JBones those scans were sick.
In 92 I think I was still riding my first skateboard; an Alva Freddie Smith Punk Size with some ventures and big old wheels on it that my grandfather sent me from SF for christmas when I was 8. Like you said, shit switched dramatically in 93 and all of a sudden my skateboard looked giant and wheel sizes plummeted toward roller-blade-esque proportions. The next set up I purchased was an SMA slick with like 42mm wheels on it.
haha, rad man!
I'm not that diff than you. I had stopped skating for a little over a year or so an then wanted to get back into it in 1992.
I had no skater friends around me nor knew anyone that was a skater.
I heard about this indoor park in the newspaper, so I go to it one random Saturday and WHAMMMMM!
It was like I walked into some alternate reality!
Me in my ripped knee jeans, cross earring, Vision beret and with my fingerless gloves and hotrod flame Airwalk Vic's - when everyone there had size 48 mens pants on cut off at the ankle and fraying, XXXL t-shirts and beanies, they had small football shaped decks (9" inch wide haha small) and microscopic tiny little wheels. I was scared shitless dude! I thought by going there that day I'd finally I'd fit in because I was the only skater of anyone I knew - and here I was the big fuckin oddball! Back then if you didn't knwo people into skating and had no magazines and no videos you only knew that neon tv version of skateboarding, that or 1990's Nickelodeon show Sk8TV
I took my 1989 McGill skull & snake with it's neon griptape and big ass wheels and asked my big brother that took me if we could leave rigth away. I was freaked out. I was just a teenager. I had already went through too many years of being picked on cuz I was once the fat kid. Now I had lost 60lbs and didn't want to again be the un-cool guy. After about an hour he talked me into going back and not caring. I did, I sucked it up and I did. I learned how to pump on a 6ft mini ramp that day. Memories of the simple things.
A few months later I finally saved up enough to get a new deck, a TV Mike Vallely deck and some Real Guerrero 42mm wheels.
By then I'm pretty sure I had some huge ass pants and some suede olive green Vans (back when they were still Made In USA haha!)
Even then I knew I wasn't the only one that had a huge culture shock that year. It was worldwide!
Shit was changing in the blink of an eye. It was nuts what happened in skateboarding from 1991 to 1993.
I mean think of it now - how much different is skateboarding in September of 2013 than in September of 2011?
Not too damn different. What? Nyjah cut off his dreads, a lil kid landed a 1080, Formula Fours finally came out and a few guys switched their sponsors - wooopity fuckin dooo! Everyone still skates the same and looks the same and rides the same sized and shaped boards. A restart of what skateboarding is will never happen again like it did from 91-93.
The younger generation will never know how crazy the big bang evolution of skateboarding was back then, ya had to live it to really understand how crazy it was - reading about it and watching videos about it really never could cut it.
I'm obviously a very proud dude to have lived through it.
Yes - lived "though it"!