Skate Culture

Skateboard culture in 1970s California has left an indelible mark on the sport and on America's cultural identity. I found my old skateboard the other day. My son and I were hanging all his broken decks on the wall of his bedroom, and so I hunted high and low to find my old board (from the late 60s). For his birthday I got him a great picture book, Locals Only: California Skateboarding 1975-1978. I figured he needed to see what his old man's skate culture was like. I've included some of the photos in this post.

In the 1960s, Surfers in California got the idea to "sidewalk surf" by slapping steel roller skate wheels onto whatever piece of wood was in the garage. Imagine it; shaggy surfer dudes ripping up the streets on 2×4s and roller skate wheels! Somehow, about 1965, the skateboarding trend simply died, a fad that came and went.

By the early 70s, (my era), skaters like Torger Johnson, Woody Woodward and Danny Berer paved the way for future skaters and companies like Jack's, Hobie, and Makaha, this time based on a southland drought. L.A.'s swimming pools and drainage ditches lay empty and dry, allowing kids to carve them up with their skateboards. (We absolutely wrecked Victoria Winter's swimming pool.) Couldn't have been a cooler time to be a kid. Glad I've still got that old board. Even happier that my son followed in his old man's toe-foot tradition.