Posted by Blinky the Shark on 07/10/07 19:17

John Hosking wrote:
> Blinky the Shark wrote:
>> Blinky the Shark wrote:
>>> Neredbojias wrote:
>>
>>>> (-although sharks live a long time, don't they?)
>>> I turned 60 last month.
>>>
>>
>> http://blinkynet.net/stuff/summer67.jpg
>
> Neat! I mean, cool, man! That's boss!
>
> A real skateboard, with real wheels! Are those the metal ones?

We built our own; they hadn't yet appeared in the stores when I started
skateboarding. That one had a mahogany top inlaid with center
stripe/stringer of a light wood the type of which I don't remember. We
got the trucks and wheels from the local roller rink -- they were from
cast-off rental skate boots. The wheels were sort of a flesh-colored
vinyl. I don't undertand the miniwheels the kids use today. Seems like
one little pebble would grind them to a halt. I guess that's the
difference between boarding then and now. We used the streets and
dogded pot holes. We didn't use them - ever - as sidewalk
transporation. We looked for big hills and rode them to show our
cojones.

The local Big Hill was a short steep footpath from the local community
college to its parking lot below. One of us was clocked on that hill,
from a bike with a speedometer, at 35MPH. And the path was rough, so
the vibrations once you got up to speed tended to shake-slide your feet
right off the front end of the board. The college was right next to the
hospital where I was born, and the ER saw some of the injuries from that
hill. Yes, I rode that one successfully once - of scores of tries -
and, having proved myself (I had a witness), never again. :)


--
Blinky RLU 297263
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project: http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html

[Back to original message]