Read the full article by Casey Rafter at Sacramento News & Review
With a decade of life on the streets already showing on the skateboard’s trucks and wheels, the Action Sports Kamikaze was worse for wear, but it was destined for a revival. In 1995, young José Vadi discovered and rescued his cousin’s discarded skateboard from his garage. Vadi said the board was a Price Club brand and never was right, but he made it his own until the dilapidated trucks quickly fell to pieces.
Showing a tenacity that still follows him, he dropped $20 on a Kmart Veriflex board. Vadi began skating as a teenager, grinding metallic ledges, curbs and loading docks near his home in Pomona. He easily settled into the world of skateboarding: an early opportunity to witness and take part in a community and culture that would become his own.
Now a man who finds himself in his late 30s, recovering from a wrist injury, Vadi still considers himself an avid skater. He said writing more about skating and connecting with other skaters through his writing cements that identity.
“I feel like even more of a skater now than I was when I was a kid,” Vadi says. “It still shapes my worldview and how I build community and how I find joy and how I create joy for myself. But it’s also physically taxing the older you get.”