I grew up in a small little farm town almost next to the middle of nowhere so naturally as a kid it was dirt bikes, ATVs, snowmobiles, Huffy bicycles and the like, that is until that fateful day my relatives from Georgia came to visit and my cousin had a Nash skateboard in the trunk of the Buick, I rode the wheels off that thing for one glorious week on our little blacktop driveway
Now by coincidence we had a California Free Former I also dug out of the bottom of the toy box, until then that's what it was, an unused toy that collected dust and was all but forgotten but one could just not do the things this Nash would do
Soon thereafter I was begging moms for my very own skateboard and in typical moms penny pinching style i wound up with a Valterra off the shelf from K-Mart. Now of course by now I had worn every Thrasher magazine I could get my paws on absolutely thin. Staring at the pages long after my supposed "bed time" Eventually I got to move up to a Santa Cruz deck yet still had my Valterra trucks and wheels mounted, not to mention by now our driveway had become taken over with cinder blocks 2x4s and scrap plywood
A few years later came cars, girls, reefer and cheap stolen beer and for some time skateboards waned in my life. Later down the road after moving to California I picked them back up full force, hard not to living in San Diego a block from the beach!
Anyway, that's when motorcycles also came back into play, who isn't the king of cool cruising the strip on a CBR1000 or a GSXR750, unfortunately my funds and habits wouldn't allow this at the time but soon enough I had a loud stinking leaking dirty ratty mud crust of a bike, a 550 Yamaha Vision, google it......it was and still is a loathsome little machine but who cared! Finally a sickle of my own again and i was in my world king of cool and riding this to the skatepark with my board bungeed to the passenger seat.
So what is it?? Duane Peters to Ryan Sheckler all been spotted fooling with bikes with motors just as much or more than boards, maybe its the push the envelope thing, maybe its all points in between or none at all. I do know the History of Skateboarding coffee table book seems to get looked at far more than a same similar motorcycle pictorial also laying in the waiting room and that book is a heck of a conversation starter when folks are waiting on tires oil coolant or whatever
So today get out there and ride something with wheels, throw caution to the wind turn off the cell and just live fast for the moment! You will never be this young ever again and skateboarding just as much as motorcycling takes only you and your thoughts far away
