The towns across the Great Plains were like islands fenced in by an ocean of corn fields holding their populations isolated. This isolation made for a slow changing and community-centric society. Unlike a city with its various neighborhoods huddling together to form a whole, the small Midwestern town stood alone, a single community, and took pride in this self sufficiency. The ancestors of the area had been strong willed, plainspoken people who had left the comforts of established communities to make an agrarian living from a difficult, often tempestuous landscape. Future generations, still toiling to survive on seeds and soil in the land of the dust bowl, maintained their forefather’s sober attitude.
Our school mascot was the duster, paying respect not only to the power of the environment, but also to the men and women who had stayed on their homesteads until the rain came back and the earth gave life again. Although friendly people ready to wave at a passerby, these were not people given over to fashion or petty trends.
For instance, you can imagine disco didn’t make much of an impression on Holdrege, Nebraska. The collars of my father’s shirts may have widened, but only because that is what the store had in stock. I remember sneaking into the drive-in in the back of my parent’s car when they went to watch Saturday Night Fever. Sure, the movie made an appearance in the town, but the impression was slight.
Function before fashion was the way in southern Nebraska. Shoes must be comfortable to work in, but sturdy enough to last. The color of a man’s hat didn’t matter. The hat was to keep the sun out of his face while he worked, nothing more. The color was unimportant. Rather than sweeping in from the coasts, trends and fads sometimes seeped in, but even those that made it generally lost vigor as if swimming all those miles had reduced their impact making them seem (often rightfully) superfluous, and silly.
It was because of this isolation that I had no idea there had been a skateboard craze happening in other, more densely populated, areas of the country. The day my grandparents showed up to visit with a blue plastic Free Former skateboard I couldn’t fathom that there might be parks filled with people riding skateboards. In no way could I imagine a pool being drained of water for people to skateboard up its sloped walls.
Although I’m quite convinced I had seen a skateboard before, in all honesty, the possibilities of this blue plastic toy, while interesting, seemed limited. It was a toy on which you stood and moved forward until you stopped, and this seemed so much less useful than a bicycle. A bicycle seemed an efficient mode of transportation. One could get to school and back quickly on a bicycle, and the bicycle could even outrun the German shepherd that made chase as you came home on an afternoon. This was the Midwestern way. We saw an item as it was without fanfare, and sometimes without possibilities.
I can’t remember the first time I stood on the skateboard. I don’t remember if I fell. I can picture the board shooting out from under my feet, but it seems that I see that scene because I’ve watched it with other first time riders to many times since then. I do recall that standing on the board without falling off was a challenge, but also that the learning curve wasn’t long. By the end of that first day of skating I was easily rolling around my street, navigating four wheeled turns and tic-tacking onto my next door neighbor’s driveway. I’ve over thought the experience since then, and come to the realization that, for the first time (or at least the first remarkable time), the act alone seemed sufficient. There needn’t be a necessary purpose except the enjoyment of the challenge itself.
I wanted to ride this new toy everyday. The challenge of going just a little faster each time, and turning just a bit more had taken hold of me. One of the great things about a skateboard (that non-skaters don’t understand) is that you naturally adapt and innovate according to your terrain. As I said before, I had never seen a pro skater, and didn’t know such a person existed, but this new desire to make use of any concrete available took over. I started ramping my skateboard up the eight inch tall sloping curbs that ran down our street. It was something I had done on a bicycle a thousand times, but this felt so different. On one hand it felt so much more dangerous. On the other, it felt so much like flying than being practically harnessed by a bicycle. The bicycle suddenly meant very little to me. Sloped streets (hills didn’t exist in our Nebraska town) suddenly took on an importance that they never would have otherwise. I could have no inkling that this blue, plastic skateboard would inspire my life in every way.
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