Posted on 08/14/2014 1:37:41 AM PDT by lee martell
About twenty years ago, I began seeing a return of the skateboard. Suddenly, the kids of today were using a hobby tool I had grown up seeing during the 1960s. I know how particular the kids of today are, how jaded they are about having access to the latest in movies, music and sporting events. They usually expect these to be made available free of charge or at a low cost. I was surprised that such a simple, low tech item would be acceptable, let alone popular. This latest wave of skateboard popularity has gone on for years, long enough to produce 35 year old men who still use their skateboard as transportation. I saw that very thing happen today, with a guy in a sport jacket and levis, speeding on the winding sidewalks near the lake as he chatted on his cell phone. Always the ubiquitous cellphone. If Dante's Inferno was rewritten today, the writer Dante Alighieri would have to include a cell phone within each of the Nine Circles Of Hell that he described so long ago. Many skateboarders spend almost as much time painting resurfacing, and lacquering their boards as a surfer spends on his surfboard. Some have a deep relationship with this 'magic carpet' this Private Pegasus that they have ridden during their formative years.
The popularity may be due to the fact that many schools, too many, have sharply reduced activity time at schools. So, unless you belong to one of the sport teams, you won't get very much exercise outside of walking from the computer laptop in the bedroom to the computer tablet kept on the kitchen countertop. Another possible reason why so many young people are reluctant to discard their skateboards is personal risk. For many people, the higher the risk of injury, death or social embarassment, the more exciting or 'fun' the activity will become. Many of today's playgrounds appear to have been designed to with lawyers and psychologists making at least 80% of the decisions on what will be built where. Some don't even have dirt on the ground, instead they will have ground up wood chips or sawdust. All this is presuming little Bobby and little Susie are too stupid to know not to eat Daffodil bulbs or dead sparrows along with their Michelle Obama approved lunches. So that may be it, people invite some measure of risk into their lives to spice up the priveledge of living, to accentuate the fact of their glowing health.
The second wave - at least in California - began in the 1970s, and was driven by two factors: 1) better technology (flexible, light-weight boards and polyurethane wheels); 2) a drought, which turned many a private swimming pool into the ideal grounds for skating.
Regards,
yes... i have to say, here in California, it has always seemed popular... i went to elementary school with Steve Caballero...
I hadn’t even thought of the droughts, but that is probably true. Here in Northern California, we’re in yet another drought. Many folks are just giving up with maintaining a lawn. Not when watering the lawn can get you reported, ticketed, fined and sent to Water School for offenders. Yes, that’s a real thing now; “Water School” to learn you right!
“The first wave of popularity of the skateboard might have been in the 1950s and 1960s “
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As a child of the 50s, born in 1944, I can not remember EVER seeing a skateboard. We did, however, have roller-skates.
I do not remember when I first saw, or heard of a skateboard.
I never saw or heard of them at university in the 60s.
I remember in the early 60s, canniblizing my sisters roller skates and nailing them to a 2X12 for a skateboard.
Any relation to Guy ?
Yep. My son has built and refurbished several. Long boards, microboards, and several for his buds. I’m grateful that he’s not a vidiot.
Back then, the board was wood and the wheels were metal. I tried it once on our bumpy tarred road, and that was enough. The vibrations were brutal. I would have loved the modern kind, though.
I was lucky enough to have a great conversation with Dean Torrence of Jan and Dean. They had a whole lot to do with popularizing the skateboard through their song “Sidewalk Surfin’”. A skateboard company made boards with their likenesses and Dean did skateboard tricks during their concerts. At the time we chatted (the late ‘90s), skateboards were MASSIVE business, as they are today. Dean said he and Jan would probably have made multi millions if they’d become even just a little more involved on the business end. But, at the time, the fun of it was everything.
My 20-year-old son is a “skater.” Gets him out in the fresh air with his friends, and he hasn’t been arrested yet.
;-D
The first refined skateboard came out around 1963 or 64. It was a hard, inflexible board and the wheels were stone (or something like that) on an axle that allowed the wheels to turn in response to the left or right weighting on the board.
My uncle gave me one for my birthday. Unfortunately I lived out in the country where it was all hills and the law of gravity was not to be violated without serious consequences......
It wasn't until later years they started making safety equipment such as knee and elbow pads, wrist guards and helmets..........After a couple of high speed serious wipeouts on the hilly roads, I threw the board away........
Rebellion against the Nanny State.
Having been a skateboarder — it’s a dangerous passtime unless under strictly controlled conditions, and young men want to be spontaneous and prove their manhood. That’s the problem — too many definitions of what ‘manhood’ is, most of them wimpy.
Until society agrees to a sane and worthy definition of manhood, the insanity will keep escalating.
I had one in the early 60s. My son was into it in the 90s.
I still have my deck (skateboard) from the 80’s. It is excellent. I stand on it and my two rat terriers pull me around the neighborhood. It’s funny as all get-out, because I am old, haha!
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