Tell us a little about how you got into skateboarding, and what skating was like when you were a kid.
It was 1972. I had just turned 10 when Santa brought me my first skateboard. A laminated oak and walnut Hobie Super Surfer, which came in a long white box. I was so totally stoked! My best friend, Denice, and I had asked for skateboards for Christmas and she got one too, so we both met up Christmas morning and cruised the sidewalks around our neighborhood. These were the so-called "clay" wheel boards, of course, so we had to cruise somewhat carefully. Otherwise, you'd hit a little pebble and...SLAM! Raspberry time. But we managed to learn a few tricks--just tick tacking, a little footwork, hang 10, anything from the old surfer style days. It didn't matter. We just dug it completely. We were really stoked at the movie Skater Dater, which was shown in my sixth-grade English class. It was a short film (it actually won an award at Cannes that year).
A couple years later, Frank Nasworthy's Cadillac Wheel came along. Softer, smoother, and much, much faster! Having these urethane wheels under our boards turned skateboarding into a whole new world. You could actually "surf" a long downhill section without the board losing traction and flying out from under you. You could run over small rocks without being launched. Kids started having midnight "drag races" down the biggest hills in our city (Newport Beach, Calif.)
Then we discovered what would become our Mecca--at least for a few months. It was the Reservoir, an old empty reservoir hidden amongst a grove of eucalyptus trees. It had four steep walls, and the corners were a little bit squared so you really had to be ready for it when you hit them otherwise you'd be in for a gnarly slam onto the other side. We'd stay all day and skate, skate, skate. Finally, the powers that be got wise and we were kicked out. I wrote up a bunch of speeches and my friends and I went to the city council to make our case. We told them that we'd start wearing safety equipment, and we'd abide by "good citizen" rules, stuff like that. Anything to turn the Reservoir into a honest-to-goodness skatepark. I remember the city council members listening while nodding and smiling...then they voted us down, 6-0. I have to say that was one bitter experience for a 12-year-old. Newport Beach still doesn't have a skateboard park 30 years later.
Fortunately, I had a dad who loved to load my friends and I in the car and head an hour south to Carlsbad, home of the first skateboard park (I think) in the nation. This was like a skateboarder's Disneyland, a dream come true! Acres of cement--banks, snake runs, bowls. Awesome! It truly was an idyllic place for us at that time.
Fortunately, too, my girlfriend had a big brother who was old enough to drive and so we were in attendance when the Zephyer boys made their big debut at the Del Mar contest. I've seen "Dogtown and Z-boys" and I will agree they made quite an impression with their aggressive surf style--and their attitude and looks. (What can I say? We were innocent girls from Orange County. These guys had D-A-N-G-E-R written all over them. All except Stacy Peralta. He was very polite and gentlemanly. Naturally, we teeny-boppers fell head over heals.)
What was it like to be a girl and skate? What about when you were sponsored?
In the 1970s, it was never even an issue to be a "girl skater." It wasn't talked about as far as I can remember. All my friends--boys and girls--rode skateboards. It was just the thing to do. It wasn't until the 80s I think that skateboarding went urban, "hard core" or whatever you want to call it. Girls stopped riding. I don't know exactly why.
In 1977, my friends and I heard about a try-out for the Hobie amateur team. Hobie was a big name back then, especially in California. (Hobie Alter, an early surfboard designer, is most famous for inventing the Hobie Cat catamaran sailboat.) We had a Hobie Surf Shop in my hometown and we spent an awful lot of hours staring into their glass case filled with skateboard wheels, trucks, stickers, etc. When they announced the contest, I went into training mode. I choreographed a freestyle routine (to the truly syrupy tune of "Dance With Me" by the band Orleans) where I did 360s, nose and tail wheelies, daffies, coffins, jumped the bar...I still have all my notes and it's a crack-up to look at. Anyway, I guess I did well enough. I got one of the five spots on the team (I think it was my "L-sit" that most impressed the judges) and then I was officially a sponsored skater. A dream come true!
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