The primary difference between those old skates and modern skates and skateboards is the late-70s-early-80s application of the neoprene wheel. Those wheels have so much more traction than the old “sandpaper” type wheels it’s not even funny. That’s an even bigger change than the other thing it enabled, which is in-line skates. You could not have done a fraction of the tricks, and not even to the same level for ones you could still do, with those older types of wheels.

Neoprene also made the bumps and cracks less disruptive. I don’t recall (as I was never a skateboarder) if those older skateboards had variable trucks (i.e., the individual pair of rollers had “play” in them, so you could angle the board readily while still keeping full contact with the ground) but I bet the newer neoprene ones were far more adjustable, which is relevant if you’re learning, as you can tighten them to make it easier to learn how to balance. Modern ones have a fat screw on the truck to allow you to tighten it down.

I had a friend decide he was going to go down a long, long hill on his skateboard. After he got up above a certain speed, the trucks became far more wobbly and he wiped out, leaving some serious road rash as he fell into some small gravel (think “Grape Nuts”, if you can remember those). He was picking gravel out of his skin two weeks later. :-/

60s and 70s were good, too… kids were still free-range. I had rules when I was 10, but by the time I was 12 I was pretty much on my own… if i was going to be gone long, I had to leave a note, other than that my time was my own, and my limit was mainly how far I wanted to ride a bike.

I had sense enough to stay off the “bad” roads that didn’t have a place for a bike — but those were unusual (most streets had streetside parking areas, so you just had to dodge cars briefly or use the sidewalk), or, alternately, there was a nearby neighborhood on most of them that allowed me to go the same direction but stay off the main road. But going 2 miles or more on a bike wasn’t atypical.

https://amgreatness.com/author/roger-kimball/

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2022/09/18/exclusive-venezuela-empties-prisons-sends-violent-criminals-to-u-s-says-dhs-report/

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/09/will-united-states-nato-wake-happened-meeting-shanghai-cooperation-organization/

https://twitter.com/TomWrightAsia/status/1571802632452472833

I imagine that this was not an easy article for him to write…
It looks like the scales may have—finally—fallen from the eyes….

“Biden Again Vows US Forces Would Defend Taiwan If China Invades”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-again-vows-us-forces-would-defend-taiwan-if-china-invades

Key Word Salad:
‘…when asked whether American forces would defend the self-ruled island if it came under Chinese military invasion…[Biden said]… “Yes, if, in fact, there was an unprecedented attack…”…’

“…IF, IN FACT, THERE WAS AN UNPRECEDENTED ATTACK…”

Savor that one.
Roll it around the tongue.
(And then ask yourself, how long until Webster’s-Merriam decides to redefine “unprecedented”….)