When does skateboarding begin? Is it when we get that new board or is it when we first see that picture of someone skateboarding in a magazine? Skateboarder Magazine was my entry into the skateboarding world back in the 70's. I didn't own a skateboard and I wouldn't own one for a while so I relied on the images and the rich skateboarding culture that arose from the pages as me and my brother flipped each one with gleeful adolescence anticipation.
My Grandparents lived in the Mission District in San Francisco back in the 70's durring the time when we discovered skateboarding. For Chirstmas one year they bought me a subscription to Skateboarder Magazine and I am sure I thought this was the best present I could ever receive so I waited. As the weeks and months went by the issues never arrived. I think it was the longest year in my life as with each passing month the rags never showed up. My naive confidence in all that was supposed to be right soon dissipated into a cloud of distrust and angst. My Grandparents, god bless them, tried for months to contact the publisher about the failed attempt at a subscription and they either never responded or my grandparents didn't want to keep upsetting me, but I never knew how or if it ever worked itself out. Either way, the magazine never arrived and my brother and I were starved for the images and the stories that enveloped us as we could sit for hours gleaming at the pages of our self prescribed manual for life.
I have this memory of my brother and I sitting atop the 16th and Mission Bart station, against the surrounding railing, reading two different copies of Skateboarder. As we were stomping around the Mission we found one of the stores had kept all their copies of the magazine on the shelf, even last months edition, so we bought both. It's one of those memories we all have where we are like the third person and can see ourselves and all that surrounds us like a 360 degree prisim. I can see us sitting there on a Saturday afternoon with the magazine buried in our laps with our heads tilted downward seeming intensely frozen in time. I look back on this memory as a time of innocence and sibling bonding that will forever be imprinted in my mind.
Since this inception into the world of skateboarding I have owned many boards, built many ramps and suffered many injuries but still I skate to this day. I remember my first board from Christmas one year. It was as flat as you could imagine, real short and made out of fiberglass and yellow. It had silver alloy trucks, and yellow goldish urethane wheels with balled bearings. I remember my dad using his engraver to embellish the top of the board with flames and my name in a fancy cursive. This board was the shit and I felt like the luckiest boy around. This was back in the day when there was no grip tape or we just didn't know about it and it's benefits. We lived on a hill in South San Francisco which gave way to going fast down hill on our bikes, skateboards and coasters fastened from junk wood and wheels from grocery carts. I thought it would be cool if I went as far as I could up the hill and skated down towards my house. Since I was new to skateboarding there was no grip tape on the board and my trucks were not properly adjusted for downhill racing. In order to sustain balance during downhill and fast treks the trucks on a skateboard must be adjusted to the point of almost no movement. A loosely adjusted truck will wobble at extreme speeds rendering the board and the experience unrideable. As I headed down the hill I pushed once, placed both feet on the board and headed straight down. I didn't carve left to right, or try any way to reduce my speed I just headed straight down the hill standing as straight up as I
could. I was not privy to the accepted stance of bending your knees and holding your arms out to sustain balance.
I was a fledgling skateboarder with little skills but head-strong and determined to conquer the hill. Soon into my race down the hill the board started to wiggle and wobble uncontrollable and, of course, as you can imagine, I flew off the board and headed straight towards the asphalt. At this point stop. I could of benefitted from the training of Tumbling and or Martial Arts that would of allowed me to use my skills of Tuck and Roll. Instead my instincts told me to push out my arms and land on my hands with my elbows locked in place ready for the impact. With the slam came the crack and the fractured wrist. With this came the cast and the stories of my first skateboarding accident and broken bone. This began a lifelong journey of crash and burn and do it again. Most people learn from their mistakes but skateboarders just keep trying regardless of the ensuing pain and possible embarrassment in hopes to succeed or land the trick just once.
Thanks for reading. Look for the next part on my journey into skateboard coming soon.
1984
New Powell Peralta board
2010
New Powell Peralta Caballero board
