This ramp isn't vertical but at 57 years old I was stoked just to get a few runs in!

Part two o the story of KONA Skatepark!

This is a really cool documentary on the history of skateboarding in North Florida.

I was present the day KONA Skatepark opened almost 50 years ago. I was pretty much just a grom at the time, but I was fortunate to have guys like my brother Mitch, George Wilson. Jimmy Plumer and others leading the way as I progressed into a vertical skater. Of course when KONA opened there was no vertical terrain in the park, but in just a few months, as the vertical rage became popularized by Skateboarder Magazine and the Z-Boys of Dogtown, the infamous "Tombstone" was added to the bowl and finally Jacksonville had it's own vertical terrain for us to skate. The Tombstone was six feet of pure vert added to a ten foot deep bowl, with a gnarly kink at the point where it was added, but like with any terrain, skating it every day we learned to handle it. Over time KONA became a breeding ground for future stars and pro skaters and guys like George Wilson and Plumer took full advantage of it, allowing them both to leave for California and make names for themselves skating for the legendary Z-Flex skate line and becoming friends with the likes of Jay Adams, Shogo Kubo, Bob Biniak and all the rest of the original Dogtown crew. Now, going on 50 years later KONA is the oldest surviving skatepark on the planet and is still going strong! https://www.rattownskates.com