This 1986 news segment about BMX freestyler Maurice Meyer was shot in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. I'm the guy at 5:07 chasing after my bike. BMX freestyle was my life for most of the 1980's. This clip is the oldest video of me here in California. It was shot in June or July of 1986.
In late August of 1985, I packed up my ugly, brown, 1971 Pontiac Bonneville, which was slightly smaller than an aircraft carrier. I left Boise, Idaho, where I had lived for about four years, and where I graduated high school in 1984. I drove solo to San Jose, California, where my dad had started a new job, and my family had moved a couple months earlier. I finished my summer job, managing a tiny amusement park called The Boise Fun Spot, packed up my car, said goodbye to my friends, and hit the road west. Upon landing in San Jose, I moved into the empty bedroom of my family's apartment, living with them and my little sister, Cheri.
I'd moved around my whole life, a different house or apartment almost every year, though we'd often stay around one city for 3 or 4 years. I was born a Midwest kid, just outside of Akron, Ohio, and we bounced around small cities in towns there until I finished 8th grade. In 1980, my dad got a job in Carlsbad, New Mexico, and we lived there for a year. It was a huge culture shock, but I came to love the wide open spaces of the western deserts, at least in the cooler months. But my dad's new company fell prey to the changes hitting American factories in the 1980's, and we then moved to Boise, Idaho, where he found a job at a large engineering firm. Being an outdoorsy kid, I liked Idaho a lot. We still moved houses two more times, but I managed to get all three years of high school in at Boise High, and graduated. I also got into BMX bikes, first jumping, then racing, then the emerging sport of BMX freestyle, or trick riding. There was no money for college, and I didn't have a strong draw towards any particular career when I was 18. My high school friends and I all talked about becoming wildlife biologists. That was mostly because it seemed to be the only way to get paid to go hiking and camping. But none of us went to college for it. So I worked at The Fun Spot in the summers, and a Mexican restaurant all winter after high school.
Once I got to San Jose, I quickly found a job at a local Pizza Hut, and worked evenings, and practiced tricks and wandered around the area on my freestyle bike in the afternoons. I started a Xerox zine about freestyle as a way to meet the other Bay Area riders. I soon met the NorCal pros, like Maurice Meyer (featured in the clip above), Robert Peterson, Dave Vanderspek, Hugo Gonzalez, and Rick Allison, along with several great amateur riders.
Much to everyone's surprise, especially mine, my freestyle zine landed me a job at Wizard Publications, home of BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines, in August of 1986. I moved to Southern California to take that job, with my bike, a suitcase, and $80 in my pocket. I've spent 25 years of my life in California, far longer than I've lived anywhere else. I would have lived here longer, but fate deported me Back East in 2008, and I got stuck in North Carolina for way too long, but finally made it back to Cali in 2019.
In this blog I'm going to share videos, photos, and stories of all kinds of cool, weird, and interesting facts, stories, historical sites, weird places, adventures, and other things in California. Maybe it was because I moved so much as a kid, but I have always been an explorer. I love to just wander new areas and explore. I also like to check out weird, interesting, and historical places, and learn their stories.
Maybe it's just my current financial situation (barely scraping by as an artistblogger with no car), or maybe it's the year of Covid-19 lockdowns, but the urge to explore more of California has been growing since I got back. As a long time blogger (since 2008), and self-publisher (since that zine in 1985), doing a blog about California history and interesting spots just seemed like the perfect next step for me. OK, enough about my background, it's time to go explore...
No comments:
Post a Comment