I
remember my first trip to Cherry Hill Skatepark like it was
yesterday. It was my eighteenth birthday, August 19th 1979.
My parents had been trying to talk me into going on a trip
to New York with them to see my Aunt and Uncle. Not a chance.
Two weeks in the summer with the house all to myself? No brainer.
Have a good time Mom and Dad. It’s par-tay time for
Timmy and the boys!! I had been lining up my friends and the
local beach babes for weeks. We were going to have a two-week
throwdown!!
“You’re sure you don’t want to go, Tim?”
Mom asked. “You know you you’re not allowed to
have any parties if you stay home.”
“Oh I won’t dear Mommy” I replied with a
slyish grin. Right. We already had several cases of beer stashed
in the woods behind my house.
So it was all set. The night before they were to leave Mom
went over their itinerary for me and left me with a sheet
of phone contacts.
“Monday and Tuesday we’ll be at Grandma’s
in Durham, North Carolina,” she instructed.
“Wednesday through Saturday it’s Uncle Ray’s
in Meyersdale, Pennsylvania then Sunday it’s off to
see your Father’s friend in Barrington, New Jersey,
then the whole next week at Aunt Pat’s in Lake Placid…here
are all the numbers.”
Click. The proverbial light bulb over the head. I scrambled
and found the Road Atlas and flipped over to New Jersey. There
it was, calling my name. Cherry Hill, only about five frikkin
miles from Barrington!!!! We had been drooling over that park
ever since the first pics in Skateboarder.
“Uh Mom, Dad, I think I wanna go after all!”
We arrived at Cherry Hill around lunch time and good ‘ol
Dad broke out the expensive German Hasselblad camera. He is
a photographer by trade but had only taken a few skating shots
before.
I walked into that warehouse and my jaw literally dropped.
Pools, pools everywhere!! You walk out of the Pro Shop and
there’s that massive Egg Bowl. I see a little guy drop
in, Wham, flick over and off of the coping, three feet in
the air and back down like he never left the wall!! Upon closer
inspection I see the famous skull and sword. It’s flippin’
Ray Bones Rodriguez!!
I’m so pumped and nervous I can barely get my pads on.
I look over and joining me on the bench, also padding up is
none other than Steve and Mickey Alba!! Okay, now I’m
really freakin’ out. I watched in awe for a little while,
did a little freestyle to warm-up and then made my way over
to the smaller kidney pools. They were less crowded and it
gave me a good chance to get my “pool legs” on.
After a few carves, grinds and frontside airs, a couple of
rounds of forevers in that awesome halfpipe, I zipped over
to the big Egg to skate with the Cal boys!! Man, the weightlessness
of that 13 foot monster was incredible!! The only other big
pool I’d ever skated was at The Cadillac Wheels Concourse
in South Florida. The Cherry Hill Egg was just as deep but
definitely smoother. After a few kickturn runs I said “F#%k
it!” I’m going for it!!! My Dad was poised by
the fence with his camera and I dropped in, carved the top
backside came screaming off the right wall, up the left and
whacked a huge Ollie Air right in front of my Dad!! I overkilled
the Ollie, went 270, and wound up in side slide, foot coming
off the tail, slid the remaing 90 degrees and rolled out of
it fakie!! Bones and the Albas were hootin’ and hollerin’!
Florida skater with a Florida move….Ollie Air made famous
by Alan Gelfand. I pushed back up into the shallow end and
Ray Bones high-fived me and said “Man, that was awesome!!
Who do you skate for?” I told him I rode for the IHB
team at Indian Harbor Beach Skatepark and invited them down
to Florida to skate our parks. I hung out with Ray, Mickey
and Steve the rest of the afternoon and we skated for almost
six hours!! Afterwards, we stepped out for some extra-curricular
activities in the parking lot while I waited for my Parents
to return from dinner. We even went to a nearby convenience
store where I bought my first ever six-pack of beer!! Remember,
that drinking age was eighteen then! It was definitely one
of, if not the best time I’ve ever had skating. Cherry
Hill is definitely “All-Time”. What a crying shame
that park was, as we say here in Florida, “closed and
dozed”.
Special thanks to Brian for creating this awesome site!! Also,
click on the link to my VintageFloridaSkateboard site! Lots
of killer pics there…from yesterday and today! Visit
FloridaSkater.com also!!
Here’s a little after Cherry
Hill episode:
We
arrived in Lake Placid the next day and the first thing
I see is that my Aunt and Uncle live at the top of this
huge hill, all newly paved!! Remember, we “ain’t
got no darn hills” in Florida. Right out of the car
I grab my skate, pads and helmet and head for the hill.
“Watch it Tim” cried my Uncle Chris, “it’s
awful steep!”
Yeah whatever. Before padding up (big mistake), I start
doing wide S-turns on the hill, look down and see that it’s
not all that far to the bottom……time for a speed
run. I get in the old Bobby Piercy fairing position and
down I go. Gaining speed, gaining, gaining. It turns out
that the “bottom” was really just an optical
illusion. The grade was definitely less steep but still
downhill nonetheless. I must have seriously been clocking
35 to 40mph when I finally bailed. Guess what. If you can’t
run 40mph then you can’t run off a skateboard doing
forty!! Suffice it to say I ate shit. Rolled to the side
of the road hit some loose gravel, slid on that for about
thirty feet then slammed into a guard rail. Worse case of
road-rash ever. I had gravel just buried down into my knees
and elbows, bleeding from the head where I cracked the rail
and broke three fingers to boot!!!
It’s just a good damn thing I did that after the Cherry
Hill session!! |
