it didn’t matter, no one else wanted them and that was for a large part, a common thread. There were kids from good homes with loving parents, kids from broken homes or abusive parents, rich kids, poor kids, black, white Asian and Hispanic kids, even disabled kids, and they came from all over town. I met people from all over the state that either came to our town to skate or we went to theirs, and if you went away on vacation and took your board, you were almost guaranteed to meet someone new while you were skating.
This was not just about the subculture or the community, it was about the board. The board became an extension of you, if you had the right wheels, the right trucks and deck, it was like God himself reached down and blessed the earth for you to skate. The slide, the kick, flip, pop, tap, clack, whirring, grinding, flying, spinning. The world saw it as wanton destruction, jumping around messing things up, we on the other hand, saw it as pure poetry, a ballet of aggression and control, an expression of our lives and trials. When you were in the moment, when everyone around was just doing their thing and having fun, no one was competing, no one was trying to prove anything to anyone but themselves, the synchronicity, of five people skating a single curb, ramp or transitioned wall, anything that spoke out to us “skate here!” -it was absolutely amazing.
That is all behind me now, as the board gave way to the car and girls, then work and college and even more work, then a wife and kids. I may never get that back, the feeling of flying, the grind, the slide, the landing, and the impact. I don’t heal as well as I used to, I may still have the determination and endurance, but I have lost the durability. No longer can I hit the pavement at 20 miles an hour and just shake it off, I can’t take a blow to the head like I used to, and leaving an open wound to bleed concerns me now. A wife and kids has softened me up considerably, but I’m happy for that. Now when I see kids out skating, I heckle them just like people did to me, but I’m not mean about it, it builds character! I tried a while back to get back into it but it ad been so long that I lost the balance, I’m not as coordinated as I once was. Now I watch when I get the chance, I like to see kids at a parking lot more than the pros on T.V., they still have the grit that I used to love about skating. Yes, I have been reduce to a spectator, but I’m O.K. with that, I’m not an armchair commentator, I watch in awe and reverence as a reminder of what fun it was and as an inspiration to pass on to my kids.
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