The First Skateboarder in Massachusetts

When I was about thirteen, I stayed for a while with my Aunt and Uncle in Rancho Palos Verdes near Los Angeles. My two cousins, Paul (who would later become a champion surfer and move to Australia) and Billy (who would later work as a crewman on ocean racing yachts) had recently taken up a new sport that involved something resembling a small skimboard on wheels. They would place one foot on the board, push off a few times with the other, and then glide down the street.

Skateboarding was new then, and the gravity and common sense-defying skater park tricks hadn’t been invented yet. I was a pretty fair skimboarder (skimboards are used at low tide on sand flats--you throw them ahead of you in very shallow water, then catch up and jump on), so I thought I’d give it a try. To my surprise and the chagrin of my cousins, who were hoping for at least a pair of bloodied knees, I was successful on my very first attempt, even negotiating the steep hill on Golden Arrow Drive without mishap.

I returned to Massachusetts, determined to parlay this skill into California Surfer Coolness and Chick Magnetism (even then I was obsessed). The problem was, I had no skateboard. The fad hadn’t hit New England yet, and the stores didn’t even stock skateboards.

Not to be deterred, I examined one of my sister’s old roller skates, the kind that used to clamp onto your shoes, the kind Melanie Safka sang about in her overtly phallic “I’ve got a brand new pair of roller skates, you’ve got a brand new key” song. The skates were adjustable and came apart. I took the two sets of wheels from one skate and screwed them onto a two-foot length of #2 pine I found in the cellar. Then I used magic markers to draw a design, involving flames and lightning bolts, on the board. There was a hill outside of my house, and I took my invention to the top. With several of the neighborhood kids (but no chicks) watching, I hurtled down the hill, past the houses of the Boyds, the Mullens, the MacLeods, and the Thorntons. As I began to slow I managed a turn into the Days’ driveway. The machine worked.

My friends Allen and Craig, the other neighborhood kids who, like me, sledded that hill in the winter standing up on the sled, wanted in. We fashioned additional skateboards from abandoned skates and lumber. After a few tentative forays, they got the hang of it, and soon we were weaving our way down the hill, waiting for word of our California Coolness to spread.

Unbeknownst to us, we were being watched--surveiled by a sinister presence behind the draperies in the Mullens' house. It was Richard Mullen, the spoiled brat of the neighborhood, whose father owned a Piper Cub and a cabin cruiser. Richard’s stern Lutheran mother, who used to summon him in at dusk with a piercing whistle, was not going to stand by while the Irish Catholic hooligan next door was outstripping her son in the possible next big thing. I should point out here that, although Richard was bigger than me, I pummeled him semi-regularly, usually when he tried to pick on my little brother. So Mrs. Mullen’s characterization of me had some basis in fact.

We had been skateboarding the hill for about two weeks when Richard showed up with an authentic, store-bought skateboard shipped from California. He smirked at our home-made creations, which did indeed look pathetic next to his tapered, gaudily painted professional model. Richard placed the skateboard on the pavement, and stepped on.

It was over so quickly. The skateboard shot out from under his considerable weight, and he rolled his ankle as he crashed to the street. His eyeglasses (I always thought he wore them just so I wouldn’t hit him) flew off and shattered. Richard lay there in a heap, sobbing, his ankle broken. His skateboarding career had lasted less than one second.

Allen, Craig, and I went on skateboarding that year until the wheel bearings gave out. We were always careful to look California Cool, wearing our Beach Boys in Concert outfits and wraparound shades. But other than Kenny Rawson’s little sister, the chicks never materialized; inexplicably, the hill was never lined with adoring babes.

Well, it was their loss.