Citizens with seniority!
Jan Ascanio

Within the subculture of skateboarding they are not senior citizens --

they are citizens with seniority.

The days of stealing plywood are over: Florida’s old school skaters are no longer boys – they are men. They are fathers. They’ve experienced divorce and are now businessmen with responsibilities. Some of them even have grey hair.

Times have changed since the 1970s, but skateboarding, the unifying element amongst them, remains the same.

Nestled in a warehouse in Hollywood, Florida, they meet. Tuesday and Wednesday nights aren’t spent at home watching television or out at the bar betting on football. They’re spent at “OllieWood,” their training ground. Besides, there is always plenty of beer at the warehouse.

From the outside of the warehouse you can’t see anything. It is simply a parking lot in front of a couple blue doors. But upon entering, one could easily be confused. The first door leads to another door, which leads to a room filled with boxes stacked one on top of another with an old grey Mercedes from 1980s keeping them company. But the sound of loud punk music signals the way. A black wooden staircase of about twenty-five steps leads you up to OllieWood: A mammoth wooden bowl sculpted like a large swimming pool.

Your eyes are astonished.

Aesthetically, the bowl is spectacular. Imagine a gigantic bowl, the kind of bowl used to serve gluttonous servings of pasta – on steroids – with the transitions similar to oceanic waves. The surface of the bowl is covered with Skatelite, a wooden-like finish that is specifically designed for ramps. Skatelite appears like the wood used in roller rinks, but is a lot smoother. And it looks so damn clean.

OllieWood is owned by Alan “Ollie” Gelfand. Not only is he the owner of the warehouse, but he is a legend in the world of skateboarding. At least to those who know him. “I’m the most famous person nobody knows,” said Gelfand.

Gelfand invented a trick known to the skateboard world as the “Ollie.” He invented the trick in the mid 1970s and with the help of his friends, named it. A local of Hollywood, Florida, Alan used his hometown’s name and his own trick, with a small linguistic variance, to name his bowl: OllieWood.

Nowadays, the “Ollie” is essential to skateboarding. And with help from his fiancé, it is has become a legitimate word in the English language as it was inaugurated into the Oxford’s English dictionary earlier this year.

“In street skating, you have to do the ollie for every trick. Once you’re in the Oxford you never go out,” said 41-year-old Gelfand.

An old time friend of Gelfand purchased the warehouse and they decided to build the bowl. The bowl is worth more than $80,000. But according to Gelfand, making a profit was never an objective. He explains that “this wasn’t a money making thing,” but rather just a place to skate.

The story behind the construction of the bowl is similar to a theological tale of great feats. Gelfand explains that the original plan entailed 7 men working for 7 days with plans on skating on the 7th day. Sound familiar?

Well, it didn’t happen. It eventually took fourteen days with 7 guys working twelve hour shifts. The construction is solid – everything is interlocked and reinforced by two inch screws. OllieWood is going nowhere.

OllieWood is forty-eight feet long and ten-and-a-half feet high. The top of the ramp is very close to the roof. In parts of the warehouse, it is impossible to walk around. You have to duck your head to avoid the concrete beams on the roof of the warehouse. And directly across from the seating area, which is a couple of grey couches and metal chairs, is the word “OllieWood” spray-painted onto the surrounding white wall. Upon asking around for different interpretations of what OllieWood represents, the idea of perfection is echoed throughout the room.

“The ramp is perfect,” explains Alejandro Ventura, 38, from the Dominican Republic. Another OllieWood local agrees. Compared to what they used to skate, OllieWood is as close to perfection as it gets. “This bowl is so perfect,” said 40-year-old web developer Charlie Lillo. “It cradles you when you fall – but you can still get wrecked,” said Lillo as his own comment made him laugh. “Back when we were skaters we’d skate ramps with paint and resin. We’d have guys going to the emergency room with eight inch splinters in their legs,” said Lillo as my questions sparked up nostalgia in his eyes. For others, the bowl represents something different. It represents a release from restriction, and a release from those days of being broke with no money and no where to skate a ramp.

“This bowl represents freedom. When you’re out there doing your thing you don’t think about anything else but what you’re doing. This for me is like mixing a band – it’s all on you,” said 39-year-old sound engineer Roger Di Lorenzo.

“It’s skateboarders getting older who can afford to build this now,” said 39-year-old Kurt Bodenschatz. “This isn’t 1982 anymore, I don’t want ramps in the forest,” said Bodenschatz. It is a busy Tuesday night. Small clusters of men – no women – stand around the edges of the bowl, eyes focused on the solo skater rolling throughout the bowl. The sound of loud music is muffled by those skating the bowl; the urethane wheel gripping the Skatelite surface of ramp creates a deep hum that echoes throughout the entire warehouse; their quick lines around the corners of the bowl are similar to race cars fighting for position at the Daytona 500. With helmets strapped on, skateboards under their feet and pads over their knees and elbows, they wait. Everyone skates the bowl by themselves. The bowl is large, but in order to avoid collisions only one skater enters the bowl at a time. There are no teammates in this sport, but loud cheers accompanied by applause are a common gesture amongst the skaters.

“This isn’t a team sport, but you can’t be selfish. You have to encourage everyone,” said Di Lorenzo.

OllieWood’s locals are a team. Although they do not wear a jersey or uniforms of any kind, they skate together.

“Skateboarding is an individual sport,” said 39-year-old Chris Griffiths, who has been skating for about twenty-five years. “We’re all friends. In other sports you play against each. We cheer each other -- that is what makes it different,” said Griffith, as he swallows a mouth full of Corona-Lite and stares into the bowl.

With most skaters at OllieWood between the ages of 35-45, there is a lot of room for injury. But what there is even more room for is criticism. There are those who find skateboarding simply childish and overtly dangerous. And while practicing the sport as an adult may seem stupid to some, the OllieWood boys may have found the fountain of youth: skateboarding.

“My wife thinks it’s a mid-life crisis. She doesn’t like the fact that I’m here 3 nights a week, but she is getting used to it,” said Griffiths.

But the kids who watch Griffith skate have no idea about relationships, they just stare in awe. “The kids look up to you and respect you,” said Griffiths, taking a swig from his beer as a Bodenschatz’s German Shepard dips his long tongue into the cooler. Gelfand, the owner of the warehouse, has some advice for his older comrades. “I tell the older people, you have to lose weight and you have to stretch. The number one injury we have is pulled muscles,” said Gelfand. Others at OllieWood never thought in a million years they’d still be skating.

“At 15 and 16, I could’ve never thought I’d still be skating. I’m 40 years old and I’m in better shape than most 20 year olds. Some skaters call it the fountain of youth,” said Bodenschatz.

Upon entering Olliewood, it may appear to be just another skate-park. But that is an illusion. OllieWood is home to a lot of skateboarding history: skaters from the 70’s, stories from the past, fathers teaching sons and the inventor of the “Ollie.” But most importantly, it is a brotherhood; it is a culture that has taken a lot of hard work to earn its respect from athletes around the world. According to Ventura, preservation is key.

“I don’t want the culture to die. If the culture dies, a piece of you dies with it.”