Surf the Earth

A Homage

The Surf the Earth line is me paying respect, homage, to the freedom and joy skateboarding and longboarding have brought me all these years.

I grew up in the 90s & early 2000s. Skateboarding with friends was a big part of my life. 

In this era, Nickelodeon aired Rocket Power, Tony Hawk just landed the first ever 900 and skaters were pushing the boundaries of trick possibilities. 

Skateboarding was a cultural frontier. 

I had a favorite local skate shop, The Shoppe Skateshop in Moneta, VA. They sold the normal skate merch of the day. But I specifically loved that they played the latest skate videos. 

My favorite was Almost Cheese & Crackers. Watching Daewon Song skate was like watching an artist paint a masterpiece. I ended up buying it to watch at home. 

Mike Vallely’s show DRIVE was also on the top of my list. He looked at skateboarding as an artistic form of

creative expression, a view that I share with him. 

Photo of me, Cody Jones, Dogwood & Deathcap founder, circa 2008-2009. Taking in the sunset at the spot with the view mentioned in this journal entry.

In that time, finding a place to skate without getting ran off was very difficult. And when I found a spot to skate, it was usually temporary. Lupe Fiasco released Kick, Push, and captured what many of us skaters had been feeling. 

As I searched for spots to skate I learned I enjoyed finding places where the asphalt was warped or where there were natural waves where I could feel like I was surfing. 

Growing up in rural Virginia, even with Smith Mountain Lake in my backyard, without a boat, surfing wasn’t really an option. Yes, people wake surf.

Around 2008, I built a board better for riding the land like a wave. 

I purchased an inexpensive pool board online and I got a deal at the Shoppe on wider trucks and wide soft wheels.

I quickly and harshly learned that the downside of pool boards, with thick wheels, was wheel bite.

So I added risers and lightly sanded down the board where the wheels bit and created what became my first longboard. I was completely unaware that longboards and longboarding was already very much a thing.

Then came the financial crash of 2008. The lake expansion had built nice neighborhoods with smooth freshly paved roads and plots of land for sale on either side. When the crash happened, they stayed that way while home building screeched to a halt. These were the perfect places to longboard. 

I used that pool board like a longboard well into college. I didn’t get an actual longboard until 2012. They were expensive, but I had just gotten home from Army basic training with a summer’s worth of cash. 

That was my last visit to the Shoppe before it closed. I purchased a Globe Longboard with a  Jerry Garcia

Skeleton logo.

Pool Board on the left, longboard in the middle, and the skateboard I had at the time, circa 2012-2013.

That board became my main transportation to class in college, as well as my ride to explore the many abandoned parking lots of Huntington, WV’s mostly dead manufacturing hub. 

Still then I would get stopped and questioned by the police.

After my kids were born and I landed my first “real job,” I sold that board. At the time, I was too busy to ride and thought it was the responsible thing to do. 

Fast forward, I have a daughter who got really into Tony Hawk Pro Skater and then begged me to learn to skate. So I bought a longboard. For me at first, but I let her learn on it. 

She caught on quickly. Now she has her own. 

Last summer I took her with me on a work project to Floyd, VA. On lunch break we went to the first parking lot I could find. 

As we were skating a black pickup truck drove by, stopped in the road, backed up and then drove over to us. 

I was expecting the same old line, “there’s no skating allowed here.”

But to my surprise, it was a guy around my age who came to tell me the best local skate spot and then motioned to the homemade ramp in the truck bed that he had with him because he’s teaching his kids too. 

For me, that was a full circle moment. Realizing that he and I, are the old dudes now, the same age as the ones who used to run us off. But instead, we’re teaching the younger generation.

Since then I’ve found a local church parking lot where the pastor has given us permission to skate. We go often and ride together. 

One evening after dinner I brought my daughter and wife to one of my favorite spots. It has a superb view of the valley and wide sky, perfect for sunsets. Most importantly, a parking lot that is usually empty with a nice slow grade. 

My daughter and I skated together until sunset while my wife, Megan, photographed. This trip was the first time I saw my daughter catch the feeling. She had finally developed the skills to relax and really lean into the freedom and creativity that longboarding brings. 

The image in the first release for the Surf the Earth line is from that day.

Photo from the skate spot with the view the day my daughter "caught the feeling," 2026.