THE MEASURE OF A MAN'S
THIRST
ERE BUT
GONE I
JAME TO
PAIN AND PUNISHMENT IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
This article is dedicated to the memory of Stuart Kendall
They were days when life and what it
held ahead really didn't mean a lot to
those of us who lived only to see daylight
and a new day, a dry day where we could
go and play on our spoony skateboards,
our minds intent on the complete destruc-
tion of any and all vertical terrain placed
before us. The sport had died in the arse,
for us, at the worst time possible-smack
in the middle of our mental youth. Many
minds were lost and a lot strayed from
their former No. 1 passion to become
cool guys or BMXers mostly. Although
we were saddened by the sudden disap-
pearance of our former skate bros, the
"skateboard fever" had gripped our
spoony souls and our chances of being
cool in the early to mid eighties were
decimated. About 50 million "skate-
boards what are ya?" and "ever fallen
offs?" later we started seeing people actu-
ally riding down the road on their boards
with a look on their face as if they were cool
guys or something. After witnessing this, at
the time, very strange sight more and more
frequently the question was inevitably
asked, "Is skateboarding back to being cool
and gunny and all that?" After spoony sight-
ings galore we realized that a group of radi-
cal and gnarly skateboarding men were
embarking on a wizard journey that would
entice thousands of other skating wizards to
pick up their gnarly sticks and get radical.
-Lee Ralph
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: KYLE PERCIVAL GETS BUSY
DOWN IN WELLINGTON. MELROSE PARK, IRON CROSS
MINI AND VERT RAMP. 13 FOOT DEEP JOHNSONVILLE
POOL. GNARLADOCIOUS. LEE RALPH SPENDS A LOT OF HIS
TIME COMBING THE BEACH FOR WOOD TO CARVE. LEE,
STAND UP 5-0 OVER THE HIP AT WANGANUI.
REL
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