much anymore. Now he plays guitar a lot.
Maybe that's why we get along better. We
lived in the same room for nineteen years.
Bunk beds drive you insane hell of quick. We
fought a lot, threw axes at each other, knives,
everything. But that's all part of growing up.
"My mom worried, but she always knew
it was better to keep ourselves busy with
skateboarding than be out there with a bunch
of punks up to no good, drugs, stealing or
whatever. She always supported it. We never
had any money, but she always bought us
new skateboards when we needed them.
She was always behind us. If she wasn't,
then I wouldn't be here today. She always
gave me money to go to the skateparks. I was
really young then, so it was kind of hard on
her, she probably worried about me a lot. But
my brother usually came along to look after
me. She knew all my friends, so it was cool."
RAY MEYER is a long time City skater and
avid freestyle fanatic who can be found on
any Sunday afternoon skating in San Fran-
cisco's Golden Gate park. He sessions
regularly after work and enjoys skarfing down
peanut butter and Ovaltine.
"During the early years of skateboarding
in the City, everybody went to contests and
just had fun. There was no such thing as
street skating, there was just skating. You
want to a pool, man, and that was it. You were
looking for a pool no matter what. Everybody
did everything-slalom, freestyle, pool riding,
whatever. The equipment was antique com-
pared to today. The wheels were a lot slower.
"Ninth Avenue was quite an adventure.
You'd get a lot of shit from all the people in
the houses. They didn't like you there at all.
Ninth Avenue was like a cement ski hill. It
was like Squaw Valley in the summer. You
took the bus up to the top, got off, skated
down and you still had your transfer left. If
you were tired, you went into the skateboard
shop, kicked back and talked to Ed for a
while. He always had something to say. Then
you got your transfer out, went up to the top
of the hill and did it again. You'd see Crazy
Louie coming by with his long board, scream-
ing down the hill.
"I remember the Cow Palace contest in
*75. It was the first time I ever saw all the big
skate stars. They had a little fibreglass pool.
Rodney Jesse was in there-bleach blond
hair. Bruce Logan went down the crazy-
assed slalom hill in a nose wheelie and
almost killed himself. I saw Road Rider Sixes
for the first time, and Alligator wheels. I saw
somebody do frontside 360°s for the first time
and it blew me away, too. I saw a kickflip for
the first time-that blew me away. The big
local guys back then were the Alot A Flex
team with Paco Prieto and Jeff Sands. Also,
Roy Jamison, Chris Chaput and Ray Flores.
"Skateboard parks were very interesting
for me. The first one I ever went to was the
Skateboard Palace in Sacramento. You hadi
66
Schmitt 4
Counterclockwise from Top Left: Sunday
afternoon in the park, Tony Guerrero
casts a stylish outrigger across J.F.K.
drive. A new kid on an old block, Shawn
Martin tucks a frontside against an inner
city skate zone. Each and every Sunday
you can find Eric Hilton powering moves
in Golden Gate Park's main drive: after-
noon methodical launch. Danny Sargent
guides a speedy no comply across an
urban gorge in a San Francisco residen
tial neighborhood. Noah Peacock displays
evidence that the "new breed" knows
how to deal with the city terrain.
Photos by Bryce Kanights.