My First Experiences with Skateboarding

There are some things in life you never forget and my introduction to skateboarding is one of them.

My first experience with skateboarding was at a young age. I don't remember how old I was or any of that, but what I do remember is the scene.
I was out with my family, parents and siblings, we were out at some shopping center. The kind with an awning over top and a sidewalk underneath with stores side by side. They're everywhere, atleast around here. It is basically impossible to remember where exactly I was at, but for some reason my mind keeps telling me we were next to a Ryan's.

So we were out for the day, probably shopping and eating lunch, like what a suburban family would do. All of a sudden I hear this noise coming from behind. I look back. There are two, probably teenage boys riding on boards and fly right by us. I think they went by and ollied off the curb.

(I now am proud to say I have done the same, stoking out kids riding through shopping centers on my skateboard. The circle is completed, but anyway...)

I was amazed. I had never seen anything like it before and it had all happened so fast. I asked my parents what that was and they told me they were skateboarders.
I knew I wanted to be just like them.
I don't know how long it was till I got an actual skateboard of my own, but I remember looking at skateboards in the Sunday ads in the newspapers. Sports Authority had some pretty sick looking graphics and I wanted the one with bloody eyeballs, I think. Not sure on that, but I ended up getting a different one with some sort of steel plating on it. This I remember. I think I could have gotten the one I really wanted, but I didn't want to wait on it to be ordered.
Haha, this next part is funny.
Once I finally got the skateboard and took it to the driveway at home, I took about two attempts to ride it and gave up. I thought it was too hard.
I didn't touch that skateboard for years, pretty sure. Looking back to when I was actually about 12 or so when I got another skateboard, and the Sports Authority one had wheels/bearings that would barely roll. It was that bad.

I became really into video games, and of course the Tony Hawk Pro Skater Series (1 and 2).
So for Christmas when I was 12, I got a "The Simpson's" skateboard and I suppose this is when I became serious about it. My two brothers had each gotten a skateboard too so we would practice out in the garage and driveway all the time.

After that skateboard got old, I picked up my first "real" skateboard from the X Games Skatepark at the Discover Mills Mall. It was a Flip board; light blue with a pixilated angel on it. I was about to get the Flip pixilated gangster one, but I asked my mom which one to get and she said get the blue one. So that's the one I got.
The rest is a blur. I don't remember much after that. Maybe getting my first set of Lucky bearings and Kryptonic wheels and trying them out on a huge hill in my then neighborhood. That's about it. I ate shit.