A note from the author: In the week or so that this article has been on the web, I've received a lot of comments from skateboarders. Most don't like it very much. Reading their emails, I was reminded that when I started this website a long time ago, I did so with the expectation that I would anger a lot of the people who are making the South Bay a lesser place. And none of those people include skateboarders. I'd much rather get into it with a developer or some McMansion owner than a skateboarder any day. Really, if there were more over-30 skateboarders and fewer developers, this world would be a much, much better place. I wrote what I wrote, but you aren't going to see me go to the mat arguing with anybody about it. There is obviously another point of view and a legitimate one. And I hope that the skateboarders who read this understand the context in which it was written. If they don't think it applies to them, well, who am I to say it does? Hopefully, if they read the site, it should be pretty clear that even though I'm not one of them, I'm on their side in the larger culture battle that is taking place in the South Bay. So I thank all those who wrote to me. They've convinced me to be more open-minded about this kind of thing in the future.

by Garrison Frost

I am a friend to the skateboarder. When I was young, I owned the prototypical skateboard of the time – the Logan Earth Ski with Road Rider 4s and Bennett trucks – and I got quite good at riding it. In my later years, I have advocated for skate parks and railed against laws that restricted skateboarders to ever dwindling parts of the city. I have defended skateboarders against those who consider them ruffians, skofflaws, vandals and worse. I understand the integral role that skateboarding has played in the history of the South Bay, how it is knit into the very culture of this place like the beach and the ocean. I'm totally into the X-Games and that giant skateboard jump event. Skateboarding, to me, is more than just a sport. It's an art – not just in how one rides it, but also in the thing itself, a certain elegance to its craft.

All of that said, I believe that when you turn 30, you should get off the board for good, and leave skateboarding to others. Actually, I don't think you should just stop on your 30th birthday. I think that you really should have been seriously phasing it out in the years leading up to that date.

As one might guess from my homage to skateboarding in the first paragraph, my reasons for saying this have less to do with skateboarding than with the concept of being a man, a serious person, a legitimate adult. Unless you are getting paid to do it professionally, skateboarding makes you look like a child. Really, there are many other ways to establish your beach credibility. You can surf. You can play volleyball. You can wear cool clothes. You can talk the lingo. But riding a skateboard just makes you look like you're trying to be something you aren't. By the time you're 30, you should own a car, live under a different roof than your parents, have had at least one meaningful relationship, have a job that doesn't involve working a cash register, own a suit, have a more rational relationship to your parents, not need to get drunk to have fun and be able to hold your own in conversations about real things. When you ride a skateboard at that age, you communicate to others that you renounce these things, that you wish they did not apply to you. In short, you look like a 30-year-old who wishes he was an 11-year-old.

I remember some years back, Hermosa Beach City Councilman Sam Edgerton showed up at City Hall with casts on each arm, the result of a skateboarding mishap. Now Edgerton was a heavy, tall man well on the other side of 40 at the time of this injury, so those who heard about it couldn't help suppress laughter at his folly. Break both arms skateboarding when you're 18 and you are a daredevil, do the same thing in your mid-40s and you're a clip on America's Funniest Home Videos.

But Edgerton wasn't unusual. Go down to Redondo Beach or Manhattan Beach on any day and you'll likely encounter any number of older guys riding skateboards down The Strand. These people won't strike you as dummies or outsiders. They won't hail from the uninitiated legions who don't "get" the beach or its traditions. No, they will typically be old-school guys whose very identities are wrapped up in the scene, so much so that they will believe that continuing to ride a skateboard at their age indicates their membership in some kind of elite club. Instead, they might as well be wearing water wings. Starting an action figure collection might have the same effect.

Of course it's hard to give up something you love. But rather than looking at this as a giving up of the skateboard, it might be better to view this transition as an acquiring of the bicycle, because it is really only after 30 that one can truly ride the beach cruiser as it was meant to be ridden. When you're 12, you don't look right on a rusty old Schwinn with a basket. When you?re 37, you look damn good riding one. You look like a pro, like a local, like somebody who has all this under control.

And the best thing about a bike is that you can ride that thing as long as you're physically able – well into old age – and never look like a poser.

(April 21, 2006)

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