Any skaters or former skaters here..?

  I don't know squat about skating but I think freestyle is an amazing thing to behlod...

  I'm watching Thrashin' (m-m-m-m cheez wiz...) right now and it made me think of the X-Games. I used to tune-in to watch Tony Hawk and Bucky Lasek...

   Any skaters or former skaters here..?

   I don't know squat about skating but I think freestyle is an amazing thing to behlod...

   I'm watching Thrashin' (m-m-m-m cheez wiz...) right now and it made me think of the X-Games. I used to tune-in to watch Tony Hawk and Bucky Lasek...


I was a big time roller skater in the 1970's and 1980's.  In fact, my first real job was at a DJ at a roller rink in 1981.

Oh those were the days, playing Allan Parson Project and Hall & Oates.  8)

I was a big time roller skater in the 1970's and 1980's.  In fact, my first real job was at a DJ at a roller rink in 1981.

Oh those were the days, playing Allan Parson Project and Hall & Oates.   8)


  That's cool.  I was never good at skating...

  How about skateboarding?  Ever do that..?

when I was a kid, these are what the skates looked like, and for a skateboard,. you'd take the wheels off of these and nail them onto a piece of two by four...  I sh*t you not  ;D

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/38/107719546_0955b5e254.jpg?v=0

when I was a kid, these are what the skates looked like, and for a skateboard,. you'd take the wheels off of these and nail them onto a piece of two by four...  I sh*t you not   ;D



  Ha!  Did you do that?  I mean with the 2 x 4..?

  In the 70s there was one kid in our neighborhood who had a skateboard.  He was good.  All the rest of us stood on our tonka dump trucks and rode them down the street...

  Oh, another thing...I've heard people mention "skate keys".  What the heck is it..?

   Ha!  Did you do that?  I mean with the 2 x 4..?

   In the 70s there was one kid in our neighborhood who had a skateboard.  He was good.  All the rest of us stood on our tonka dump trucks and rode them down the street...
oh heck yeah, to make a scooter you took a wood fruit crate, stood it up on its side so the open part was facing you, nailed it to the front and then nailed a couple of small boards for handlebars. http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9G_bHMyN3xIKbEALMajzbkF/SIG=126dm15ar/EXP=1216186546/**http%3A//www.tias.com/stores/mwe/pictures/83018a.jpg  we're talking early 60's and let's just say my family wasn't very saffluent so we  improvisised as needed  ::) 

oh heck yeah, to make a scooter you took a wood fruit crate, stood it up on its side so the open part was facing you, nailed it to the front and then nailed a couple of small boards for handlebars.  we're talking early 60's and let's just say my family wasn't very saffluent so we  improvisised as needed  ::)   


  Necessity is the mother of invention, right?  Your makeshift scooter remonds my of something I saw in Back to the Future...

   Necessity is the mother of invention, right?  Your makeshift scooter remonds my of something I saw in Back to the Future...
it sure is and was, especially if your family was poor and couldn't afford fun stuff and it is just like BTTF. good observation there Davester, but thankfully I'm not poor anymore. Why, I can even afford a hover board  :D

oh man...my older cousin and his friends were GREAT skateboaders. He had the hottest friends too! I always wanted myself a sk8er boi...hahaah. ;D :D ;)

   Oh, another thing...I've heard people mention "skate keys".  What the heck is it..?


That's something to do with ice skates I believe.  :-\\

My brothers were into skate boarding in the seventies and got up a petition to ask the town to build a skate park. (but they never got one) 

My nephew also got involved in petitioning the town for a skate park and they finally built one!

My brothers both had the same first skate board which was not much more than a rubber covered plank of wood on four wheels.  And my mum made them wear the dorky helmet and pads  ;D
Later on I remember that they saved up to buy their own choice of board.  Stuart customised his with a painting of a flaming skatewheel.

   Oh, another thing...I've heard people mention "skate keys".  What the heck is it..?


For ice-skates, it's a gadget used to tighten the laces and for roller-skates, it's used to tighten various bits.

I've only been skating twice in my life (both times when my Girl Scout troop went to the roller rink).  I have no coordination, so mostly I kinda scooted myself along the wall rail around the rink.  I still had fun though.  One time, the manager of the rink took my arm and kinda guided me around the floor once.  It was so awesome to go so smoothly and I still remember it fondly today.

I have a friend that used to be a DJ at a roller rink (I guess at some point in the 80s.)

I still remember hearing "Celebrate" by Kool and the Gang while attempting to "skate" around the rink.  I do like that I at least attempted it even if I knew I couldn't keep my balance.

when I was a kid, these are what the skates looked like, and for a skateboard,. you'd take the wheels off of these and nail them onto a piece of two by four...  I sh*t you not   ;D

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/38/107719546_0955b5e254.jpg?v=0


Dang, Mike, I still have a pair of those skates in the garage.  ;D 



   Oh, another thing...I've heard people mention "skate keys".  What the heck is it..?


I read a couple of replies to this question and they weren't quite right. In the old days, Skates --- like the ones Mike posted,
fit over your shoes. The skate key locked the skates in place once you fit them over your Buster Browns. Without the skate
key the skates were useless a lot of people wore the key as a necklace.

I skateboarded (very badly) for a brief period of time when I was in Jr. High.

The wipeouts became too numerous, so I gave it up after about a week. ;D

I skateboarded (very badly) for a brief period of time when I was in Jr. High.

The wipeouts became too numerous, so I gave it up after about a week. ;D


That's still better than me dude. ;D I think I tried it about three times and was lucky to go 50 feet. My balance isn't that great.

I was a big time roller skater in the 1970's and 1980's.  In fact, my first real job was at a DJ at a roller rink in 1981.

Oh those were the days, playing Allan Parson Project and Hall & Oates.   8)

Crazy Joe and the Variable Speed Band: Eugene

What are you guys, freaks?  You don't remember that one?  It wasn't about a city in Oregon, it was about a guy named "Eugene", he was "a cool dude in a loose mood!"

That's a record they were playing a lot in the roller rink when we were rollah skatin' in New Hampshah back in '80/'81.  In them days you coulda gone out with my sister if you were a DJ in the roller rink.  Mind you, she was only 13 at the time and she'd be embarrassed as hell if she knew I was posting this!  I mean, there was nothing really going on between her and the cool dudes at the roller skating arena, not like she wished there was.  She seemed to be a little too into the Rick James' "Superfreak" before she understood what the song was all about!
I mean how super freaky can you get in Nashua...wait I don't really wanna know.  It would prolly totally gross me out!
:D

Can't forget: Patrick Hernandez: Born to be Alive

Born...dip dip dip...born, born to be A-LIIIVE!

gosh, the more I read this thread...the more it reminds me of the great looking skater boys that were a bit older than me in school and my cousin's friends. I had really forgotten about them until I read this thread. Haah! I tried skating once....I wanted desperately to be a "skate betty"...but with my lack of coordination...it was a big flop. :D ;D

- "What's that thing he's riding on?" 
- "It's a board with wheels!"


I used to have one of those banana skateboards when I Was a kid, but I was never any good.  Whenever I tried to do an ollie or a kickflip, I'd fall hard.

Actor Jason Lee used to be a pro skateboarder, and Tom Green is also a good skateboarder (but a terrible and unfunny actor LOL)

gosh, the more I read this thread...the more it reminds me of the great looking skater boys that were a bit older than me in school and my cousin's friends. I had really forgotten about them until I read this thread. Haah! I tried skating once....I wanted desperately to be a "skate betty"...but with my lack of coordination...it was a big flop. :D ;D

"Skate Betty," that sounds about WWI era!

What was worse was my sister was a pretty good skater, but she entertained notions of becoming some kind roller skating champion.  Yes, such a thing held great prestige ...for about eight months!  That meant we went skating a whole lot.  Then my father, late 30s and totally out of shape decided to take his skates to work and trundle along the banks of the Charles River...and broke his arm doing it! I'm still getting over the picture of my old man on a pair of roller skates by the Charles!
;D ;D ;D

(don't call me mean, 'cos the broken arm mended decades ago, the image is forever!)

"Skate Betty," that sounds about WWI era!





yes...that's what all of the hardcore skaters around here called girls who skateboarded. ;)

Now...on SKATEBOARDS, I look at 'em and say 25  years later all the same...how TF did those things get "cool"?
8)

It's like there's a mob of menacing punks, but they're riding those "Back to the Future" '50s soapbox buggies....would you feel duly menaced? No 'course not.  But the skateboard...like that makes us think they must be something kickass! They're just a bunch of teenaged punks who need a good beatdown in order to learn their place in the world, because they will learn to nothing else!
:o

I had a skateboard once but sucked.  I suck with ice skates and got a little annoyed when I was looking for a new pair of roller skates and the stores had a zillion roller blades.  I still have roller skates. 

I read a couple of replies to this question and they weren't quite right. In the old days, Skates --- like the ones Mike posted,
fit over your shoes. The skate key locked the skates in place once you fit them over your Buster Browns. Without the skate
key the skates were useless a lot of people wore the key as a necklace.


  That's why I heard that, back then, if you lost your skate key you were screwed...



  Dudes/Dudettes you check out this clip of Per Welinder freestyling.  Watch the whole thing (around 2 minutes).  This sh*t is crazy..!

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0OaR9QL4UQ

I just didn't get how you could develop an entire social paradigm on skate moves, glue-snorting, Jody Foster's Army, and Agent Orange!
:D

I just didn't get how you could develop an entire social paradigm on skate moves, glue-snorting, Jody Foster's Army, and Agent Orange!
:D


   And don't forget Bones Brigade...

   Remember when people said, mostly adults, that skatboarding was only a fad.  How wrong they were.  It's a bonna fide sport...

   Edited to add:  It's something I definately would've took-up when I was a kid but I just didn't know very many people that were into it.  Only a few, and those spent their time dwelling in the outer fringe.  The guy who first turned me onto Suicidal Tendencies was a skater...


Jody Foster's Army!
:D


  Time out...

  Jody Foster's Army..? ???

   And don't forget Bones Brigade...

   Remember when people said, mostly adults, that skatboarding was only a fad.  How wrong they were.  It's a bonna fide sport...

   Edited to add:  It's something I definately would've took-up when I was a kid but I just didn't know very many people that were into it.  Only a few, and those spent their time dwelling in the outer fringe.  The guy who first turned me onto Suicidal Tendencies was a skater...

   Time out...

   Jody Foster's Army..? ???

Yeah, Jody Foster's Army!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFA_(band)

I was just a kid when I first saw skateboarding and it looks like a big waste of time whether you're wearing dungarees and propellor beanie or....whatever your people are wearing nowadays!

I skateboarded some from 1986-1988-ish.  Then I got my driver's license.  :P

I wasn't that great, but I could pull off a 180-degree ollie.  I probably still can if the board doesn't break.

Ice-skating - yeah!  :D

I only like rink skating, but I make it a point to go every now and then.  I especially like it in the winter.  Strangely, I enjoy ice skating a lot more as an adult than I did as a kid.  I'm not great on the ice, but usually hold my own.

Not a roller skating fan, although I've done it numerous times.  I just never got into that groove on roller skates.    :-\\

BTW when I was really young, I recall having metal roller skates that we attached to our shoes.  They adjusted for various sizes.  When it was adjusted to the right size, we locked it in place - if I remember right, we used a "skate key".

I used to go skateboarding as a teen - and loved it.  Summer days between HS and college (1977) were spent in the park skateboarding the afternoon away.  I loved it!  Haven't done skateboarding for years, though...

I remember AC-DC's "Big Balls" was always a hit at the roller rink!
8)

when I was a kid, these are what the skates looked like, and for a skateboard,. you'd take the wheels off of these and nail them onto a piece of two by four...  I sh*t you not   ;D

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/38/107719546_0955b5e254.jpg?v=0



We used to have a few pair like those.


I have ice skated & roller skated. Any good? Not on your life. lol. I had a great sense of balance so I didn't fall too many times-but still did. One time in high school, a bunch of us (I think it might have been a birthday party) went to the local roller skating place. I started to lose my balance and felt myself starting to fall backwards. Someone grabbed my arm until I steadied myself. I turned to look to see who prevented me from landing on my ass and there was this gorgeous guy. No idea who he was but I thanked him and he just rollered off into the sunset. I wanted to say to him, "Wait, I think I am falling again. Come help me". lol.



Cat

We used to have a few pair like those.


I have ice skated & roller skated. Any good? Not on your life. lol. I had a great sense of balance so I didn't fall too many times-but still did. One time in high school, a bunch of us (I think it might have been a birthday party) went to the local roller skating place. I started to lose my balance and felt myself starting to fall backwards. Someone grabbed my arm until I steadied myself. I turned to look to see who prevented me from landing on my ass and there was this gorgeous guy. No idea who he was but I thanked him and he just rollered off into the sunset. I wanted to say to him, "Wait, I think I am falling again. Come help me". lol.



Believe it or not, I have never ice skated.  It never interested me.  It was big growing up in NH with all those frozen lakes.  My sisters used to ice skate though.  I used to like to cross-country ski.