Big Day Out / Doug Pineapple Saladino

I had been trying to get together with Doug Saladino for several months and ride some pools. He’s an old favorite of mine. I once had his photographs from Skateboarder Magazine hanging in my room back in Pennsylvania. I recall the first image I ever saw of Pineapple was a long lens shot of him doing a FS wheeler on a really tall quarter pipe in San Diego. I think it was in 1977. There were palm trees and sun-splashed houses in the background. He hung there on the top of the ramp like a battle flag. It was like he was saying,  ”Come with me!” Seeing that picture spoke to me and my friend. We went out on our quarter pipes and worked on FS one wheelers for days. Recently, Doug and I made arrangements and the stars aligned. We were getting together for a Big Day Out. MRZ was called upon and things came together the other Saturday.

We met up and I decided to take everyone to the roughest, most difficult pool first and then work our way backwards. It is a technique I learned from Salba and it works. It makes riding all day easier. Start hard and end easy. I like it! We hit a few pools. We stopped at the Triple Bubble and everyone quickly found their rhythm. The young guns stepped up and lifted the bar on the session. Shey Saladino threw down big grinds with a cool floating style, Jake did whatever he wished, Gabe shallow grinded, Justin tossed up some air time, Salba killed the deathbox, Doug grinded everywhere and Al Brunelle FS rocked the mid cup. It was pretty phenomenal.

We stopped at a local favorite. It is a hit or miss permission. This day, we got the go ahead.  Everyone had fun, tricks were pulled, jokes were heavy, the deathbox was scratched off the list and we were soon headed to Ridiculous.

All in all, it was a great day of reminiscing and showing the backyard pool roots to the younglings. Doug brought decades of San Diego pool experience up into the Badlands to skate with us all. Salba and Doug talked about old contests and told cool stories to everyone. The next generation nodded and understood. They seemed to respect the traditions of the past. It was a day of bridging the past with the future. It was a day of friends. It was a day of days. Thanks to the crew and thank you to Jim Goodrich for the Oasis image and thank you to MRZ for the recent images. Skate- Ozzie