Ever wonder what happened to ex-Real Skateboards Pro Shawn Mandoli? Do you even remember him? The spectacled young side-kick of Salman Agah in the early to mid-90s who skated switch oftentimes better than he did regular? Of course, if you were rolling with Salman Agah at that time, you’d be bound to skate switch for a week straight to force yourself how (Salman was often seen doing this). Anyway, Shawn can be seen in this video below on a recent trip to Egypt.

Board in Egypt from Boarders for Christ on Vimeo.

I left Thursday night for a 3 day trip down to San Jose, CA to visit my parents. As some of you may know, I grew up in San Jose skateboarding with and bumping into the likes of: Steve Caballero, Tim Brauch, Salman Agah, Simon Woodstock, Jason Adams, Marc Johnson, Caswell Berry… the list goes on really. A lot of skateboarding’s greats. I’ve got vivid memories of pushing around, often skating from A to B. I don’t do this much anymore. It’s not because I don’t like too, it’s just that the Northwest has harsh road and sidewalk conditions for any wheels smaller than 60mm and harder than 76A. As you might imagine, when I’m CA that’s all I want to do. Push.

So, this Father’s Day morning I set out to push around Willow Glen. I slid on my Lakai’s, grabbed my board and started pushing down the street I grew up skateboarding on some 20 years ago. I wasn’t more than three pushes in when I realized I hadn’t tightened the brand new Indy’s I put on my board the morning I left Seattle. This made them super loose, way looser than I skate normally. I shrugged it off and kept pushing, pushing real fast as the click clack noise from the San Jose sidewalk gave me flashbacks of the late 80s when I pretended to be Natas Kaupas and Stevie Caballero.

I was now on the ashpalt street which was less noisy but all the same nostalgic. You see, there just aren’t streets like this in the Northwest. In Seattle they’re old, rough and next to impossible to skate fast on with 53mm Ricta Naturals. Sunlight pierced through the big branches above making shadows on the street as I skated through. I’m unbelievably free at this moment. I wanted to skate more – all morning for that matter- like a 13 year old again.