I recently read some things^** about this backyard vert contest series back in the early eighties. "I remember my brothers coming back from the contest, telling me stories about the level of skating that they saw going down. One thing I recall them being struck by was that Tom Groholski actually stood up on his frontside grinds - it was the first standup grind they had seen." It expanded their notions of what is possible.

Witnessing a particular person riding a skateboard can open doors in the mind, especially at a certain time, in the context of skateboarding's path, and your own personal progression. I mean it's one thing to see someone like Danny Way or Bob Burnquist blast an eighty-five thousand foot rodeo flip out of a helicopter on to a sixty-five foot landing ramp and through a hot wheels loop. That tells you that anything's possible...for someone else. But when it's one of the guys you work with, or your neighbor, or someone you go to school with, then it's so much more graspable. Within reach. A fella named Sebastian Nichols knocked the doors in my mind off their hinges.

This is a compilation of pictures by and of Sebastian Nichols. This is not a eulogy, he's living the good life right now in Hawaii.

The first time I witnessed back to back airs, inverts, full on vert skating, in person, I was amazed and inspired. There was certainly more to it than what I'd seen in videos and magazines. It was real. Everything seemed all the more possible yet all the more challenging and difficult. I still have a good feeling about the crew that sessioned that day (and the Summer that followed). Sebastian stood out in the pack. Every skater that rode with him that Summer will attest to that, and has. Sebastian skated in a way that can never be surpassed in my mind. His style was fluid yet sketchy. He did things like floaty frontside ollies across the whole ramp, smacking them to tail less than 4 feet from the edge, sliding, and riding it out, just barely staying on the ramp. His style could be described as "loose footed;" the sound of his wheels bonking off the coping was audible above the Slayer and Metallica blaring from the jam box. He would do a lofty backside ollie, right up in our faces, and at the last second, with his nose pointed downward, on the descent, grab the board and make it an indy air. Someone would mention a lip trick and he would stick it, first try. He was having so much fun, laughing all the way. It was contagious.

You learn in Junior High or Elementary School that there are people out there that build themselves up by cutting you down. The friends that I grew up with, started skating with, and I were pretty competitive. The same was true of the first skaters I met upon leaving my hometown. There was no competing with Sebastian. He was the best and anyone could and did see that — out of towners that came to check out the ramp, girls that I brought from the city, and the kids that lived in the neighborhood. The coolest thing is he never seemed to let it go to his head. Sebastian actually made me feel better about myself just by being around him. I mean he would get impatient like with my incessant repetitive questioning, I was so naive and nerdy, but I think he found that entertaining or something. Plus we had this common thread, our roots in Massachusetts, distinguishing us from everyone around us in their home state of Pennsylvania. Even in the simple lifestyle of college kid skaters, we were somewhat more sophisticated or cultured, or just the product of a different geographic place. Building on that, Sebastian showed me the good life, the real skateboard life. That can mean different things to any skater.

He'd encourage me, tell me when I was being a pussy, and pick me up off the flat bottom when I'd slam, handing me my glasses which often went flying. When I stuck my first 50-50 Seb started jumping around, cheering, and knocked me off my skateboard out of sheer joy. He said he'd seen so many kids kill themselves doing that trick the first time, he was psyched for me to make it unscathed. Sebastian was the superstar in our crew, the coach, and the iconoclast. It was way more fun, he would say, to loft an air right next to the keg, where all the girls were standing, than it was to get sponsored or win a contest. He's the only vert skater I've met that's said he preferred when it was dead, underground, as vert skating was in the early 90s.

Sebastian lives far away so we don't get to session too often these days. Digging through the photo archives reminded me that I've been holding on to some of his stuff for a while. Seb's an amazing photographer. Of course he took to surfing (and snowboarding, gardening, you name it) in no time. He's a natural at anything he puts his mind to. So for these and many other reasons, shared philosophies, perspectives, memories of epic sessions and road trips, Sebass plays a big part in why this zine exists. It makes sense then, to feature a compilation of pictures by and of Sebastian Nichols. Mahalo Seb.    More and More

^**Britt Parrot is one of the writers that made TWS what it was in the late eighties. He's built a killer site that documents Eastern backyard vert contests and the zine scene that sparked them. The quote in the first paragraph above is from Sinofact.