What happened to the kids you started skating with?

[Uncle Flea]

My board came from the big kids in 1983.
My brother and I just did it.

My best friend Ian wants to skate but it's hard to get back on. I'm gonna hit him up rn.

Did y'all know he's in almost every Nirvana book? He was watching a skate video from Seattle or whatever in 1990 at like age 6.
His Aunt and uncle mom and dad are famous in the music industry. More so than my family even. Tho were all family today...

They heard Love Buzz on the skate video asked Ian Who is that band?

They looked it up and his aunt and uncle booked them on Lansdowne Street. It was the Nevermind Record release party.

Isn't that fuckin wild. Nirvana took over the planet because of a skate tape and a 8yr old kids DJ auntie (Julie Kramer)I don't remember the uncle name)))

[JANUS]

Successful computer guy, doctor, cocaine, fat, opioids and fat, and one still skates and makes a nice living as a contractor.

[Sila]

A policeman, a butcher, an IT guy that plays in goth bands. Lots of punks and hardcore guys still involved in the scene but not skating so much.

[Not A Damn Chance]

I have no idea, I stopped trying once I realized our relationship was only based on convenience. We didn’t have much in common. There wasn’t a lot of skaters in my area growing up.

[The real veganshawn]

Still skate with my friend Chris who got me into skating in the 80s.

[yghartsyrt]

From the first group of people I started out with in 1988, two were hospitalized due to drug induced psychosis. One killer himself.  One still skates, but is stuck in 7.75 land. The other just stopped.

From the group I skated with during end of school time period. One picked it up again with his son. I skate with him regularly now - though he has completely lost touch with everything.
The others don’t really skate anymore. Maybe once a year, if at all

[Potato Rodriguez]

They either be dead or in jail…. Naw they all have wife’s and kids now

[Shtonk]

the two i properly started with, one of them developed a back issue and had to drop boardsports and became a farmer like his parents, haven't talked to him in 20 years. The other is the most gifted jazz guitarist I have ever seen but smokes too much weed to do anything with it.

The three I skated with throughout most/all of my youth, two of them still skate, one I built a miniramp with in his barn last year. The third dropped it when he broke his right thumb so bad on bs 5050 slipout that his upper thumb joint is permanently stiff.

[Sleazy]

first crew 88 ish, everyone quit
best guy ended up having some pretty gnarly drug problems which was crazy to hear because he was the rich kid who's dad was the local judge in the small town i lived in at the time. also heard he did pretty well with the popular girls from our high school after i moved away which honestly made me stoked at the time because none of those girls would look at any of us in high school.
my best friend who was a terrible skater still loves to talk about it and i consider him a skater because i would have quit if i got hurt as much as he did too, lol but he's still got the love. lots of drugs, prison for a bit and now lives in a small town in louisiana, works as a butcher, happily married to a man and we keep in touch pretty regularly
two other guys... last i heard had both gotten pretty good then quit and gotten into adjacent activities like snowboarding, motor bikes, etc but were hard working blue color type guys and i'd guess are just working now with a bunch of kids.

more recent crew around 2000 after i had quit for 8 or so years in early 90s
3 live in where i live now. 2 i see at my local park all the time which is great. they still skate. one has stopped skating and taken up wake surfing and i keep up with him mostly on social. still single, seems to have some not so health habits but has a good job and works hard so good on him.

current crew seems like a bunch of lifers and not so much a crew as just a bunch of people i see when i make it out to the skatepark.

[Bupstop]

Man I think about the people I used to skate with a lot. I’m pretty much the only one who stuck with it.
One died drinking and driving. He got pretty good before he died. Really nice guy but had a fucked up home life. I remember going to the funeral and his mom got him a new complete to go in his coffin. Sad shit. 
Another got heavy into drugs and rapping. Last I heard he was living on the eastern shore and trying to go straight.
I’m still in contact with my other two friends I used to skate with. One is a mover in Seattle. He said he sometimes cruises around skateparks but regrets skating growing up. Wished he stuck with basketball. The other dude is a brewer in Texas and had hip surgery because he had cancer when he was a kid. He was great at flip tricks back in the day but now because of his hips he’s kind of done with skating.
There’s a few other guys that came in and out of our crew and most of them ended up just fine.

[Magnolia]

I really just skated with one other friend in middle and high school, just the two of us hanging out and skating for days on end sometimes. He got certified as a diesel mechanic and now runs chartered fishing trips out of Florida and the Bahamas. I don't think he skates anymore but is still into mountain biking, which is something we used to do together as well. We talk maybe once or twice a year and it's always nice to catch up.

[MOE SYZLAK]

They are either doing drugs, drinking or rock climbing.

[Crust]

They quit a few months later. Nowadays, most of them are working regular jobs 9-5 and going to the gym.

[rocklobster]

I skated with a kid from the neigborhood in the late 80's/early 90s. He quit in 1992 iirc and took up bodybuilding.

Every crew went had guys who went through a gym / bodybuilding phase. 1 of the guys I grew up skating with picked it up again during COVID while still benching and lifting, seeing a 5'6" guy amazing jacked was scary. He toned down the lifting after he started skating more, said the added weight caused him to slam harder. He barely skates now since becoming a dad and he's loving it so power to him.

They are either doing drugs, drinking or rock climbing.

My brother stopped skating to focus more on rock climbing, I was the opposite.

I have no idea, I stopped trying once I realized our relationship was only based on convenience. We didn’t have much in common. There wasn’t a lot of skaters in my area growing up.

Friendship of convenience is the best way to put it - the friendships are intense but rarely extend beyond the activity. I occasionally skate with a bunch of younger guys at the park and a while back they were really bummed when their crew had a falling out a few years back. Some guys just aren't as committed to skateboarding or they prioritize different things. Just the reality of growing up.

[Mywm]

I started with 3 guys. 2 of them got into dancing, one landed a job as a coreographer and the other started competing in breakdance stuff around the country, so both dropped skateboarding as they couldn't risk getting injured from it. Haven't heard of them since they moved out to focus on their stuff.
The other dude got heavy into cocaine, managed to get sober a we got back into skating for a while, but broke his wrist and dropped it again. Last year he moved out from our city with a girl he met and haven't heard from him too. He also took a guitar of mine with him lol.
Nowadays I mostly skate alone. I talk to some dudes at the parks I go to, but most of them are are very young, so I don't feel comfortable hanging out with them outside the parks.

[LeDave]

Not really kids but we started skateboarding as adults so I don't have much of a story to tell about that. We're all housemates here. The guy in the center has been skating for a little over 2 years and got my housemate on the right and me on the left into skateboarding. The housemate on the right has been skateboarding for about 2 months and I've been skateboarding for about 3 months now.

[backside_frontside]

Got into cars and quit
Got into drugs and quit
Got into the military and quit
Got into married with kids and quit
Or they just quit

[kook1234]

the original kids from the neighborhood all pretty much quit after that one epic session in the basement where pop shuvits were learned on basement carpeting.  they all started a band together and would go on to have many iterations, first it was nu metal, then metal, then thrash, then stoner rock.  only one of them ever somewhat regularly skated after forming the band, though he was perpetually stuck in cky2k mode with a zero board.

dunno what happened to the poster @colinjustdidthenoseslide but that handle is awesome and reminds me of these years.

ive skated with 3 crews since but all fell apart for various reasons (mostly injuries and growing out of it).  ive since skated with random people I meet out while skating but nothing consistent.

[mj23]

one became a juggalo and moved to michigan with his high school sweetheart. for ICP fans i think that's like valhalla

[Jebediah]

3 are gone, 1 from drugs the other 2 had relationship issues that caused them to take themselves out. Others have started families and very rarely skate. Only one of them still skates often and we hit up skateparks sometimes.

[botefdunn]

Not really kids but we started skateboarding as adults so I don't have much of a story to tell about that. We're all housemates here. The guy in the center has been skating for a little over 2 years and got my housemate on the right and me on the left into skateboarding. The housemate on the right has been skateboarding for about 2 months and I've been skateboarding for about 3 months now.

really like this pic of your crew, enjoy the time skating together, these are the salad days.

[mfweeno]

Got into cars and quit
Got into drugs and quit
Got into the military and quit
Got into married with kids and quit
Or they just quit

These pretty much. I've moved away from my home state, but even when I lived there for some time after school I rarely skated with the formative posse as they were usually wrapped up in one of the above. I've always been a solo skater at heart and mainly skate on my own these days.

[tuesday]

Expand Quote

Not really kids but we started skateboarding as adults so I don't have much of a story to tell about that. We're all housemates here. The guy in the center has been skating for a little over 2 years and got my housemate on the right and me on the left into skateboarding. The housemate on the right has been skateboarding for about 2 months and I've been skateboarding for about 3 months now.

[close]

really like this pic of your crew, enjoy the time skating together, these are the salad days.

Yes, this is an awesome picture! Keep on rolling and have fun.

[Made In China]

I started skating around 2009-2010 and had a few friends in my "crew" come and go those first few years. I'm pretty lucky that my two closest friends from them still skate and live fairly close to me, so we still skate together all the time. Out of my other friends from that time, one quit to get into other hobbies, which included drugs, and last I heard is clean now living with his parents in a faraway state. One got really into cars. Another one still skates from what I've heard but isn't the kind of dude I would want to hang out with now. At least two dudes are homeless and doing various drugs.

[work_lurker]

I'm curious, did the friends who grew up and became successful (working for NASA, getting PHD's, becoming lawyers, etc..), live in a particular area, or grow up around the same time?

It seems like burnouts and imprisonment/deaths likely happened in America. I'm basing this off of nothing other than my predetermined bias about being an American myself.

For myself, going back to the elementary school days, I had a group of maybe like 4 kids, with the constant wildcards coming and going.

1. Became a jock in high school but still tried to skate. Got really into painkillers and started burning out. Got a really nice job as a union ironworker, thanks to his dad, but lost the job due to his drug addiction. Think he went to rehab and got clean. Hit me up a few years ago wanting to get into surfing, and I learned how to surf in my mid-20's with this guy. Now a total surfer, works for Amazon, and doesn't skate at all.

2. Was adopted by his uncle as a toddler, never knew his real parents. Always had a chip on his soldier (he was what we would call a midget back in those days), but his uncle would always give him like $100 to go skating for the day. He quit after learning how to do fs nosegrinds, and became a jigalow. We haven't talked in about 20 years.

3. Quit skating shortly after starting high school. Was always a really smart kid, we were academic rivals all throughout school. He joined the Airforce after graduating and has been in since. Just had his first kid. Haven't talked to him in years, but social media kept me in the loop.

[GardenSkater77]

In high school we had 17 people in a 4 grade span who skated consistently. Answered to the best of my knowledge.

3 computer software 1 married no kids
3 music industry 1 married with kid I believe
1 film industry not married
1 property developer married with kid
1 banking married with kids
3 snowboard industry 1 with new baby not sure who married
1 history teacher not married
1 material designer not married
1 unknown
1 died in a small plane crash
1 industrial sales, me married w two children

7 kids out of 17 guys. Not exactly repopulating the earth.

[Coolguy69]

It was really just me and my childhood best friend who started together. We drifited apart a bit (standard kid stuff at school he was more "cool" and I was more of a nerd). He quit skating in 8th grade a moved away and we lost touch. Last time I heard from him was right after high school, he reached out and tried to get me in on some sort of sketchy entrepreneurial scheme. I doubt he has skated in the last 18ish years. Last I heard he has a bunch of kids but that's all I know.

[notmikerusczyk]

He quit skating, started dealing, had a kid and continued dealing, lost custody of kid, was involved in a road rage incident where he shot (but didn't kill) the other driver, prison
We landed our first kickflips within five minutes of each other in my garage
I remember we made a pact where if one of us got sponsored before the other, we had to put in a good word about the other to get them on the team.

[Blind Fisherman]

Most quit sometime in high school, but I have a few friends from that time who never fully gave it up. One works in the medical industry (desk job) and still rips transition when I see him.
One friend (who had the best hardflips I've ever seen in person) quit and became a state trooper.
One friend joined the army after not doing much post high school graduation. He tried picking skating up again back in 2021, but I haven't seen or heard from him since then.
Another, who never really was super invested in skating, quit for high school football and now works for the athletic department for the Memphis Grizzlies.
And, lastly, one "friend" who quit when we got into 9th grade. Sent me a long ass text basically admitting he was jealous that I learned tricks faster than him. I still remember one line of the text that said "YOU CREAM YOURSELF OVER TRE FLIPS"...I had just learned them. You're goddamned right I'm going to be overly hyped on em.

[versacekid420]

idk i got famous and left everyone behind