Board Meeting

I think I was about seven years old at the time and was beginning my journey into skateboarding. The X Games had just made its debut either that summer or the summer prior, but either way, it was all new to me and it was the start of my fascination with action sports. The street I grew up on had a bunch of kids in a similar age group, and we’d experiment with plywood and bricks (IYKYK) and anything with wheels all summer long—if it could roll, it could fly.

I had this cool older neighbor, Scot, and spent a decent amount of time at his house. He worked at an advertising firm and was super active in the outdoor scene. He was 20-25 years older than me and would often babysit my sister and me or just let me come over and annoy him and let me rummage around his gear room and check out his mountain bikes, surfboards, skis, etc. but I was most interested in his skateboard. It was a wide-tailed deck with this rad graphic on the bottom of a crumbling chimney and the Eye of Providence plastered on the nose. Above that read Andy Howell / Schmitt Stix in letters and sign language hand icons.

I rode that board up and down the block for months, knocking on Scot’s door whenever I had free time to ask if I could use it. Finally, one day, Scot handed the board over to me for the last time. He knew how much I loved riding it and thought it would be in better hands with me. He gave me the board—to keep—forever. I’m not sure if a day went by where I didn’t skate and now, I had a real Pro Skater’s signature deck. For the next several years, I rode my Andy Howell pro model all over the neighborhood.

Fast forward to today as I’m sitting at my desk in the SMITH Optics office, planning for an upcoming eyewear shoot with the team. I got a project proposal deck in my inbox that outlined a shoot on the Outer Banks with a cast and crew of locals that would bring the story alive. On that cast list, under Director and Producer was Andy Howell. I wasn’t sure if it was the same Andy Howell, but within minutes, I reached out to my co-worker who had made the connection to ask, “is this Andy Howell, like the pro-skateboarder, Andy Howell?” Sure enough it was.

I didn’t mention it in any of the pre production meetings, and was reluctant to bring the old skate deck out to North Carolina with me, but in the end, figured, what else have I been hanging onto my first skateboard for all these years if I’m not going to share it with the very guy whose name is on the board. I packed the board in my bag and figured I’d see if the moment to share it would come about organically once I arrived. After meeting Andy, it was immediately apparent that I needed to share this moment with him. He was so welcoming and cool and his house was full of old memories and art that held meaning to him on his path through life, just like this board meant something to me. This skateboard symbolized a point in my life when I made the choice to make skateboarding part of my journey. 

That hobby would help shape who I became today in some way or another. The names Andy Howell and Paul Schmitt (Schmitt Stix / Professor Paul Schmitt) would be engrained in my head forever. How cool it was to meet one of the first pro skateboarders I ever knew and to share this personally symbolic piece of wood I carried around all these years.

I had to break the sad part of the story to Andy, however, about why the board had lost its original shape and how I was peer pressured into cutting it to look more contemporary to the mid 90s boards my friends were riding.

After about four years of riding it, I begged my dad to let me use the jigsaw to cut it into the popsicle shape newer boards of the time were shaped like. I may have ruined the board, but never the memory. Thanks, Andy for completing the circle on my first prized possession of my formative years!