76-80 An Eastvan Chronicle – sample

Excerpt from Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: 1977**

It was nearly summer, 1977. School was still in session, sort of. The exams were done, and with just a few weeks left before the doors would close for vacation, everything had gone into autopilot mode. Teachers were relaxed, students were coasting, and the hallways felt almost anarchic. We had one last chance to wreak havoc before the break, so my friends and I would gather early in the morning at the school tennis courts, planning our daily pranks.

It was during this chaotic time that my friend Gary showed me my first issue of *Skateboarder* magazine.

We were in Vancouver, BC—far from the epicenter of skate culture in 1977. *Skateboarder* wasn’t something you could easily find on the shelves here, but Gary had a subscription and received it monthly. I remember sitting on a homemade ramp behind his house, staring at the magazine’s cover for what felt like hours. It was like stepping into another world. And that was before I even flipped through the pages.

When I finally opened it, I was blown away. The magazine had a style, a vibe—everything about it screamed California. The photos, the angles, the colors—it was unlike anything I’d ever seen, a world so different from my own.

In that moment, I knew I had to share this with others. So, I went to a local magazine shop and asked if they’d be willing to stock *Skateboarder*. I showed him Gary’s copy and pitched the idea that it would sell like hotcakes in our neighborhood. The shopkeeper, a kind man who had seen us skating past his store daily, could’ve easily brushed us off. Instead, he went the extra mile. He tracked down the publishers, and soon enough, he started stocking the magazine. At first, he only got a few copies to see how they sold. But when demand picked up, he set aside entire shipments just for us, not even putting them on the shelves until we’d had our fill. That kindness changed everything.

A couple of months later, mid-summer, *Skateboarder* published a game-changing issue. It included detailed plans for building your own wooden half-pipe. A few of us had some basic building skills thanks to school programs and our dads, so we decided to give it a shot.

We gathered the crew and tasked our more experienced builders with simplifying the instructions in the magazine. They translated the technical jargon so the rest of us could follow along. We borrowed tools from our neighbors, and some even chipped in to buy materials—pounds of nails, hammers, measuring tape, and more. It quickly became a full-scale neighborhood effort, though our parents had no idea what we were about to build. Skateboarding was still a new thing in Vancouver in 1977.

The biggest problem we faced was acquiring the raw materials—2x4s and plywood. As we joked about the construction boom in the area, we suddenly had a realization. With massive development projects underway across the city, construction sites were getting shipments of wood daily—wood with no security and barely any oversight. It was the perfect opportunity.

**The Heist**

We gathered at our usual hangout and devised a plan. About eight of us decided that we’d do it under the cover of darkness. Summer nights in Vancouver meant people were out late, so we set our rendezvous time for around 1 a.m. Some of us had second-floor windows, so we’d need to jump out and meet at a central location. Others had street-level windows, so they’d get things started by meeting up first.

Our next problem was transportation. A vehicle would draw too much attention, so we came up with a daring plan: we’d borrow shopping carts from the nearby grocery store to haul our loot. In 1977, shopping carts were just left lined up outside with no locks or security, making them perfect for our purpose.

We quietly grabbed the carts and made our way through dark alleys to the construction site. Once we arrived, we split into two groups and began loading plywood and 2x4s onto the carts. We moved as quickly as we could, but the heavy wood made it a slow and grueling process. We had estimated how much we needed, but pushing the loaded carts back to our site proved to be much harder than expected. We were scrawny teens, barely old enough to drive, and the carts were loaded down with heavy wood.

What should’ve taken 20 minutes took us two hours, but finally, we got everything back to the site by 3:30 a.m. The night was quiet, warm, and still. We unloaded everything and celebrated our success with a few whispered jokes and giggles. The next step was returning the carts to the grocery store, which felt like a sprint of pure, uncontained energy.

By the time the sun rose, we were already back at the build site, hammering away and savoring the thrill of creating something that was ours. The whole neighborhood seemed to wake up to the sound of saws, hammers, and the promise of something new. By mid-day, everyone was outside—lawn mowing, car washing, kids with squirt guns. But we didn’t stop. We were determined to finish what we had started.

Some of the plywood had brand names printed on it, but we quickly covered them with skateboard stickers. We worked straight through until the evening, and by the time the sun had set, our half-pipe was complete.

The next morning, our neighborhood woke up to a new, unmistakable sound—the low rumble of skateboard wheels on the smooth, freshly built ramp.

Today, there’s a skateboard museum in Canada that features an article from our local paper in 1977. It highlights our half-pipe and the emerging skate culture that was beginning to take shape in our community. Our neighborhood, East Van, is recognized as the birthplace of vertical skateboarding in Canada.