Steve Olson / Guest Post

Steve Olson

“Once upon a time back in the daze – like close to some thirty years ago – there was a session that took place. This session happened at Doris’s pool, located in Rossmoor Ca. It was the same neighborhood I grew up in and only three blocks from my parents house. Doris was some crazy lady with a couple of daughters, if you know what I’m talking about. The session was happening when skateboarding wasn’t - except for the ones that truly loved skateboarding… Some of the cats that were there– in no particular order– were :  Ronny Emory  (TSOL),  Arab, Tony (Blue Tile) Alva, Jay Alabama, David Hackett, and myself- Steve Olson.  Doris’s pool was a big square pool, with huge coping, a dope love seat in the right corner of the deep end, and pretty fun corners. This session produced some rather good,  epic, or should  I say ‘ Iconic’  images for skateboarding at the time. As mentioned before, skateboarding wasn’t really happening. Lets say, the business part of skating was non-existent … for the money - grubbing fools. But there was Thrasher, hoping that skateboarding would come back around so they could get there piece of the pie. Sad, but true. Everyone was riding copers!  Imagine that whack shit… all used to save coping, and grind longer. We were younger, but should have known better. These are some of the photos that happened that day. You may know, or should know already.

(1.)  David Hacketts frontside slash- body in perfect position, trucks and wheels horizontal on the coping, bandana hanging just right out of his back pocket, hands in the right position, knees bent and feet placed perfectly. ( Just so you know, this is one of my favorite photos ever shot of a back yard pool session.)  In a side note:  for those who give a fuck- Hackett was riding a proto-type board I’d built, and I let him test pilot the thing. He ending up with a sick photo.

(2.) The cover shot of Thrasher, with Jay Alabamy  thrusting a frontside kind- of pop off, gnarler. The session – to say the least –was fun as hell. These two photos, and the one that Ozzie is using in this internet thing, were shot by Glen E. Friedman. I think we were drinking, smoking, and basically raging like always. It seems that whenever you hook up a session with your friends, you never know the outcome…. or at least back then it seemed that way. Maybe I’m just getting old. Fuck that! It’s the people that you skate with…but probably just the time in our lives that made it so EPIC. The corner air shot is just that:  A corner air.  Back then,  not too many people where doing them in backyard pools. Upland skate park Combi? Yes!  Backyard pools? No!  Whatever. Just check it out man. Enjoy…” -  Steve Olson

Thank you to Steve Olson for the words and memories. Special Thanks to Glen E. Friedman for the image. Skate- Ozzie