Birmingham Web Designers Jeremy Flint

I can still remember getting my first skateboard. I was in 3rd or 4th grade, and it was a cheap Nash skateboard with the loosest trucks I have ever seen. It was purchased at a Toys ‘R Us in Shreveport, Louisiana, on a trip to visit my aunt, uncle and cousins who lived there at the time.

Yes, I was a skateboard punk growing up. I moved on from that cheap board and saved up enough money from my paper route to drop about $100 on a green Alva Chris Cook deck, complete with Trucker trucks and Peralta Cross Bone wheels. Instead of the standard black tape on the top, I went with neon green, and my dad helped me cut it up like zebra stripes. You could see that thing from a mile away in the dark.

A few years later, the Alva board was showing its age and I bought another new deck. This time it was a Steve Steadham deck with Gullwing trucks and Hosoi Prototype wheels.

I can recall the details of these decks only because they are hanging on the wall across from my office, a reminder of a simpler time I guess. Anyway, the big draw to skateboarding for me was the artwork on the boards. I would spend countless hours copying off designs that I saw in magazines like Thrasher and Transworld. Decks that still come to mind some 20 years later are the Roskopp Santa Cruz, the Vision Gator Hypno, and the iconic designs of the Powell Peralta boards, like the McGill Skull and Snake or the Caballero dragon. And of course, the infamous Tony Hawk Iron Cross.

Tony was an icon of the late 80’s skate culture – along with Mike McGill, Steve Caballero, Lance Mountain, and Christian Hosoi among others. I remember it being a big deal that he was in Police Academy 4, even though it was really a minor role. A friend of mine had a Tony Hawk, but I never could seem to get my hands on one.

The other day, I saw on a friends twitter stream the hashtag #thth. Tony Hawk was doing some sort of worldwide scavenger hunt. He would send a package to volunteers all over the world, and they would hide them somewhere in their city and send out clues on how to find the package. I started following it just out of curiosity – and the slight chance than one of those packages would land in Birmingham. Then the tweet went out.

I knew exactly where it was – Regions Park in Hoover. But I was in downtown, and it was 5:00pm – rush hour. It would take me at least an hour to get there considering it was raining as well as the normal traffic congestion. So I brushed it off and figured someone else would get it. Then, after I got home from work, I saw a second tweet go out – Hint #2 – with a picture of the stadium. My house is a lot closer than downtown and I was about to head out to get some dinner with my son, so I thought “what the heck – lets swing by there and see if its still there”.

When I arrived and started walking towards where the package should be, a man got out of a car and asked if I was looking for something. I mentioned #THTH to him and he motioned me over to his car. Apparently, Tony Hawk had enlisted the help of hundreds of volunteers around the world. These packages were shipped to them and it was up to the volunteer to find a place to hide it and relay the clues to find it. This guy had put it back in his car because it was pooring down rain and the box was getting wet.

The box contained about $100 or more worth of Quicksilver gear – a backpack and some shirts and a hat. It also had an autographed Tony Hawk Birdhouse deck. The shirts I can’t wear. The hat is not my style. The backpack – I may use from time to time.

The deck is going on the wall of my office, a nice addition to my other decks.