Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/07/09/old-sk00l-pool-deck-vs-new-pop.html
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Related, I saw a sight Monday that stopped me in my tracks. This guy was riding a board that definitely had to be one of those very old school plastic boards from the 70s; narrow and thick, with a waffle-type pattern. It really surprised me to see that.
Looked something like this:
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wooow, that’s awesome! i remember those! that was like the board i wanted, but instead my mom bought me this heavy-as-shit board with a thick wooden deck and wheels that were made of a brick-like material. i never did any tricks on it - it just got me from point A to point B.
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So it’s pretty much all in the wheel… er… area? I see a lot of elastomers / springy stuff in there which isn’t on the old school board, those areas look like plain metal on the older skateboard? Also the wheels seem bigger. I had no idea!
new school
old school
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I think you’ve got it mixed up? The big spongy wheels are on the 30 year old board. The white one with metal trucks and smaller wheels is the modern board.
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Oh crap, my bad. So the simpler board is the newer one? Wow. Shows how little I know about skateboarding.
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That’s what I started out on as well. That thing was unforgiving on the steep cracked roads I grew up on. The Black Knight.
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Is that deck and inch thick?! 
Mine was about 5mm ply wood.
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Old school “pig” boards were built for ramp and pool riding. Back then, freestyle boards (like the kind Rodney Mullen rode) were thin with smaller wheels. That freestyle was blended with pool and skatepark styles to become street style, which dominated and is just general skating today. Challenging an old board to perform contemporary styles is apples vs oranges.
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i don’t even think mine was THAT cool. it was definitely wider. but that’s the general idea. and yeah, unforgiving. i learned to fall pretty well, haha – when polyurethane wheels came out and my friend got some, my brain exploded. i still remember when i replaced those old brick wheels with orange and green poly ones… it was a night and day experience riding.
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My first was like that, but yellow and pointy. Nearly killed myself going downhill. My second was like the old school one they show, but probably from Walmart. I upgraded it with nicer wheels and clear grip tape the one time we went to the nearest board shop in Omaha (probably a side trip to Sam’s Club). I repainted it with the demon from Fantasia and was “commissioned” by friends to do theirs and some skis. Watching this I don’t feel as bad that I couldn’t do a damn thing on it.
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They sell those old plastic ‘banana boards’ iirc the name on the Venice boardwalk today. I see them all the time.
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Mine was similar to the board jonny rode but without the spacers and with large plastic lumps i can only assume were supposed to be for sacrificial wear screwed around the underside.
Very cool.
Mine was a present from parents who were going through a particulary conservative fundamentalist stage in their christianity.
As a result the beautiful medusa and skulls artwork was completely covered over by fox racing stickers by the time I unwrapped it!
Sigh - still loved that board though.
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Well, at least it was a phase. My dad is still knee deep in the shit. I also had similarly suppressed pop culture in the home:
He Man was satanic because Skeletor
E.T. shut off because of “penis breath”
D&D was satanic (‘natch)
Ozzy was satanic
Metallica was satanic
Goodfellas shut off before the trunk closed
Beatles were satanic (because beetles were code for scarab and somehow Egyptian=satanic)
“Sweet Child O Mine” was satanic (satan speaking to a devotee; not joking)
Peace sign was satanic (represents a broken cross)
Ghostbusters was satanic (conjuring), so we were taken to Gremlins instead (
)
Care Bears Movie was satanic (it is actually quite creepy; “Neecholas… Neeeecholas!”)
We were beset on all sides is what I’m saying.
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yeah that was pretty much my story too although I can tease my mum about it now.
unfortunately ghostbusters and gremlins etc didn’t pack the same punch when I finally got around to filling in cultural blanks as an adult!
fwiw I think part of it was innocent attempts to shelter young minds - e.g. no D&D, He Man, and Magic but we could do disney, star wars (despite new age conotations) and superman (although my dad did cut out the beginning krypton scene on VHS as he thought it may have been too intense).
funny thing is my neices and nephews raised in a similar censored household suffer from nighmares and the others aren’t phased by anything…
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My entire adolescence was extreme dread stemming from Cold War nuke panic coupled with end-times gibberish. Because of the “no man shall know the hour or day of my return” I would wake up every morning and declare that this was the day Jesus would return, hoping to stave off WWIII, the rapture and judgement.
Then I heard the story of the Buddha as told by the film Little Buddha. Everything suddenly made sense and the dread slowly melted away.
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lol.
cults.
D&D is harmful but Revelations through a Barry Smith lens is fine for kids!
Coulda been worse - at least skating was allowed.
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Oh yeah… skateboards. That’s what we were talking about.
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Ahh, Switzerland. Big skies, mountains on the horizon, and a couple of idiots (meant with the very greatest respect) having fun. Fond memories.
Me, too:
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