SKATEBOARD Danny Bearer 1965 FIRST World Champion Board.

On the 4th of july 1965 when i was 14, my family moved from Chicago to Malibu. A month or two
later, on TV, I watched all these kids doing something
I had never seen before.
They were in a skateboard championship event in Anaheim.
I had no idea, I would go to my new junior high school
a month later, and meet all of these same kids that were on that
Hobie Super Surfer Skateboard Team.
That's how I eventually met Danny Bearer, and his lil' sister Wendy, who was my best friend, Carsons', girlfriend at Palisades High School.

Years before Danny's, immediate and untimely exist off this
planet... on Oct. 1, 2009, he was selling some of his skateboard
things, simply to clean-up his apartment. I was lucky enough
to be over on the day he showed this skateboard to me, and he asked if I would like to buy it, and he would donate the money to a homeless shelter he volunteered at in santa monica...that was circa 2002.

in 1964?.....Danny was already a lead skater, on historically the very first skateboard team..called Makaha. Baron Hilton's..(yes..hilton hotels).. two sons, were skateboarders already on the Makaha team too, and he saw a business opportunity to merge his health food company VitaPak...with Hobie Alter's new mass produced skateboards he was marketing....
Hobie Skateboards.

Hobie skateboards were the first commercially produced, higher class skateboards for public use in 1964. Other companies like Roller Derby produced less quality boards in the very beginning.---It was at this beginning of the Hobie Skateboards, through Hiltons financing and advertising money....that Danny and other members left Makaha, and formed the Hobie Super Surfer Team....in early 1965.

You are looking at the late-great-godfather's HOBIE
skateboard, much longer than normal ones sold back then at
................29 1/2........by...........7..................inches.

so this is a Hobie..that was used in the
FIRST INTERNATIONAL Skateboard Championship in 1965,
that I had watched live on ABC's Wide World of Sports, in Anaheim.
Danny Bearer, at the end of all the events, had won the most total points as a single skater, and that helped the Hobie Team win the honor as...First Place Team.

............THE 1965 HOBIE SUPER SURFER TEAM..........

..........................Danny & Wendy Bearer......................
................................Torger Johnson.............................
....................................John Fries..................................
.............................Steve & Dave Hilton.........................
...............................Woody Woodard............................
.................................George Trafton.............................
...............................a girl from Berkley..........................

Danny, won the first event held in '65 Skateboard Championships.
It was called the flat-land. He then went on to gain
the most overall points, as the competitions went on during the day...as stated.........

SO....Danny Bearer...is,... and..always will be considered

.........The First World Male Skateboard Champion of All Time...........

understand....Tony Hawk...hadn't even been 'born' yet
until 3 years later, in 1968.

Danny had been given this board back in the early 1990's,
by Steve Hilton, who found it in the family's house garage where he had kept many souvenirs of the original Hobie Team. (he knew it was Danny's because of it's length. His older brother Rick, not on the team, is the father of Paris).

Danny told me, he had two Hobie skateboards from that
1965 era...that he used for shows, exhibitions, and competition.
One of them, he had kept since then, but it had been
totally resurfaced in the late 90's by him.
He had put new soft wheels on it, and sold it a year earlier.
this one, that was at the Hilton's house for unknown
number of years, he said was the other.
Danny had only put a fresh repro Hobie decal on it,
after he got it back.
I asked him..'who's ever gonna believe me, that this is
Danny Bearer's original 1965 board?' He said,
'tell them we've been friends since the 60's'. I said, ' but,
what if they don't believe me, cause they don't know that'.

(after doing my own research, ABC footage tells me
this Hobie, is not the exact same board Danny is holding in one clear shot i have seen. That one has one main dark wide stripe of wood.
i suspect that it was the board he had refinished w/new wheels.
Obviously though...he cherished this Hobie, and felt,
in his heart, this was the one he'd used at the 1965 event. Maybe he used two different ones during the day?..i wouldnt know, for sure yes or no.)

so...he took the board from me, went to his desk
and with a magic marker he wrote...

................................... My Hobie .................................
.......................... that I used to the win .......................
....................... FIRST INTERNATIONAL ..................
............................. CHAMPIONSHIP .........................
..................................... in 1965 ..................................
............................. DANNY BEARER ...........................
............................. ...........###........... .........................

so, after spending a lot of money for me at the time...
i have a extremely personal unique skateboard
that was owned by Danny Bearer.
a skateboard from the birth of southern california skateboarding,,
owned by one of it's leading members.

I consider it to be, the way over-used word...'priceless'.
It simply,....
can or could not.... ever be replaced with another.

Think how many people have skateboards around the world
right now, in cities and places you can't even pronounce.
How many millions of dollars does skateboarding generate
today, from X Games to a small town shop, run by a couple of kids.
How many people have their own small to large personal
skateboard collections?!

This unique piece of American culture, belongs in the
Smithsonian Museum.

There are a lot of Sidewalk Surfers around the world,
riding up and down the walkways and streets of their
towns right now... pretending to be the best, as they are
..........."catching a wave".

The 13-15 yr. old teenage Hobie team members were
raised on the surfing scene of the West Los Angeles beaches.
Skateboarding was a natural extension of ocean surfing,
which helped them be ... 'natural' sidewalk surfers on the
hilly streets of west los angeles.

Can you imagine these kids flying around on airlines and
being pampered and filmed as they toured the USA, doing
X Game type shows...... 30 years before X Games ?!
They did exhibition shows for people, who had never heard of...
or even seen a skateboard, these kids absolutely were truly living the 'COOL' life style.
They were in every sense....the first........'skateboard super stars'.
The Hobie Team, is fully pictured and featured in the very first magazine.... ever printed.... just about skateboarding.
Youtube has old films of them.....Hobie vintage skateboarding.

After entering into high school circa '66-'67...skateboarding
for the original Hobie Team, faded in importance.
With them getting older, girlfriends wanting attention
the beach was now the best place to hang-out, and soak-up
the So Cal lifestyle.

They knew their place in history had been set forever.
Skateboarding was a thing of the past, and most all of
them started to now win... surfing awards.
It is not an over-exaggeration to say...from about 1968 to 1974
skateboarding was dead...gone...and forgotten.

Then year's later, in the early 70's...urethane wheels were created.
Slowly, young kids from the ghetto area's started to buy skateboards.
In back alleys and on streets in the lower class area's
of Santa Monica, Ocean Park and Venice Beach........
skateboards began to roll again.........as the young, rough,
surfer punk boy's of DogTown...started making waves.

Skateboarding was BACK in town. Everyone now knows
about DogTown... and it's infamous member's,,,but you now
understand they are 2nd Dog... compared to the
The Hobie Vita-Pakt Super Surfer Team World Champions
that ruled the streets 10 years b4 in Bev Hills, Brentwood,
and the Palisades.

In honor of Danny's historical stature,
and being one of the first inductees into the
Skateboard Hall of Fame,....there was a
very very special moment
at opening of the Venice Beach Skateboard Park...,
just yards away from,,,where in fact
the Makaha Team had been created by a
Venice Beach lifeguard... all those years ago...

Danny had died... just 5 days before the opening of the park,
which was the dream of a lot of people, but mostly through
the effort of the honorary mayor of Venice, and skate-pro
...Jesse Martinez.

At the huge over-flowing ceremonial opening
of the park, this skateboard of Danny's,
thanks to Jesse, and his knowledge of Danny's
place in skateboard history, this skateboard was
the FIRST board ridden in the park by well known,
2nd team 60's Hobie Skateboard member,
and local Z-boy from DogTown,.... Ray Flores.

Hundreds and hundreds of people were crowded
around the edge of the deep main pool...cameras ready...
to watch Ray take the first ride on Danny's board.
And as Ray took-off on this glorious historical event....
cameras flashing....he got about 15 feet..
when all of a sudden, the rear wheels came off due to loose screws
and Ray almost did a 'face-plant'.....
but he caught himself after a few steps,, he then quickly turned-around,
looking at the board... then threw his arms up in the air.... in delight""""
the crowd then....
BURST into a uproar of screaming, laughing and clapping
all at the same time....
as the park was now...officially..... ///Christened.

I'm positive, Danny was smiling down, on that bright sunny
day on Venice Beach...just 3 miles down the coast from
where he and his buddies first started skateboarding on the
streets and sidewalks of Pacific Palisades 46 years ago.
Daniel Bearer, is gone, but never, will he be forgotten.

He helped create the foundation of skateboarding,
which will forever be a normal activity around the world.
That......is really something. He made history. Something
only a handful of people have ever done, or will ever do in their lives.
There is only one person, who can claim to be.....
The First International Champion of Skateboarding.....
and that's Danny Bearer........................................................................

R.I.P..........old stick..........................................................r.i.p.
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