i always had boards as a kid that i would just mostly ride around on my knees on it in the neighborhood, i specifically remember a pink freddy kreuger banana board that i thought was super cool because it was fast...i also had a vision gonz, my friend broke it by jumping on the tail thinking he was going to catapult me while i was sitting on it...after that my dad got me a hosoi but i didn't know what to do with it because it was just the board, i had no idea i had to put shit together...this was late 80' early 90's in south central LA....trust me there were no skateshops there then so no one really knew anything about skating....after that i rode bmx i guess to get around, but i never really got all crazy with tricks...just jumping off curb cuts and racing with friends
around '94 one guy in my neighborhood started skating, and he brought around this other skater from his high school that was really good...that guy looked cool and was doing flip tricks which i don't think i ever saw before...after that i bugged my parents for almost a year for a board...after we moved to a more suburban part of LA there were more skaters so they told me were a skateshop was and my dad bought me a setup, alien workshop, ventures, and spitfires....after that i was hooked...i loved skating so much...i can't believe how much energy i had as kid i would skate for like 10-12 hours some days...skateboarding opened me up to a lot of cool things...thanks skateboarding
as a side note...skating back before THPS was so raw in my eyes, it wasn't cool, adults hated it and there were only a few skaters who skated because it was fun times with bros... i feel that skating has become pretty jock...skaters nowadays vibe other skaters for no reason...i can remember one particular day skating at San Pedro High where skaters from Japan, Canada, and all over LA where skating and just having fun... and thinking how cool that skateboarding brought all us together...
skaters should be cool to skaters i guess is my main point, but then again back then it wasn't cool and there weren't that many of us so we understood where we were coming from...now it's a little different