Longboarding is like surfing on wheels for landlocked locals
by Regina Nuzzo
Washington Post’s EXPRESS
Friday, Jul 1, 2005
Local surfer Anthony Smallwood lives about three hours from the nearest decent beach. But he’s not about to let that come between him and his daily swells. Instead, he rides the asphalt waves right here — surfing D.C. streets on a mega-sized skateboard.
After work, Smallwood likes to head out with his four-foot board to secret spots nestled in the northwest district. He carves down tight streets, rips around parked cars and blows past secret service squads. “I ride my longboard every day,” said the 40-year-old airline employee. “That’s my surfing.”
For many street skaters, Smallwood’s longboard may not be the sexiest plank on four wheels. Born in the 1950s surfing culture of California and Hawaii, longboarding still has a distinctly old-school flavor. But in the D.C. area and across the country, a growing number of people — land-locked surfers and off-season snowboarders, urban speed freaks and suburban commuters — are finding the skateboard’s overgrown cousin to be just the right size.
About a year ago, Michael Lewis started showing up to his job as a marine fisheries biologist with odd scorched patches in his short salt-and-pepper hair — places where he accidentally whacked his head with 250-degree-Fahrenheit flaming balls of wax on the ends of long chains. “Fire kisses,” they call them. Just a little souvenir from his new hobby.