Skateboarding is not just for kids

I must have been around 9 when I got my first skateboard. White with a blue stripe, brand named BULLET with black rubber wheels. This was a far cry from the boards that were made of the old adjustable roller skates with the wingnut size adjustment. Separate the skate and nail it on to a piece of timber and voila - a skateboard. Surfer Sams came out but I never had one, it was only the rich or spoilt kids that had those bad boys. In about 1972, dad took us to the home of a guy he knew who had a son who was putting skateboards together. This mate of dad had a shed full of polyurethane wheels of all sizes and he had a special tool so that he could dip into a bucket filled with loose bearings. He would pick up exactly 9 bearings for each side of the wheel and then put the nut on. My brother Rob and I both got a set of Chicago trucks fitted with Apolloflex stokers. We made our own boards out of ply and fibreglass and we were the coolest things on 4 wheels. Skateboarding suddenly became the fad of it's era. The black rubber tyre had moved over and been replaced with urethane. It was fantastic. We were right in the middle of it. My brother Rob, cousin Mark and friend Michael would go up and skate around the Forest High School. It was relatively smooth concrete and there were some banked sandstone walls near the hall that we would ride up. In 1975 Russ Howell was the icon. He could ride in the handstand position down footpaths, off gutters and could do 360's forever. That was what we were all doing. 360's and Tic Tacs, a simple motion of lifting the front of the board to the left and right. Along with slowing down by stalling or dragging the nose up and sliding the tail on the ground. It wasn't particularly good for the board but it looked good. One of our neighbours was a fitter and turner and he cut me a piece of cast iron to put on the underside of the back of my board. Now when I stalled the board it would not be damaged, but it had the added advantage of shooting sparks at night. We were so cool. School was an interruption to each and every day and having to walk home was a drag. To accommodate this we cut our boards down so they would fit into the school bag but still had sufficient surface area to get 2 feet on. More boards, mucking around with ply and fibreglass and finally we settled on a different idea. Mark got his hands on a Saurus and Rob acquired a DHD board. I had a plastic board with the ever reliable truck and wheel combo. It was our form of transport. When we got cars, the skateboards were always in the boot. They had to be because you could not always be guaranteed surf but you could always have a skateboarding session.