News-Letter

One summer in Beach Haven, N.J., all the kids on my block suddenly stopped riding bikes and all bought skateboards. It was in the mid `90s, and skateboarding -- particularly longboarding -- was suddenly resurging as the "cool" thing to do. Everyone was trading in their Tamagotchis for longboards.

At the time, my parents didn't even allow me to bike around town because there was too much traffic. So I had to walk everywhere. It was a pathetic sight: my friends, riding their beach bikes to the local sandwich place, and me, five paces behind, running as hard as I could to keep up! I thought perhaps this skateboarding thing could be my ticket to the easy life. Sadly, when I approached them with a well-rehearsed request, delivered with as much professionalism as my 13-year-old brain could muster, my parents still refused. However, I was a very stubborn and persistent little monkey, and before long, they caved.

The day I brought home that first longboard, I started skating in awkward, looping circles around the end of my street. I wasn't graceful, but I slowly started figuring out how to push myself forward, ever guardedly. About 15 minutes later, my dad appeared at the side of the road. "Hey," he told me. "That looks fun. Let me try." Within a week, he had one too.

By the end of that year, two other younger brothers were skating as well. While other families went on fishing or camping trips, my dad took the three of us to deserted parking garages on Sunday mornings. We would ride the elevator to the top floor, skate down, and ride it back up again.

And so when I arrived at Hopkins, I decided to bring my obnoxiously huge longboard, a surfboard-like boat that I'd had since 15. I pulled up to my first AllNighters practice at the beginning of freshman year on this monstrosity, and the group immediately christened me "Scooter." I explored the best routes around campus; the roads were my playground.

The best time to longboard at Hopkins may surprise you: not during a warm, sunny afternoon. Rather, it's best to hit the streets a couple hours after midnight. It's as though somebody pressed "pause" on the remote control. In the early morning, the streets around campus are completely deserted. And they're yours.

What surprised me most during my freshman year was that pretty much nobody else here longboarded. As a result, I got a lot of odd looks. I was known to most people as either "Scooter" or the "Skateboard Kid." Great, I thought. Now I was one of the "_______ Kids." For instance, there was the "Luggage Kid," a student who spoke to no one and always carried two large suitcases and a couple duffel bags with him. Legend had it that he lived, Quasimodo-like, in the bowels of Gilman Hall. I was in great company.

And so, during sophomore year, I decided to leave the board at home. I walked to class. I was certainly far less nerdy. I had graduated from the longboard and had lost that middle school aura. I was a man.

Yet somehow, something was missing. For instance, I'd get wistful any time I walked down a long hill. My commute to class seemed painfully long. Walking felt slow. And I thought back to the longboarding that I had enjoyed so much during freshman year.

Sometimes we all have to take what I call a "nerdy stand." You have to do something that you love to do, even though it's completely ridiculous. There are so many things that we stop ourselves from doing just because we're too concerned with what random strangers will think.

And so the next year I brought it back. I am used to old men muttering "Dats like a surfbode on wheels!" or having little kids stare at me. I undoubtedly score nerd points with innumerable females. But the wind in my hair makes it all worth it.

-- Joshua Robinson is a senior International Studies major from Potomac, Md.

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