old man army

I’ve been hanging out at oldmanarmy.com—a website for old men like myself who are still skateboarding or who have recently rediscovered the sport. It’s a cool site, I’ve really been enjoying the whole skating thing, good to see other folks going through the same thing. There are a lot of skate parks out there these days, too—Time magazine had an article on the phenomena the other week. They said there are over 2000 parks in the country right now, there were only 200-some just five years ago.
The following are a sampling of my oldmanarmy.com posts.

1) I'm 37--skated from 86 to 92--all street--wimpy ollies, crazy bonelesses. I did hills, parking ramps, whatever I could find, but never got into ramps at all. Now my 13 year old son and 11 year old daughter want to start skating-- any tips on how to get started? We go to the local skate park and practice the basics (bending of the knees, riding up/down transitions); but how/what do we need to learn to start skating the pool?
I'm having a heck of a time with dropping in-- the kids are a little too scared to try, seeing me face plant doesn't help.

2) In my cd case right now:

Descendents- Livage
Dinosaur Jr.- Whatever's Cool With Me
Sonic Youth- Screaming Fields of Sonic Love
Modest Mouse- Good News For People Who Love Bad News
Warped Tour 2004 Stages 1 & 2
Offspring- Smash
Thursday- Full Collapse

and a mixed cd that I burned that has old school rap:
Run DMC, Sugar Hill Gang, UTFO, Fat Boys, GrandMaster Flash

3) I knew a kid named Sioux Manitowab . . . Maiingan . . . Manitowash . . . oh shoot, forgot the last name. His mom was Lakota and his dad was Ojibwe, so they decided to name him "Sioux." His dad was Spud . . . Scump . . . something, never mind.
I don't like country, but Cash and Willie are cool. So's Hank Sr. I used to like Merle Haggard, but his fans were kinda scary lookin when I saw him at the casino. I'm all about the Hardcore Punk, truth be told.
And reggae.

4) My oldest boy has a rare kidney disease, was supposed to have his kidneys removed and go on dialysis, but he keeps surprising and confounding the "experts".
The biggest thing my wife and I have tried to instill in him is that he can lead a semi-normal life, just being a regular kid. Everyone wants to pamper or coddle him because of his situation, but I think it's made him stronger, a better person. He takes it in stride, which is all I can really ask for, and challenges himself in ways the doctors told us he'd never be able to do.
I'm so geeked that he's into skateboarding, because I wouldn't have gotten back into it without him.
Kids are amazing, I don't think adults give them enough credit—

5) There's this guy that hangs out at our local park--he's 44, I think--he shreds like you wouldn't believe--he's the only one that actually rides the egg-shaped bowl. I guess he was "sponsored" back in the 80's and he used to go all over doing skate demos, but he never made it huge.
Anways, the really cool thing about him is that he kept skating, but more for himself than for any external rewards. I think that's what it should be all about, regardless of what "it" is. If you happen to get sponsored, happen to go professional in some sport--that's wonderful, that's great, but doing it for that reason alone isn't what it should be about.
Dave helped get the Lansing park built, is still really active with a couple of the skate shops--skate camps, etc. . . and a lot of the kids look up to him. The dude's always giving advice to the groms and encouraging them and all of that.
For love of the sport--and anything else is just frosting, right?
He's just a regular dude skating (better than everyone else combined) at the local park.
Did I mention he's ***44***???

I found out that D. Campbell was a good friend of Andy MacDonald’s—I guess he even mentions him in his autobiography. Dave also skated for Santa Cruz in the early 90’s and was in one of their videos. He was just picked up by ColdWar Skateboards out of Portland, Oregon—so he’s on Team ColdWar. Pretty impressive for a 40-something dude.