Living: The Irresistible Lure Of Grabbing Air

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No wonder it is irresistible. Equipment to do it is relatively cheap. You can hone your skills on a grand backyard ramp or in a special park, but a downtown sidewalk will do just as nicely. The action is fast, furious and decidedly funky. Uniforms are not required, but style is vital, and the available styles are great. You can talk about it in resonant slang whose references to half pipes and acid drops, crackin' Ollies and catchin' air can be as arcane as a Rosicrucian oath. You can do it in the country or city, by a beach or across some asphalt. It's risky but not all that dangerous. And the cops don't like it. Perfect.

Skateboarding, once a skill practiced mostly by becalmed surfers and, later, a teen fad, has entered its third phase, bigger, badder, radder and more streetwise than ever. For proof, drop by the Fallbrook, Calif., backyard of Tobin White, 15, and check out the ramp: 32 ft. wide and 12 1/2 ft. high, the Fallbrook ramp is a commanding curve of wood built last summer by Tobin and his father. It has turned into a challenging arena where amateurs like Tobin can mix it up with seasoned veterans, all of them working up thrombosis- teasing speed as they turn the course and leave the ground, grabbing glorious air.

There are now an estimated 20 million riders hitting the decks. Skateboarders speed and rumble all around the Picasso sculpture in downtown Chicago. They come from as far away as Scotland to maneuver Milwaukee's Turf Skateboard Park. Georgia's Savannah Slamma is an annual springtime ritual for boarders to show their stuff. Says Scott Oster, 18, a pro skater out of Los Angeles: "Kids are ripping all over."

It isn't just kids, really. Teens are tuning in, but older skaters have been hanging in as well. "The popularity of skateboarding has run in cycles," says Brad Dorfman, 38, whose Vision company, based in Costa Mesa, Calif., pulled in over $30 million in revenue last year by making outstanding boards and a lot of good duds to go with them. "But every time around, the foundation and following of skateboarding keep getting stronger and broader." Down in Atlanta, Mark Lawrence, owner of Crazy Lou's Skateboards, is similarly optimistic. "Because of the skaters who've been around a while, the consensus is that this is no longer a fad," he says. "It's gotten to be a life- style."

All this pan-generational enthusiasm fires up an industry for equipment and clothes that is reckoned to be worth, overall, about half a billion dollars a year. It says something about the devotion the sport engenders that with such big bucks at stake, skateboarding remains a pretty straight-ahead endeavor. It has its own magazines (Thrasher and Transworld Skateboarding are the most successful), its own lingo, its own half-mystical lore and its own concepts of < cool. No thrasher excessively applauds another for an especially rad move. Miss a trick, and another skater will say, with offhand censure, "That was totally lame." But get it right, and the same comment or a close variation ("You're such a dweeb for making that") will be offered, but delivered this time with an admiring irony. "Basically, it's a fun thing," smiles Competition Skater Don Hillsman of Atlanta. "But harassment is big with skaters. I mean, this is not a 'nice' sport like golf."