Keepin' On

The only board Jamie will ride these days is a big, fat Gonz. He does feebles to fakie on the quarter-pipe they call "The Widow Maker". The sucker goes zero-to-vert in under five feet, and serves as canvas for the weekly graffiti report. Terry's ankle has repaired enough to make an appearance, and he works the lip like a pro. Then he moves the crowd by doing a frontisde nosepicker on the quarter-pipe barefoot, ushering in a new age of gorilla grip gnarl-itude. Oldschool shows up, and the crowds clear a path in anticipation of his massive attack upon the Beasley park infrastructure. The tricks he does should be compulsory learning for anyone aspiring to skaterliness, but most kids these days couldn't do a frontside air to save their souls. They cruise around with MP3 players stuffed in their ears, seemingly oblivious to annals of skateboard history that have conspired to make fronside noseslides, shove-it out possible. But all is as it should be. Everything old is still old, but glowing with all the radical dignity afforded by the tides of time that have washed these precious skateboard survivors up on the shores of present-day tomflippery. And you can see it all here in Steeltown, if you keep your eyes peeled like a couple of old potatoes from the bottom drawer of the fridge; the ones with the little green rootlets growing out of the side.