Young Obama ripping it at Mt Eden Ramp...when he came to Aotearoa on a skateboarding trip in the late 70's with his parents who were itinerant academics. My friends and I were hanging at Malborough Park building a plywood addition to the otherwise lame bowl at the bottom of the council-built first-in-NZ skatepark when he arrived. Dressed in a Hawaiian-style OP silky shirt, with purple shorts and knee-high yellow Adidas socks slotted into white vans, and topped off with a cheeky 'fro - Obama stood out. Skate-Hendrix. He jumped on his yellow G&S flexi-board with Gull Wing trucks and Road Rider wheels and carved the bowl seductively in a low-slung Bertleman style.....
...Ok....I obviously made that up. The photo [and description] above is actually of a Maori fella from Whakatane called Elroy Ainsley. Elroy really was stylish, rocked a mean 'fro and was a hard-out rad skater, but from photos I have seen of Obama in his teen years in Hawaii, dressed in OP shirts, or with a 'fro as per this photo...
..he could easily have been someone the world once knew, went to school with, played basketball with or borrowed a push bike from. And that is what makes Barack Obama unique, and his victory yesterday all the more special. At long last, someone we can all relate to. Someone the world feels comfortable with is finally behind the desk in the manager's office.And the people have spoken. The people put him there.
