Last week, I gave away a skateboard to a boy named, Koa.

I’ve always done stuff like this - surfboards, skateboards, weight-lifting gear, … if it’s fun, supports personal expression, and promotes individual growth, I’m all about it, and all about sharing that stoke with others, …kids especially.

But why?

The quick answer is what I just wrote. It’s a safe, easy-breezy answer, that makes me look all sunshine ‘n kittens and sunny day chill. Unfortunately, it’s not the honest answer. The honest answer is much darker.

“Down in Hole, Feeling so Low”

After we moved to Myrtle Beach, and after the sick, twisted, demented sexual relationship stuff with my Mom seemed to ‘pause',’ I was left suffering as a severely broken boy.

I’ve written about it enough. You’ve probably read it.

If you’ve seen me speak, you’ve heard it from my own lips.

We don’t need to go down that particular road again, and if you are new to me, my fight, my mission, my drive, here’s the short version - My Mom, a very sick woman, manipulated me sexually during my puberty years, living out deep, dark, sexual fetish fantasies with me that she read in books, and leaving those exact same books out for me to read. This was my introduction to sexuality. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce the lifelong effects this has had on my growth and development.

Skateboarding to Escape

At 14, all I wanted was to reinvent. I loved the beach and I loved the beach lifestyle. I would always say that I loved the beach because it meant I was only 3/4 of the way surrounded by the world and there was always that seemingly infinite ocean to my left or right that would serve as an escape.

Turns out, I was a shitty surfer; but, man, this skateboarding thing? THIS was right up my alley and I was getting good at it very quickly.

Skateboarding was my escape. My alcoholic Mom, and her equally alcoholic, pill-addicted psychiatrist husband du jour, used to lock themselves in the bedroom for days, boozing it up and doing drugs. I don’t mean normal bedroom locks. Nope, full-on, professionally installed deadbolt locks… on the bedroom door.

So I’d skateboard.

All day, all night.

And, I got really, really good.

Me and “my posse” Scott & Todd, all had mixed up youth shit, and none of us really wanted to be at home. You could do a documentary on the misfit lifestyle we led on Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach. Ever seen the movie “Suburbia” from the 80s? Yea, kinda like that.

By the time I was 16, I had industry sponsors and surf/skate shop sponsors. I was traveling the country doing skateboard demos at shop openings and winning contests in large and small arenas all over America.

The best part, I never really had to be at home.

The worst part, and I shouldn’t even care, but my mom never once traveled with me nor even saw me skate. Not a single contest. Not a single demo. Nothing… While in retrospect, I think that was best and most likely by my own design, consciously or subconsciously, it still always bothered me.

She did, however, sell over 100 of my trophies in a garage sale when I left for college, but sadly, got drunk, passed out, and got robbed blind by random patrons.

Giving the Gift of Freedom

So, it took thinking this through, putting some words down on paper, and '‘rolling’ down some pretty painful memory lanes to get a better understanding of why I feel so compelled to “share the stoke.”

Not for a second am I insinuating that everyone I give to seemingly needs to escape like I did. The need, drive, pull for creative expression comes from many places, but when it needs to come out, it needs to come out, and providing positive ways to allow that to happen is a solid mission I can get behind.

Koa, I hope I see you at 16 years old, gracing the pages of local VOID magazine, moving on to Skateboarding Magazine and Transworld, and shredding contests and late-night street skates with friends. I hope you have many skatepark parties and admiring fans, and all the fun stuff that comes with growing up in the sport.

Most importantly, I hope you grow.

Just, please, promise me, when you’re an old man like me, suffering nostalgic, Al Bundy syndrome about what you USED to be, you’ll find the drive to “share the stoke” with the generations behind you.

Because, they’ll need you, brother. It takes a village.