Slideshow of my skateboard history in El Paso.

1. My El Paso skateboard history. Sort of.

2. In the beginning, El Paso really didn’t have much for teens to do. Disco was in and cool was long gone!

3. In 1976 I joined the Navy and spent most of my time on the sandy beaches of San Diego. There, I bought a $40 slalom skateboard.

4. After the Navy, I came back to El Paso. My brother dissed my new deck, so I went to a shop to buy a new one. It was there I first saw a 12 year old snot-nosed punk named Jaime Favela.

5. El Paso had Earth Surf,

6. And Desert Surf.

7. This one grom, Jaime, always had to clean Earth Surf. I’d wait till he was finished cleaning to skate. I hated dirty bowls. Thanks Dude!

8. Now he’s got people cleaning his pool so they can skate. Ah, the circle of life.

9. The first ever air at the Worm.

10. Geek at the Lips

11. After the parks were bulldozed, I started BMXing a bit.

12. But I was going daffy

13. One day Jaime wanted to buy an old cruiser bicycle I had. We decided to get together and skate downtown and at some pools. Skating was back on and my future book came from this day on.

14. Soon I was employed by Local’s Only. This was our first contest. Is this dork Angie?

15. I talked the bosses into doing pro demos like the Hell Tour.

16. Hosoi drew over 1,000 people to Three Fountains. It was insanity. Like the Beatles but on skateboards.

17. Skate City was my baby and came after Local’s Only.

18. My first partner sold his share to Peter Sakakini. Skate City was now fully owned by El Pasoans.

19. Kooky freaks like Gabe Salas worked there.

20. We had killer demos.

21. And sticker tosses.

22. We always had pro’s and bands stopping in like Vision pro John Grigley and Poison drummer Rikki Rokkit.

23. Life was good and El Paso ruled. Then my wife and I wanted to go to law school. I thought skateboarding was over, but I’m Baaaccckk!!!

24. Thanks for coming tonight. Please remember, Dog Tacos is about all of you. Each and every one! You are what makes El Paso special.

25. Mario, this is not your mother!

26. The End