C.H.S.P... A KIDS DREAM COME TRUE I had always dreamed of going to the Cherry Hill Skateboard Park when I was a kid. Seeing all those pictures of THE PROS riding that place in Skateboarder Magazine. Hearing about all the other LUCKY KIDS whose parents took them there to skate. It seemed like the other side of the world and I would never get the chance to go. One night in March of 1980, my Dad woke me up at 3:00 a.m. and said... pack up your skateboard stuff, Im taking you to Cherry Hill. It was 3:00 in the morning, WAS I DREAMING ABOUT CHERRY HILL AGAIN? When I sat up in bed and looked into my Dads eyes I knew it wasnt a dream and that Dad was not kidding around. I jumped out of bed, threw on my cutoff wrangler jean shorts, a Led Zeppelin tour shirt, blue hi-top pro-keds and white tube socks with green/yellow stripes. Right now I am looking at my photo album with the 10 pictures Dad took of me from that very day so I know exactly what Im talking about TEN pictures is all he took. And I still have them as well as the same board I rode that day. Right now THAT very same board is leaning against the wall right next to me as i write this. A custom painted KRYPTONICS K-BEAM 11.25 with yellow top with a big black K on it, Indy 169 trucks and double conical Kryptonic wheels. I had it custom painted since i hated the red/blue factory colors on the top of the 11.25 model. It was my 15th birthday present. Driving all the way with Dad, Mom, my little brother Eric and his friend Billy..... to Southern New Jersey from Eastern Long Island... I had stomach cramps the whole way there. Listening to my DEVO cassette tapes on my boom-box in the back of Dads station wagon. Laying down in the back of Dads station wagon, driving for hours... imagining myself, riding my skateboard in the most amazing and perfect skateboard park ever created in the world. Where all THE PROS and the LUCKY KIDS went to skate. When I walked into the CHSP, the manager stuck a CHSP sticker on the bottom of my K-BEAM, patted me on the back and said go have fun kid. Nervous as all hell, I didnt know where to start. I played around in the big freestyle box bowl. Doing some handstands and 360s to warm up. There it was... a huge long spray painted wall with all the signatures of THE PROS, my idols, the skaters in the magazines... HOLY SHIT... I was finally here bro, I made it to CHERRY HILL !!! Remembering seeing THE PROS in Skateboarder magazine shooting off the side of the 3/4 pipe, I said to myself GO FOR IT... this might be my only chance at this place of SKATE-HEAVEN. I then moved over to that big long snake run with the 3/4 pipe and bowl at the end. Ripping through the snake run and then up that 3/4 pipe, scared shitless, and then flying off the side of the 3/4 into that sweet bowl was like a picture out of Skateboarder Magazine. Oh, and Dad was right there taking a picture. My first launch ever off that pipe. I wanted so bad to skate the infamous EGG-BOWL. It was like a SK8-MECCA that I came all the way from Long Island to ride. But I was nervous, it was so huge and beautiful, perfect in every way, nothing like any pool Ive ever skated before. I felt like I was not even worthy to skate it. Dad yelled over to me... GET IN THERE SPUD-BOY, I DIDNT DRIVE ALL THE WAY HERE FOR YOU TO LOOK AT IT !!! Again, Dad wasnt kidding. Dropping into that massive EGG-BOWL was a feeling like a little league baseball player wouldve had stepping up to homeplate at Yankee Stadium and hitting a home run over the center filed fence on his first pitch. I made it to the top of the EGG-BOWL on my first try... riding that tile for the first time. There I was, KING OF THE HILL... CHERRY HILL With my Dad right there with his crappy little 110 camera and he snapped my picture riding that tile for the first time. I love you Dad, Your Spud-Boy, Jimmy
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 17:51:09 +0000
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