Are you an old school skater?

[Marty Schaub]

Does anyone ever know what happened to TR? Did he just fade away back to the fishing boat?

[Wesley Tucker]

I don't think I've ever posted these online before. Some people saw them when I brought them to Boston three years ago.

Anyway, this is my bona fides for being VERY old school. The first is Bobby telling me in March that he'd love to sell me a board:



The second one is in August when after six months of aggrevating the hell out of everyone in Del Mar, Tommy Ryan finally just decided to give me one of the damned things:



Finally, this is the only pic I have of me on my "Tommy Ryan Turner." This was March 1979 and the board broke in early 1982. I remember I completely dissected it to see all the layers of glas, foam and resin deep inside this mysterious and magical machine:



R.I.P.

[Marty Schaub]

Chris,

Wore the Freak Brothers Racing shirt on my Wal-Mart run this morning. I LOVE the looks that thing gets.......

Better yet I love explaining to people that I race SKATEBOARDS not cars. I get even better looks with that one.....

[Paul Graf]

Salt Lake definantly was not a hotbed for skating. Land of Moutains, mormons and moab!

Whatya mean???... you guys/gals had Rocky Mountain Surf Skatepark!!! , which skated BTW. It had cool bunch of snakeruns and a wooden halfpipe to boot.

Plus Wild World of Skateboarding (WWS) ran a big article on skating at Moab. WWS was the magazine that catered to the KOOK in all of us. At least you guys got some coverage, St. louis never did back then.

paul

[Chris Favero]

two things
one,joe i,who writes your material,its better then letterman.
two,its so cool to have marty around,and that on occasion,he rocks an FBR shirt.
last,todays posts put a smile on the face of a guy who has spent the day,in a mall,shoveling out pasta and pizza to the morbidly obese and uneducated.time to go bus some more tables,love you guys,cf

[Tom Thompson]

If your first coping was a broomstick, you might be old school.....

<img src="http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-12/ ... rramp1.jpg"/>

[Marty Schaub]

BTW WT,

You guessed seven skaters & the pic only has six. It can't be THAT small.......

[Marty Schaub]

HeHeHe......

Some are right and some are not. Try again, first correct answer in order bottom to top gets the 12er of Pabst that Joe still owes me. And I'll upgrade it to Foster's since I might drink one when I hand it to you.

[Joe Iacovelli]

Is it Hoffman?

[Wesley Tucker]

FYI as for the avatar, who can name all of the guys in the pic????? I may have posted it before so no searching. Let's see who's really sharp. Joe are you there?????

Steve Sherman, Henry Hester, Stacy Peralta, Bob Biniak, Marty Schaub, Steve Cathey and on the end with dark hair . . . I have no clue. He rides for G&S, has dark hair and was racing at La Costa one Sunday. I'll guess and say it's Hackett. Could be Yandall, could be Danny Trailer. Could be none of the above.

P.S. In case anyone thinks I'm cheating because I'm the Avatar Administrator, Marty sent me a thumbnail 8K pic to post. I don't have a big one anywhere laying around.

[Marty Schaub]

Don't know how.....

So that's all you get.....

[Joe Iacovelli]

Marty,

I accept your challenge, now play fair and post a bigger pic.

Joe

[Marty Schaub]

Just an observation guys, but I too have on the hockey helmet, and the tube socks. As for the shorts, those were the team issue Kanvas By Katin, "crushed red velvets" as we used to call them. Free as many pairs as we needed....GOD I loved the 70's!!!!

FYI as for the avatar, who can name all of the guys in the pic????? I may have posted it before so no searching. Let's see who's really sharp. Joe are you there?????

[Andy Bittner]

By the way, Joe I., I accept your argument and agree with the notion that Tway's sense of fashion in the 70s was absolutely sublime. However, I'd like to note that, for me, what really sets off the Schlitz Malt Liquor (Colt 45 was a different brand) Bull shorts is the Mercedes T-shirt. We have a winner.

[Mike Cividino]

Wesley,

I forget.

Did Gryffindor beat Hufflepuff that year?

Joe Weasley

so good, go harry!

[Miguel Marco]

Did Gryffindor beat Hufflepuff that year?

Nice pic Wes! Very stylish.

[Joe Iacovelli]

Wesley,

I forget.

Did Gryffindor beat Hufflepuff that year?

Joe Weasley

[Wesley Tucker]

You know you're old school when Tway makes you the poster boy for vintage racing:

[Miguel Marco]

Tway, dude, that vid is priceless!

I miss skating with you guys so much. Please start the next Outlaw series with a Ball Mountain race next spring so we can run some cones, carve that new bowl near the campground, and eat drink and camp all together again.

[Marion Karr]

You might be an Oldschool skater if...........

You have multiple pictures of yourself high jumping over someone doing a V-Sit or a Beard Sweeper........(thats me with hair boys and girls...yes, I once had some seriously cool hair.....)

[William Tway]

My momma makes a killer LEMON MERINGUE PIE!!!

[Joe Iacovelli]

Tway,

Does your Mom like pie?

[Ron Barbagallo]

Hey Joe, think we can get Mammasan Tway on Team Fatboy?

[trish erickson]

Skateboard magazine had words? I had "Jay Adams" and "Miki Alba" on my wall. Tony didn't do it for me. LOL. I lived in Salt Lake city and all I wanted for my birthday was a subscription to Skateboarder Magazine. I was hooked. Had to steal a board though. Might bit expensive for the folks. I was 12. Tony Hawk was a cute kid. Bit too skinny for me. I lived the "lifestyle through that mag. Salt Lake definantly was not a hotbed for skating. Land of Moutains, mormons and moab!

You know your "old school" when you acually enjoy reading this forum!

Ride On

Utah Trish
_________________

[Joe Iacovelli]

THIS JUST IN:

In an unexpected twist of events, Bill Tway get's knocked off his throne....




BY HIS MOM!

(Bad move putting that clip up there. You know Wesley is going to be calling her now)

Joe

[Ron Barbagallo]

Is that your Mom skating?

Which one are you?

That's Emmy worthy!!!!!!

[William Tway]

...when you took your first lesson in 1965

[Pat Chewning]

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[Mike Elwood]

I thought that is a current photo?. Dig that Cooper hockey helmet.
When I was discovering kickturns had changed I really didn't give a crap about those stupid Dog Town boys everyone is so excited about nowadays. Still don't actually. I will say the movie got me back on a board though. That and surfing at 40. They say the drug of choice is the one you go back to.
Surfing back then? Not an option when you lived 200 miles from the ocean. Body surfed a few times and was introduced to skateboarding on a basketball court by the ocean at about 11 or 12. Addicted immediately!!!! First hit, splat on concrete that is.... and I knew I'd found my new best freind. GI Joe and Big Jim were out, skateboard was in.
Back then I had yet to discover the art of "reading the articles" in skateboarder mag. I thought that was for Playboy only. I was too wow-ed by the pictures to read any of it only to discover some 2 years later, "wow there are words on some of the pages". Skateboarder was like gold in my town and to score a copy was a big deal. Evidently the Peoples Drug didn't get many at once and if my mom won't picking up a RX when they still had some, I missed it for that particular month. Subscription?
Who'd-a-thunk-it. Allowance was like 50 cents a week and paper route was like 15bux a week. A new board was like 70 bux. To ride Flowmotion in Richmond was like 2 bux an hour. Only to (as someone said earlier) stand in line? No freakin' way my folks were gonna drive me like 20 miles to shell out that kinda dough. Rode with freinds moms instead and drank from the water fountain.
Subdivisions were exploding in my town so there were ramps galore. House building meant all the wood you could steal. I think what blew that was all the ramps w/in the same block as the new houses. Sometimes they'd be 10' high and 4' wide. I used a (probably stolen) 4'x4' leaned against our 3 stair porch. Could be quickly moved when dad got home from daywork shift.
Dad won't walking up the ramp. If he had to we were in trouble so we knew what time it was at all times. We rode elsewhere when my pop was on 3-11 or graveyard as the "clump-clump" sound kept him awake and snarling. A buddy had a crude half pipe about 3' wide, patches and all. It had a crude deck though. A 3' metal pool coping to stand on since the pool is what held up one of the walls. Coping was a broom stick (w/ bristles still attached in case mom was pissed), if any at all. It was probably mostly stolen wood and nails we'd straightened. Probably fell apart due to lack of nails or rottage.
If you had DK-51's, you had a sweet girl, but Sims wheels got ya laid. I had a scab on my elbow not heal for a whole year cause it kept getting busted off. I started 8th grade with it and it was still there after that summer and into 9th. That's when I discovered chix dig scars. Scabs were even better.
I wasn't into the gymnastics side like Russ Howell or jumping over cars and barrels but was into the street ticks like walk-the-dog and stuff. Laura Logan gave me a woodie, Tony Alva gave me the creeps and I wanted hair like Stacy Perralta. Mine was bushy and his was long and straight. No matter how long I'd go between hair cuts, it never went past my shoulder, just out more.
That was the year backsides changed to front side in my town.
I discovered this thread after walking with my son one evening and I was telling him pretty much the same thing. We walked past a house being built and there was about 100' of 2x4 in a dumpster. I told him "no way that would've still been there when I was 13".

[Joe Iacovelli]

I know Marty now. I saw his picture in Skateboarder Magazine then. I love his stories about LaCosta and Team G&S. I'd like to think he and I are friends.

But Andy, C'mon. Malt Liquor shorts, hockey helmet, with giant tube socks?

Advantage: Tway!

[Andy Bittner]

By the way, in the context of this forum, and in reference to Marty, I think it's safe to say he's got us all. You're definitely an old school skater if you remember seeing yourself in Skateboarder magazine (the 70s version), particularly if you were pictured with any degree of regularity or if you're avatar here is a picture of yourself as one of the original La Costa boys.

[Marty Schaub]

Joe's wardrobe malfunctions only happen when he is exposed to the general pubic....Errrr...I mean public.

[Joe Iacovelli]

i also remember joe in his underwear walking around the hotel.cf

That my friend was a simple wardrobe malfunction.

[Chris Favero]

i remember country surfin skatepark in springfield ill.i also remember joe in his underwear walking around the hotel,oh,that was last month but seems like too long ago.cf

[Ron Barbagallo]

Hahahahahaha!!! I second THAT!!!

Malt Liquor and OJ's - an unbeatable combo!!!

[Joe Iacovelli]

Shlitz Colt 45 shorts?

Tway wins!

[William Tway]

...when you have a photo of yourself running cones in the mid-70's...

[Andy Bittner]

Y'know Mike, that's an interesting observation about frontside and backside. I recall that same moment in my own youth. I think the fact that we both remember it, in different locations, kind of illustrates a pretty historic moment in skateboarding. That's a ripple from the whole Dogtown-thing coming through our neighborhoods. Until then, although we definitely rode hills and raced, doing tricks, spinning and other "hotdogging" activities really tended to stay on flatsurfaces; what Stacy Peralta refers to as "stick-man" riding, in his film, Dogtown and The Z-boys. In that case, in my neighborhood, if I picked up my front wheels and spun in one direction or the other, I described the trick by which side of my body, the front side or the back side, was leading the spin. Therefore, frontside was a spin in the toeside direction, and backside was a spin in heelside direction. It was also right around this time that the question two young skateboarders, meeting each other for the first time, were most likely to ask was, "How many 360s can you do?"

Then, as the advent of urethane wheels made riding banks, transitions, curves and walls a far more reasonable proposition than it had been on clay wheels, people started seeking out situations like drainage ditches, pools or even building small "freestyle" ramps (8'x8', tilted, with an unsmoothed transition, in our case). That's when the Dogtown articles started coming out and skateboarding moved much closer to it's roots in surfing. Which, by the way, are not it's only roots. The reference to direction in a kickturn or spin became object or terrain focused, like surfing, referring to which side of the body faces the wave or terrain object, as the turn is taking place. When I was a kid, it seemed so important to be up on the latest lingo and jargon, and one didn't want to go the new skateboard park and refer to someone's fronside kickturn as backside. At the time, I knew VERY little, if anything, about surfing. I knew the Beach Boys' music. I knew Gidget, and Frankie and Annette; but I knew nothing at all about modern surfing. At the time, changing frontside to backside, and backside to frontside, just seemed like some kind of arbitrary, baseless shift in thinking. I didn't realize the "new" terminology had a precedent in surfing until several years later.
It all makes sense to me now, but I remember being so confused at the time.

[Mike Elwood]

Now that's old school kids. Sooo many things I'd forgotten. Was telling my boy that I thought I had it all wrong on the front-side/backside thing until recently. All I knew was one summer I was doing frontdside stuff and the next it was backside...same trick. Hmmm.

[Andy Bittner]

You think your old school, if you remember...

-Wearing madras shirts like the Hilton brothers

-clay wheels

-surfers like Larry Bertleman and Rory Russell in Skateboarder.

-reading some of the Dogtown articles and thinking, "What the hell is this guy talking about?"

-Thinking Tony Alva was rad

-Drooling over pictures of early, undeveloped La Costa

-Being blown away by pictures of the first Rampage ramp.

-blue suede Nike Bruins.

-standing in line to ride a snake run.

-Are skatecars really skateboarding?

-Skate America

-Tony Alva acting like a jerk

-Stacy Peralta introducing the world to a kid called "Ollie"


You KNOW you're old school, if you started then and never stopped. So you also remember...

-Watching your favorite concrete parks get bulldozed

-The backyard ramp revolution

-SUAS

-The first couple of weeks at Cedar Crest

-Tony Hawk as a little kid

-Gator getting busted at Virginia Beach

-The late, great Jeff Phillips, winning the NSA Pro Championship at the big, Vision Holiday Havoc in Anaheim

-Rodney Mullen before he went "street".

-Watching the video of Chris Miller's headfirst slam in the combi-pool at Upland in the '85 NSA event at The Pipeline, over and over and over again.

-SMP

-People at Alva Skates acting like jerks

-Stacy Peralta first witnessing the street-plant wizardry of Mike Vallely.

-Bucky Lasek when he was a little kid

-"Public Domain" and "Ban This"

-The snowboard revolution

-The Gonz

-The first X-Games

-New wheels getting smaller and smaller and smaller, until they started to become known as "bearing covers".

-street courses

-The Vans Triple Crown of Skateboaring when it was the Hard Rock Cafe Triple Crown of Skateboarding and the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing when it was the Corona Triple Crown of Surfing

-Tony Hawk accepted as one of the great athletes of the 20th Century

-The return of skateparks, first ramps then concrete

-Tony Alva acting like a jerk

-The slalom revolution

-The Gathering (the first one)

-Gary Cross winning Jack's first World Slalom Championship at Morro Bay

-Hester vs Skoldberg for the B Class finals at the 2001 La Costa Open, where I also managed to make one of the bones in my thumb disappear

-Setting the course at Morro Bay for the 2002 World Championships

-FCR and TLP

-The Farm Race (the first one)



All of that, and it still feels like forever since I last skated!

[Mike Elwood]

You're Old School if:
You couldn't stand the squeaking of those loose balls so you'd take your wheel off to clean the bearings and drop the balls on the sidewalk and only find 6 of the 7.
You thought a plastic deck was the best thing ever, way better than your 2x4.
You didn't realize that everyone had giant hair, and really short really tight shorts. Including you.
When the guy at the skateboard shop told your dad the wheel was $7.50 he said "is that for two or four".
You thought jumping off a curb with a bunjee cord attached to your board was really cool.
When your skateboard was a slalom board, a ramp board, a pool board, a ditch board and your transportation to and from school.
When ACL surgery was done with a scalpel, involved 50 stitches and a year of recovery.
When hockey helmets were issued at skate parks. And pads were volleyball style.
Your neighbor had Henry Hester wheels. That same neighbor says " I'll bet you you can't do a WHOLE 360".
And you're old school if you even know who Henry Hester is.

[Dan Mitchell]

You took Hester up on his advice to take the seals off of the IKS bearings and use WD-40 as lube

You thought Sims Pure Juice were too big for slalom.

You remember argueing over whether loose ball bearings were faster than sealed ball bearings. And refered to the IKS ads about "A thin lip of grease forming while the bearing spun".

No one had ridden vert yet.
Henry Hester was the all time biggest money winner in skateboarding.

You owned original GMN's with the recessed seal lips.

You were able to prove to your friends that it was possible to pump faster than you could tic-tac.

You slalomed when slalom was considered cool.




Amen, John!
So many memories came flooding back!

[Eddy Martinez]

Damm memory I meant a few more white hairs. Damm Eddy Texas Outlaws

[Eddy Martinez]

After reading this thread a for more white hairs sprouted out of the head and beard. Time to go ride my Torger Johnson LoganEarthSki, Bennett Pros and Road Rider 4s. Eddy Texas Outlaws.

[Dave Gale]

Good job J.G
Don't forget:
Getting the speed wobbles after the last cone, 'cause your trucks were soo loose that the washers rattled.
Cutting R.R #6's in half to mimmick Hesters on steroids.

[John Gilmour]

Who is up to the task to do the...

You know your an Old School slalom Skateboarder when:

You owned Fibreflex 28" Pro slalom- before the cutaway decks.
You owned a set of Chris Yandall Pro Rolls (Tar Magnets)
You took Hester up on his advice to take the seals off of the IKS bearings and use WD-40 as lube
Your friends Used Bahne Trucks and DK-51's as slalom wheels.
You had the kin pins drop out of California Slalom trucks
You couldn't find replacement nyloc nuts for your Tracker full tracks and had to turn the nuts upside down to get them loose enough to turn your skinny ass.
You drooled at the first OJ ad.
You had to specify Chicago/ Bennett three hole pattern or Tracker 4 hole pattern when ordering a slalom deck.
You enjoyed the smell of a new fibreflex.
You thought Sims Pure Juice were too big for slalom.
You considered using Sims Bowl riders for slalom.
You used the fibreflex rubberized "grip tape" for your bathtub once you replaced that with real grip tape. Shower slaloming was born- just another way to bust your ass. But soon your entire bathtub was covered.
You shaved down your Bennett bushings for quicker turning.
You owned Bennett Pro ad-tracs.
You had to be creamed by someone on Kryptonics to get you to believe that a soft wheel could be faster than a harder one.
No one owned a truck key.
You had 3 Henry Hester fibreflex decks but only one to ride at a time because the other two were in constant warranty replacement rotation.
You owned a slalom quiver - 26" double cutaway, 29 inch double cutaway, Hester, 28 inch pro slalom with Camber (and you could never figure out what the 28" was good for).
You remember argueing over whether loose ball bearings were faster than sealed ball bearings. And refered to the IKS ads about "A thin lip of grease forming while the bearing spun".
You debated over which was faster the Original Red Kryptonics or the Coke Bottle green ones- but you knew the Blue ones were dogs.
You bought your cones for $2 a piece in 1974 dollars!
When you slalomed in a big city....no one had ever seen that before and crowds formed instantly. The pot smoke going through the guantlet of spectators was dense enough to make seeing the bottom of the course difficult.
No one had ridden vert yet.
You couldn't decide if OJ superjuice were faster or slower than Road Rider 6's.
You knew there were about 5 formulas of OJ urethanes for the Superjuice.
Henry Hester was the all time biggest money winner in skateboarding.
You owned original GMN's with the recessed seal lips.
Your father gave you a set of HPV Gullwing Trucks for your birthday and had the car to match.
You had to use Fresca cans for a slalom course.
You knew Road Rider twos were the wheel to use on ridiculously steep hills before OJ slaloms existed..
You were able to prove to your friends that it was possible to pump faster than you could tic-tac.
You slalomed when slalom was considered cool.

[John Gilmour]

ooops

[Will J]

The Kona Bowl

i'll never forget Kona, my first park experience at 8yrs old, bought my first set of real pads "DBS", still got a Kona sticker on my helmet.. ahhhh koooooona

[Sven Lippert]

...you know that you are oldschool when you do a bertleman slide on a bank in a skateboardpark and the kids are yelling at you :"check out this guy he is skating this surf shit" ...

[Chris Eggers]

You know you are an old school skateboarder when ....

- only 4 pages of a modern skate mag really get your interest.

- you can do tricks so old they are already cool again