Searching for a scuff on a stranger's shoe: I found my people and passion on a skateboard

This is a First Person column by Zev Klymochko, who lives in Calgary. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, see the FAQ.

The first time I did a kickflip, I was amazed. Thrilled. I was 12 and practising on the driveway of my family's home in suburban Winnipeg.

Snap the tail of the board so it pops up. Kick one foot off the side so it flips in mid-air on the horizontal axis and levels off. Land back on top.

It's a common trick in skateboarding but way more difficult than it sounds.

I wanted to make sure I could actually kickflip and that my first successful attempt wasn't just some fluke, so I did it over and over again, then ran inside, breathless, and told my dad, "Come see! I just landed a kickflip!"

Like many young kids, I was looking for a passion and a place to belong. 

Skateboarding is a sport with its own fashion, music and language. My friends and I sought out videos, learned from magazines and met other skaters around town.

I wanted even more. The first skatepark I went to was on a family trip to Vancouver and I fell in love with the graffiti, the feel of the board slipping over the smooth concrete surface, and how I felt at home surrounded by kids just like me. Kids younger than me performed tricks I had only seen done by professionals in videos. I just knew they must practise there everyday. 

So I went back to Winnipeg and wrote a letter to the editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, urging the city to build skateboard parks there, too. I was just starting junior high and was so proud when it got published.

In the media, adults still treated skateboarding as a toy fad or an underground, almost outlaw activity. It was banned in parts of some cities, and the local skateboard shop in Winnipeg was a small, dark and slightly grimy place with abrasive music, perhaps to ward off anyone who wasn't on the inside.

As a kid, I loved this. I loved feeling like I was a part of something different. I had the baggy pants, the "McSqueeb" hairdo — longer bangs on one side, usually covering an eye — popularized by well-known skateboarder Tony Hawk in the film Gleaming the Cube.

It was rare to meet another skateboarder in Winnipeg in the '80s but I'd check a stranger's shoes to see brand names like Vision, Airwalk, and Etnies and find that telltale hole worn through the side before giving a knowing nod, or even striking up a conversation.

I loved skateboarding so much that I moved to Calgary in 2000, when I was 23, specifically because of the newly-opened Millennium Park. It was the largest free outdoor skatepark in the world at the time. It was free to use, open 24/7, and it was the meeting place — where you knew you would always see friends. It was amazing.

I signed up to be a City of Calgary skatepark monitor, co-founded a local skateboarding advocacy group and then helped lobby the city to develop a network of at least 10 city-owned skateparks as the city grew. We shrugged off tickets for skateboarding downtown and eventually got that bylaw changed, too.

Skateboarding gave me purpose and identity. I was often the person the media called when skateboarding ramps, bans or parks were debated at city council. And I felt most at home at the skatepark. That place was — and it still is — our own world with its own rules. People stick to flow lines and an unofficial code of conduct: take turns, don't cut people off and don't try a trick that someone else has been working on and discourage them.

It's common to hear shouts of support when someone's been working on a trick for a while and lands it. And a skatepark is one of the only places I can think of where an adult can strike up a conversation with a teenager without it being weird. 

"Hey, where did you get your board from?" or "That was a nice kickflip!"

I'm 45 now. I'll keep skating as long as I can and if I could talk with the 12-year-old me, I'd say stick with it. If this is your passion, then follow it. You don't have to be the world's best to love what you do or for it to be a positive force. It's something that can inspire others and give you a reason to be. 

I lost my McSqueeb hairdo years ago and I don't wear really baggy pants anymore but I can still land a kickflip and grind a ledge in a skatepark. And if I have a bad day, I grab my board. With the wind on my face, the vibration under my feet, the click click of the sidewalk cracks, it still brings that satisfaction.

Telling your story

As part of our ongoing partnership with the Calgary Public Library, CBC Calgary is running in-person writing workshops to support community members telling their own stories. Read more from this workshop, held at the Seton Library in south Calgary.

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