Dropping in With Andy Mac The Life of a Pro Skateboarder

Chapter 7: Skating Michigan "You can do it!"It's not that I ever wanted my parents to be divorced, but there was an upside to the situation. I was lucky because I could skate the New England area by my mom in the winter and then skate Michigan all summer with my dad cheering me on.Dropping in on a Half PipeIn the summer of 1986 I turned thirteen and was going into seventh grade. I landed in Michigan with my Variflex board under my arm, ready to find a good place to skate. Right away my dad brought my brother and me to a local skateboard shop.We were looking around when a shaggy-looking teenage kid came in. My dad completely embarrassed us by going up to him and saying, "I want you to meet my boys, who just got into skating." And he wasn't finished. "Do you know any good places to skate around here?" he asked. A little taken aback at first, the kid was totally cool and gave us his phone number and said he'd take us around and introduce us to other skaters in the area. This kid, Dave Tuck, became a good friend of ours.Dave was a few years older than Kyle, and he had his own car. He picked us up the next day and brought us to Jeff Hadley's house in a town called Ypsilanti. Hadley had built a half pipe vert ramp in his backyard that he let the local guys use. It was sixteen feet wide and eleven feet high; it had plastic coping on top and was painted two different shades of pink. It was beautiful. At this point I had been riding the quarter pipe at home in our driveway, but we had not yet built the other ramps and I had not yet dropped in on a half pipe. Kyle dropped in on the pink pipe almost right away, but I still wasn't ready. So I just fakied back and forth most of that summer.But the next summer before eighth grade I was ready -- or at least Dave kept telling me I was. With my dad nearby with his video camera, I stood on the deck of Hadley's ramp looking down from eleven feet up, scared to death."Go ahead!" yelled Dave. "You can do it!""Don't think about it," added my dad. "Just do it."Taking a big breath, I dropped in -- actually, smashed in is more like it. I stepped too far forward on the nose of my board and went right over. I slammed on my elbow and ribs, knocking the wind out of myself."Okay, try again," said my dad from behind the video camera. My dad wasn't one to panic over a fall. He just kept right on recording. I looked back up at the top of the ramp. Eleven feet is almost the height of a one-story building. But if my brother could do it, so could I. I climbed back up, took another deep breath, and dropped in. This time I made it! Everyone yelled for me, and I ran back up the ramp to do it again. It was definitely the highlight of my summer. After that I could drop in on any half pipe I skated.The AKR TourBy the summer of '89, when I was sixteen, summers in Michigan were really busy. In between my work hours serving up food at Red Hot Lovers (a hot-dog joint), I spent most of my time skating. Every day I skated the steel, city vert ramp that was thirty-two feet wide and eleven feet high, with a roll-in channel and two extensions. (The steel would get so hot that once we cooked hot dogs on it!) There was also some good pool skating in the area at abandoned hotels. And there was an indoor park called the Skate Escape. But I wanted more.My pop suggested we take a road trip down the East Coast. So we piled into his new used minivan and the Andy/Kyle/Rod (AKR) tour officially began. I even made T-shirts for each of us withAKR Tour 19SK-89on them, and my dad brought his trusty video camera along. We went on the road for two weeks, mapping a route according to skate spots and campgrounds. We'd stop at night and set up our tent at campgrounds, or else we'd stay with skaters who were kind enough to offer their couches and floors to sleep on. It was the best vacation in the world.We worked our way down through Pennsylvania and toMacdonald, Andy is the author of 'Dropping in With Andy Mac The Life of a Pro Skateboarder' with ISBN 9780689857843 and ISBN 0689857845.