By Hali estrada.
I’ve been Skateboarding for almost 25 years now and during all this time only injuries made me stop, like in 1997 when I Hyperextended my knee fracturing my femur a tearing my ligaments, the Doctors said I wasn’t going to be able to Skate ever again but I was back on my Board after 5 months and Im still Skating to this day. Growing up we never had a “Go Skateboarding Day” and I think that if Skateboarding wasn’t as popular as it is now a “Go Skateboarding Day” wouldn’t exist. Go Skateboarding Day is EVERY DAY, at least for me.
June 21st had a different meaning for me growing up, June 21st is my Dads Birthday. My Dad was born in 1944 in Tacna, a South Province in my home country Peru and he moved to Lima (The Capital ) when he was 4 years old. He went to school in Lima and after High School he got a daytime job to pay for his University classes where he met my Mom, they got married after a while and they had 3 kids, I was their first child.
My Dad is a great man, he might have a masters degree in finances and a 10 inches thick resume but he is way more than that; My Dad is a funny and creative man; He made a Styrofoam cutter out of a battery and a little cable to make us Styrofoam planes when we were kids; He draw a huge Spiderman in our room and let us draw whatever we wanted on those walls too; He grabbed a piece of thick wood in 1987 and made us Skateboards heavier than life, later in 1991 he covered with Fiberglass a home-made board I broke in an early attempt to make a board with Concave; He recovered my stupid $120 Reebok Pump sneakers after I got robbed; He loved to play the guitar ( Until I broke it, sorry Dad); He likes mysteries and UFO’s; He loves books and he reads a lot; He has a huge library constantly growing and he has one million stories to tell…So to me he is an inventor, a painter, a comedian, a carpenter, a musician, a handyman, a hero and more than anything a dreamer, he bought a doorbell and the bell before even owning a house.
Our parents always supported us when it came to Skateboarding and Im grateful to had parents that let us be who we wanted to be and let us follow our dreams even if they took us far away from them. So today being my Dads Birthday and also the so called “Go Skateboarding Day” I was thinking that birthdays, holidays, anniversaries and every other kind of “Special Day” doesn’t mean that all the other days are not special or important. Every single day is Go Skateboarding Day and we grow older by the second so lets celebrate today, tomorrow and everyday. Happy Birthday Dad !!!! ;)
