THE 40 YEAR OLD VERSION

-----as most of you know i turned 40 yesterday. it was 27 years ago that i got my first board. so are you ready for a old barney tale? well grab a beer and read on......when i was 10 years old my parents divorced and my old man pretty much out of the picture. living in ukiah i remember trying to be one of the cool and popular kids by playing soccer and baseball. but, wearing big ass glasses and getting good grades only made me a nerd. till one day i noticed all these older kids in my neighborhood cruising up and down the block on skateboards. i thought to myself "i need one of those." so, low and behold on my 13th birthday in the year of 1986 my mom scraped together some money to get my first board. i can still see it bright as day. it was a black and green, mark "gator" rowgowski board. with white gullwing trucks and big ol' blue vision shredder wheels. for the next few years, i would meet other skaters that would eventually become my lifelong friends. we pushed all over ukiah skating everything in our paths.(for the record i pushed mongo at the time.) so when the 90s came in, eventually everyone moved away or stopped skateboarding to start up a band. i mean who could blame them. wheels got really small and the gear was crazy. even though skateboarding was slowly dying, there was a handful of us left. so one day, me and my buddy went to the mall in santa rosa. i took a wrong turn on the way home and discovered the skatepark. this must have been around 94 i think. i couldn't believe it. there was a booming skateboard scene only an hour away from my house. i knew i had to be a part of it somehow. so i jumped ship from ukiah and moved to santa rosa. so now i bet you think thats the end of the story. but its only the beginning. my skateboard brought me to the santa rosa skatepark. not only did i meet my future wife, with whom i have 2 beautiful children. i also bought a home to make sure they had a secure future. real quick lets take a step back.....also i would like to add at that in the 90s the santa rosa skatepark was a hub for skateboarding. so i got to meet all kinds of people to whom are my best of friends till this day. now i bet you are thinking to yourself.... if you made it this far, "what the hell is this dude rambling about?" well here is the moral of my tale. skateboarding has taken me to the gnarliest ghettos all the way to the poshest neighborhoods. i have seen many of my friends get caught up in some gnarly shit and they pulled themselves out thanks to skateboarding. i have also seen some of my friends to go on and become rock stars, skaters of the year, skate photographers and filmers. all because of a skateboard. as for me, after i lost my lung due to a tumor. it was my motivator to get back to normal. my skateboard has givin me everything and asked for nothing in return. i will always beg it for "one more try" and you know what? it will let me. so thank you skateboarding for giving me a life that as a 13 year old boy i never thought i would ever have.

*******i know there is a lot more i could have put in here but i didnt want to bore everyone. i will tell you the rest of the tales the next time we are in the van.

****** oh yeah. the pic above. my buddy jaques aka jakkerz took. one of my friends for life, thanks to skateboarding.