Video of two friends and I skating on a makeshift skateboard ramp in the parking lot of Boxcar Billy’s and Pat Magee’s Surf Shop. The surf museum says it’s 1976, Boxcar Billy’s is there, it had to be at least 1979 (it was a new bar and attracted a lot of people’s attention and business). The surf museum credits my friend (and current editor of the Port Aransas South Jetty) Dan Parker for filming. I’m wearing red Birdwells or OPs. Ray Castell is in jeans. Calvin Steiwig makes an attempt or two.
An important developmental scene in Under the Gulf Coast Sun happens in Boxcar Billy’s and its parking lot.
This skating is alluded to near the denouement of the novel.
When I lived in Waco mid-2010s I got a skateboard out and spun 360s until I got dizzy. My wife yelled at me: “Put on a helmet, you idiot!” I rolled my eyes but did, then skated through the neighborhood. A car full of kids blasted past and saw me from behind — long pants, long sleeves, helmet. “You look like you’re 40 years old!” one of them screamed.
