Stacy Peralta

Stacy Peralta Instagram – I built this board at age 11 or 12, it’s composed of jig-sawed pine, trucks and wheels pried off a roller skate boot and loose ball bearings. We often rode the banked walled playgrounds of Paul Revere, Kenter and Bellagio schools and we were always alone, we never ever saw other skaters but we’d see evidence of clay wheels left behind. Alva and Adams certainly rode those schools but our paths wouldn’t cross till we were 14. This was skateboarding’s dark ages when very few if any skated and getting to those schools required a ride from parents as they were several miles away so Mar Vista Elementary became our go to spot because it was within a mile and had a great left-right banked wall combo. We were continually kicked out of MV and realized if we wanted to skate it and we did then we’d have to skate it at night. There was one winter night where my 3 friends and I set off for it. I remember the freedom of soaring down the sidewalks through the quiet neighborhoods and feeling the friction of our clay wheels battling the pavement. Clay wheels are an unforgiving medium similar to lathed rocks and if you wanted to skate and we did, then you rode wheels that were the composition of hard cement. We all dressed the same; Levi’s, Vans and button down Pendletons for warmth. This one night in particular stands out because even at the age of 12 I knew that the four of us, all riding our homemade boards might be the only kids on earth skateboarding at that very moment and when I look back today I still think we may have been the only kids on skateboards riding down a sidewalk some place on earth at that very moment in time. | Posted on 16/May/2023 21:08:54