H-Street felt like one of those moments when everything suddenly changed.

I owned two H-Street boards during that period. The first was a Ron Allen, followed by a John Schultes.

The Ron Allen was the No Comply model. The graphic showed a cartoony figure doing a no comply over a parking block. He was wearing an unfastened straitjacket, and the background represented a padded room. The pattern of the padded walls had a web-like quality to it, and I picked up on that visually when I designed the grip tape. I cut a large spiderweb pattern out of grip, with a big black widow hanging down toward the tail.

The John Schultes had an odd clown graphic and an unusual pumpkin-orange stain. On that board I cut large clown-like flower shapes out of a muted purple grip tape so the design played off the strange circus feeling of the graphic below. The unusual purple grip on the dark pumpkin orange stain was a different look for sure. Cutting designs into grip tape was becoming part of how I made a board my own.

The timing of those decks was important. I started building my half-pipe on August 11, 1988, and finished it on September 24. I got the Ron Allen only a few weeks later, on October 14. That deck shape was particularly nice for street. Street skating was exploding at the time, but personally I was becoming more serious about ramp and mini-ramp skating. H-Street affected ramp skating just as much as it affected street skating. The videos were full of fresh combinations and ideas, and new trick variations were appearing rapidly.

Matt Hensley was also a huge part of H-Streets influence. His skating mattered, but so did his entire look and attitude. That wallet chain with the keys, the way he carried himself — suddenly there were little versions of Hensley everywhere. H-Street was affecting how people skated, dressed and presented themselves.

Danny Way made the company feel even more immediate to me because I saw him during the early part of his rise. In 1989 I went to watch the Modern Skate pro vert contest in Lansing which was televised by ESPN. Tony Magnusson and Eddie Elguera were there, and Danny, still very young, won the contest. From what I remember it was his first pro win. I had a camera with me and took quite a few photographs that I still have today.

By then I was already riding H-Street and following the company, so watching Danny skate in person made the whole thing feel less distant. H-Street wasn’t just something happening in California on a videotape. Part of it was happening right in front of me.

Looking back, what I remember most is the feeling of acceleration. Skateboarding was still using the large shaped boards of the late 1980s, but the tricks were already pushing beyond them. Street skating was expanding rapidly, ramp skating was becoming more technical, and the boards themselves were beginning to change in response.

H-Street seemed to sit directly in the middle of that transition.