Stacy Peralta

Stacy Peralta Instagram – From as far back as I can remember, skateboards were always a part of everyday life in my neighborhood. We rode all the time and at all the great playgrounds of LA but always alone. We didn’t even know if other skaters existed until one Friday night in the early 70s. I was 12 or 13 and my three friends and I were dropped off at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium to see Macgillvary and Freeman’s new surf film 5 FIVE SUMMER STORIES. There was a huge line of surfers already in line, hundreds of them from tribes all up and down the California coast. What a sight it was to see and what an experience it was to be a part of. The civic had a seating capacity of 3000 and it always filled to capacity with loud rowdy surfers eager and hungry to see the latest surf film. We got our place in line and we’re standing there when all of a sudden we see a kid on a skateboard and he’s our age and he’s riding what looks like an old 60s Hobie board. He’s by himself and he’s good, really good and with good form which meant he’d been skating for a long time, just like us. It’s a sight we’d never seen outside of our own neighborhood. It was astonishing to us. A kid riding a skateboard and it’s not one of us. How can this be? We thought we were the only ones. We shuffled through the line as it progressed towards the door with our eyes affixed on this kid, mesmerized by his swift turns. ——. Months later I’m surfing Bay Street, Santa Monica’s primary beach break. I notice a surfer a ways down the beach sitting on his board waiting for a set. He looked so familiar but I couldn’t place him yet I kept glancing over at him, wondering who he was and then it suddenly occurred to me…it was the kid we’d seen skating outside the SM Civic. Eager to find out who he was, I paddled up to him, introduced myself, said I went to Venice High, he said he went to Santa Monica High. I told him my friends and I were skaters, that we’d been skating for years at all the playgrounds. He said he’d been skating for years too and that he rides the same playgrounds. I finally asked him his name. He said Tony Alva. He then snaked me on the next wave, a really good left. | Posted on 20/May/2023 20:58:11