Barbara Ludovise Odanaka’s return to skateboarding as an adult was the ultimate power-move and it was such a privilege to interview her (June 22, 2023) and be the recipient of her story that is so inspiring even with its moments of heartbreak.
Please note that Barb has given me permission to share details of her past which includes reference to childhood sexual abuse by her high school running coach (a teacher twice her age) and may be triggering to some. With Jana Payne as her inspiration, Barb recognized that it was also her time to share. When women call out acts of injustice, instead of harboring shame, we collectively become more courageous and inspire others to do the same. We find comfort, healing, and hope when we know we’re not alone.
Photo: Chuck Hults
Barb was originally from Los Angeles before moving to Newport Beach, Orange County in 4th Grade. She always looked up to her older siblings including a big brother 13 years older who was obsessed with surfing, frequenting spots around Santa Monica and Malibu. While surfing was never her calling, Barb was attracted to the culture and skateboarding became her “in” which all began with a Hobie Super Surfer that she received for Christmas in 1972 at age 10. Barb’s mom kept the receipt decades later, showing that the skateboard was a whooping $7.99 from the Big 5 Sporting Goods Store.
In 1975, Barb and her neighbourhood friends were documented by her friend Dean Bradley while the kids were cruising a local ditch. Barb wears a striped shirt in the back row with four of her female skateboarding buddies, including Denice Cunningham on the left, Barb, then Cindy Laux and Kelly Halligan on her right. Barb said, in her corner of Southern California at least, boys and girls skateboarded together without any issue whatsoever: “We [girls] were completely accepted and respected as equals.” Decades later, Barb said she is “always surprised to hear from other women when they would reminisce about being the only girl…or not being treated the same as the boys.”
Photos: Dean Bradley
When Bradley shared these photos with Barb over Facebook, she practically burst into tears because she wasn’t a professional skater, just a kid in the neighbourhood. “I was just so touched… I had a happy young childhood and that was so special to get those pictures. It was so cool, just that slice of life… It’s not like, oh, here’s a picture of you with your teddy bear or climbing a tree, but, oh my God, somebody has documentation that I actually was in that world, and it was really exciting.”
Barb had a similar experience when pro skateboarder Ed Economy reached out with a photo of Barb when she was part of the amateur Hobie skateboard team at the 3rd Annual Oceanside Championships on August 27th & 28th, 1977. The contest was reported on in the November 1977 issue of the National Skateboard Review – “Barbie Lundvosie” [sic] is named on page 4, placing 2nd behind Pat Hammon and ahead of Kym Milburn, Jana Payne, and Danean Boukather. In Ed’s photo, Barb is wearing her Hobie jersey and holding a plaque or trophy, two down from Milburn in the Bahne jersey.
Photos: Ed Economy
Barb also appeared as part of the Hobie team in the August 1977 issue of Skateboarder magazine within a Hobie ad. Barb remembers trying out for the team in January 1977, and even kept her acceptance letter from February 9, 1977, and her hand-written freestyle routine that she aspired to perform. An article by Hugh Holland in the June 1977 issue of Skateboard World, also covered the Hobie try-outs and included Barb’s name as a successful participant!
Barb competed for only one glorious season, but it signified something special, which any skateboarder finds challenging to explain to someone who hasn’t had this experience. “You know, a lot of people just can’t understand why it’s so fabulous, and I was only in the sport really for a very short time as far as competition, but that represents to me such a pivotal moment in my life” (2023).
Our conversation then shifted to why Barb stopped skateboarding and I soon was able to appreciate the impact of those cherished, youthful photos at a deeper, more personal level.
“It’s actually a sad story. I had only been on the Hobie amateur team for six months or so when my high school cross-country coach said, ‘Well, you know you have to quit skateboarding.’ I remember just being, like ‘What?’ But let’s just say he was very persuasive. I wish I could go back to that moment and shake my little self and say, ‘Don’t let him do that to you!’ And this is something I really haven’t talked publicly about, but that same running coach, who was twice my age and married to our co-coach, began grooming me for what became a sexually abusive relationship. So not only did I lose skateboarding, I lost my innocence as well.”
Even as I transcribe this interview today, my heart just breaks re-reading these words and I’ve burst into tears again. I feel so much rage imagining this person, this adult, in a position of power and influence as a mentor and coach thinking he has the right to dictate one girl’s trajectory and sense of worth. And it’s obviously so much more than just losing a joyful, childlike pursuit of skateboarding, but it is definitely bound together.
Barb continued, “You know, after Jana Payne made her very brave speech to the [Skateboarding] Hall of Fame, I was like ‘Wow!’ – you know? Unfortunately, quite a few women in my own group have dealt with sexual abuse and it’s obviously difficult to talk about and I haven’t really talked about it with too many people. I think that’s why when I came back to skateboarding as an adult it just was that much more meaningful to me… When I first got back on a board, I found one of my Hobie boards and stepped on it and I was suddenly ten years old again.”
Barb’s return to skateboarding is such a triumph and the impact of this decision ended up impacting thousands of other women, partially thanks to her love of writing! Barb always enjoyed writing as a child, such as composing a poem for a Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day card. This passion evolved into a career as she was a reporter and columnist for the Los Angeles Times for almost ten years in the 1980s-90s, plus freelancing for The Times from 1995 to the present.
Skateboarding stayed present on Barb’s mind as indicated by one of her articles from September 8, 1995 in the LA Times, which was a front page feature. It was called, “Behind the Wheels: In the ‘70s, skateboarding was about big hills and simple thrills. A new appreciation for those early days is emerging.” Barb began, “They soared like phantoms through the cool, night air. Gliding down smooth streets, unable to contain their Cheshire cat grins… You could hear them coming from a half-block away. Clicketyclack, clicketyclack, rolling down the sidewalks, riding that imaginary wave.” Fantastic! I just love the playful, descriptive voice that captures the freedom of skateboarding so well.
Barb also had a brief stint working with Jack Smith as the editor of The Skateboarder’s Journal, which resulted in two issues. She contributed to Smith’s book Lives on Board (2009), which includes her essay, “From Skateboard Girl to Skateboard Mom.” That piece shares fun details like how she and her buddies traveled to the 1975 Del Mar Ocean Festival (aka Bahne/Cadillac Nationals) that introduced the Dogtown Z-boys Zephyr Team to the world. Her dad also kindly chauffeured Barb and her friends to the Carlsbad skatepark on occasion in 1976 to both skate and gawk at all the superstars.
There’s a photo of Barb around this time with her “trusty dog, Pucci, who rode with me around the neighborhood on that homemade longboard (made for me by my future brother in law from an old wooden waterski)” [Skateboard Mom Facebook post – April 3, 2011]. Barb rode her own handmade board—made of solid ash in junior high wood shop—when attempting to ride Newport Beach’s gnarliest spot: a steep, rugged reservoir 20-25 feet deep. Her only photo of her skating there (“looking terrified”) was snapped by her brother, Tom. Unfortunately, the photo was lost decades later in a workplace flood.
With motivation from her former editor at the LA Times, who recognized her poetic voice, Barb launched a career as a children’s picture book author which naturally started with a skateboarding theme. At age 35, as a new mom with a colicky baby, Barb was advised by a therapist to pursue an outlet, something that gave her joy before becoming a mom and she instantly thought, “skateboarding!” (Abulhawa).
Returning to skateboarding was still a process, and Barb would later be diagnosed with a disease called hyperparathryroidism that emerged around 2013, that would drain the calcium in Barb’s bones resulting in surgery in 2020 and now osteoporosis at age 60. Barb joked that she would encase herself in bubble-wrap, but obviously this reality was a frustration. There was also a compound fracture of her wrist in 2015—requiring two surgeries and six months of physical therapy. A few days before the second surgery, Barb skated very carefully during a photo shoot for AARP Magazine.
Photos: Dan Hughes, Nicholas Buckminster
And yet, those early days as a new skateboarding mom proved to be 100% positive! In an interview by Dani Abulhawa for GirlSkateUK recorded on December 27th, 2015, Barb shared that her husband bought her a longboard and that’s how it started again. “It was so liberating, and my spirits were lifted, and all those other clichés came true.” A children’s book then emerged where a mom steals her son’s board and goes wild resulting in Skateboard Mom (2004). In reality, Barb’s son had hidden her skateboard, not liking that she wasn’t fully decked out in safety gear, which was funny but unlikely that anyone would believe.
The release of Skateboard Mom prompted Barb to have another fun idea, which was hosting a book launch at a skateboard park, which was essentially the beginning of the Skateboard Mom’s Club as described by Barb for the LA Times on May 7, 2004 in the article, “Mothers are big wheels” and a New York Daily News feature in June 23, 2004 titled, “Mom is a shredder.”
“I was just looking for a creative way to have a book launch party. And you know, most of my author friends were doing things like, meet at the coffee shop or be at the bookstore. And I thought, well my first book was Skateboard Mom, ‘Oh, I should try to just have like a gathering at a skate park. This was 2004, you know it’s putting flyers up and I figured like three or four people who said they would come, and then all of a sudden it was getting bigger, and I mean not huge, but I think 19 women ended up showing!” (2023). Even the legendary Liz Bevington at age 80 showed up and rolled down the ramp with a disco Saturday Night Fever boogie.
And the group quickly expanded, evolving into a proper crew and non-profit organization called “Skateboard Moms & The Sisters of Shred,” which simultaneously supports older women to take-up skateboarding, and hosts an annual fundraiser on Mother’s Day called “The Mighty Mama Skate-O-Rama,” which will be celebrating 20 years in 2024 at Laguna Niguel skatepark in Orange County, CA!
The Mother’s Day skateboard events (aka MMSOR) also served to honour a female skateboarding legend in history like Patti McGee, Deanna Calkins, Vicki Vickers, Ellen Oneal, Ellen Berryman, Robin Logan, Laura Thornhill, Judi Oyama, Cara-beth Burnside, Gale Webb, Lynn Kramer, Di Dootson, among others, which was an idea that emerged in 2007. Barb noticed that the Skateboard Hall of Fame was only inducting one or two token women each year. “I understand how it works – you can only have so many people, so I thought, ‘Let’s start honouring women of skateboarding!’” (2023).
The impact of these gatherings has inspired so many women, whether they are moms, sisters, aunties, or grandmothers (even one great-grandmother!) to try skateboarding! And reading through blogs like the Mighty Mama Skate-O-Rama and The Skateboard Moms, and the posts on their Facebook groups, the sense of joy, community, and accomplishment truly resonates!
Skateboarding has so often pegged as a youthful pursuit that for years it was almost taboo to be closing in on your thirties and still skating. Barb and her friends have absolutely annihilated those stereotypes. On October 4, 2007 when the crew was on a roadtrip, there’s a post called “Another Woman Who Skates,” that reads: “It’s UNREAL the difference it makes to find another woman who skates… How liberating! It’s such a powerful feeling.”
And then the group was catapulted into the limelight! In the February / March 2016 issue of AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) magazine, an article was released celebrating Barb and several participants, including Stevie Vanguard, Amy (Pike) Bradshaw, Tamra Bowman, Claudia Hoag, Eva Armanto, Teresa McCabe, and Sandra Serna.
Photos: Gregg Segal
There was also a video released simultaneously called “Skateboarding in Her 50s and Killing It,” which has now racked up over 3.6 million views and really put the group on the map! I remember watching it myself, before returning to skateboarding in my early 40s and feeling inspired:
Newspapers articles and media features soon followed such as the front-page feature “Onboard with Advocacy” for the Laguna Niguel News and “ ‘Roll’ models: Mighty Mama Skate-O-Rama raises funds to fight human trafficking” in the Orange County Register in May 2016. And there’s a fantastic article in Juice Magazine from May 11, 2018 that celebrates the event and history in anticipation of the 15th MMSOR among hundreds of other news outlets like Good Morning America, The Early Show, CNN, USA Today, and NPR.
Barb acknowledged that her fundraising focus with the Mighty Mama Skate-O-Rama shifted over the years. The Mother’s Day event raises funds for children’s charities, sometimes literacy-related like for a library or “Miracles for Kids” to support children afflicted by cancer or life-threatening diseases, but for the past five or six years the recipients are children rescued from human trafficking with proceeds going to the OC Human Trafficking Task Force (now known as Waymakers). “We were putting on some skate clinics for the kids rescued from trafficking when it hit me: Maybe there’s a reason I chose this particular outreach as our cause. Not that I was trafficked, but these children had been sexually abused, and I think I was just coming to terms with my own abuse at that time” (2023).
While Barb’s running coach made her abandon skateboarding, “it’s just that much more meaningful getting back on that board. It was like reclaiming my innocence… I’m sorry to bring that dark cloud over it, but I think it’s important to start talking about it. Every time I hear another woman tell her story, I just feel like, ‘It’s time I start telling mine.”
Photos: Lorrie Palmos, Facebook collection (including 2016 “security bust”!)
I am so grateful for this opportunity to connect with Barb and that she trusted me with such an important aspect of her story. Sometimes those dark clouds are needed to see that incredible contrast of radiant sunshine when someone like Barb transforms a painful experience into something monumental like the Mighty Mamas, which has impacted not just 100s of women but 1000s, including millions of viewers online! Dang!!!! She brought the beauty and freedom of skateboarding she experienced as a child and repurposed it for any woman to pursue, whether one is returning to it later in life or bravely initiating herself as an adult.
Please visit Barb’s website and track down copies of her delightful books (currently there are four titles available for purchase). For her second book, A Crazy Day at the Critter Café you can see in promotional photos and videos of Barb presenting her work as the joyous Skateboard Cow just how much fun skateboarding brings her. She’s in school classes rocking a hilarious outfit, performing demos, having a blast! There are even photos of Barb with a very young Bryce Wettstein, the skateboarding Olympian known for her own unique style at a school demo, proving that the range of her impact is old and young!
Making a small difference in children’s lives is the core aspect of Barb’s skateboarding career that she is most proud of. Thank you, Barb, for all that you’ve done.
A special reminder that 2024 will be the Mighty Mama’s 20th Anniversary skateboarding event, and it would be amazing to get a solid crew out to celebrate!!
Photos: Chuck Hults, Dan Hughes, Dean Bradley, Donna Wettstein, Ed Economy, Gregg Segal, Ken Hada, Lorrie Palmos, Nicholas Buckminster.
References:
- Abulhawa, Dani. “‘Crack on Wheels’: Barbara Odanaka – ‘Skateboard Moms & Sisters of Shred.’” GirlSkateUK.com. December 27, 2015.
- Odanaka, Barb. “Behind the Wheels: In the ‘70s, skateboarding was about big hills and simple thrills. A new appreciation for those early days is emerging.” Los Angeles Times. September 8, 1995.
- Odanaka, Barb. “From Skateboard Girl to Skateboard Mom.” Lives on Board: The Skateboarder’s Journal. Morro Skateboard Group, Morro Bay (2009), pp. 296-298.
- Odanaka, Barb. Personal Interview. June 22, 2023.
Womxn Skateboard History 