{"id":7858,"date":"2011-02-01T00:37:30","date_gmt":"2011-02-01T00:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/?p=7858"},"modified":"2022-06-07T21:40:21","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T04:40:21","slug":"tom-groholski-and-robert-groholski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/tom-groholski-and-robert-groholski\/","title":{"rendered":"TOM GROHOLSKI AND ROBERT GROHOLSKI"},"content":{"rendered":"

INTERVIEW BY JIM MURPHY<\/strong>
\nINTRODUCTION BY JIM MURPHY<\/strong>
\nPHOTOS BY ROBERT GROHOLSKI<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was growing up in the ’70s, skateboarding was viewed by the majority of people as a trend for kids that really wouldn’t culminate into anything as prosperous as the organized sports of the day. It was viewed as something the outcasts did. Tom’s family was different. Once Tom’s dad, who we called Mr G., saw how much Tom was into it and saw the sessions go down at Cherry Hill, Apple Skatepark, all the late ’70s California parks and Kona skatepark, he knew that something seriously fun and new was going down and he would travel anywhere to keep his son going in skateboarding. He and his wife even gave up their backyard to put up a big plexiglass vert ramp for Tom and his friends to session all day long! Mr. G. also got into film and photography and was able to capture a lot of classic sessions along the way. I was really honored to hang with Tom and his family, ride his backyard ramp and road trip with the kind of dad I only wished I had. They did so much for Tom and all his friends, and gave all of us some of the greatest memories of our lives! Thank you Groholski family for all your personal sacrifice, for letting us crank Metallica\u00a0Kill ‘Em All\u00a0at 10, and for having the most fun and hardcore Jersey backyard ramp scene back in the day! It\u2019s amazing what one family can do for so many skaters!<\/p>\n

\n

“Lucky for us, all the parks were close to the shore so the family had stuff to do while we were skateboarding. They could drop us off and pick us up and sometimes they would hang around and watch for a while. My dad got involved with photography from driving us to Cherry Hill and Monster Bowl. He would hang out and watch and play video games and shoot photos.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

TOM GROHOLSKI interview by JIM MURPHY<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s start at the beginning because this is all about your dad and you. Do you remember what year you first got your first board?<\/strong>
\nI would say it was like \u201877. That was my first good board.<\/p>\n

How stoked was your dad on skateboarding?<\/strong>
\nHe was pretty enthused. He was really supportive of anything that his kids did. He was just stoked that I finally found something to focus on.<\/p>\n

Your dad was into photography back then too.<\/strong>
\nHe always documented stuff, but he really started focusing on it once he had some time to hang out at the skatepark.<\/p>\n

Do you remember the first time he took you to a skatepark?<\/strong>
\nThe Fyber Ryder was the first one.<\/p>\n

Had your dad ever seen half pipe riding before?<\/strong>
\nNo. That was basically our introduction to it. Lucky for us, all the parks were close to the shore so the family had stuff to do while we were skateboarding. They could drop us off and pick us up and sometimes they would hang around and watch for a while. My dad got involved with photography from driving us to Cherry Hill and Monster Bowl. He would hang out and watch and play video games and shoot photos.<\/p>\n

I know a lot of our fathers didn\u2019t seem to be as into it as your dad was. You had about three or four guys that would come with you.<\/strong>
\nIt was all the neighborhood kids that skated. Their folks weren\u2019t too enthused. They were shuffling their kids off. I don\u2019t know if they saw any kind of future in skateboarding. I don\u2019t think they were as interested in their kids. Maybe they were just too busy with their own lives to get involved. My dad embraced all of our friends as family and I think they\u2019ve continued to do that for all of us. It\u2019s really cool.<\/p>\n

What did he think of the punk scene you were getting into?<\/strong>
\nHe was like, \u201cYou\u2019re against everything.\u201d I just wanted to go skateboarding and listen to aggro music. That music was encouraging us to get more aggro. I think he thought it was anti social behavior. He wasn\u2019t too stoked on that, but it was just our way of being in our own world.<\/p>\n

In the heyday of Cherry Hill, was he encouraging you to get sponsored?<\/strong>
\nNot really. The only beef I ever really got from him was when he said, \u201cI didn\u2019t bring you here to skate the kiddie section. I want you to go skate the big pools with the good guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Did he bust your balls about that?<\/strong>
\nHe just saw me wasting my time. He knew that to improve I had to ride with better skaters. He said, \u201cLook at all this other stuff.\u201d He was seeing all the pro guys coming through and seeing the progress of the local rippers. I was stoked on the push, or the kick in the ass. I was stoked on improving.<\/p>\n

How did you get a Plexi-glass ramp in your backyard? Where did that come from?<\/strong>
\nThat was from Skateboard City in Staten Island. We got that in \u201881 because they were closing and they were going to scrap it. We put that up in the yard, and that enabled us to keep skating through the dark period of skateboarding when there were no parks.<\/p>\n

Did you just ask your dad if you could put a halfpipe up? Was there much argument to it?<\/strong>
\nNo. There wasn\u2019t any real argument. They sacrificed their yard for a long time and I really appreciate it. I\u2019ve always been fortunate enough to have a ramp. This one spanned the whole yard and hung over the garages.<\/p>\n

I know. It was sick!<\/strong>
\nWe were definitely stoked on having a big ramp to ride. I think ramps really helped skateboarding progress.<\/p>\n

Did your parents catch any flack from the neighbors?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There were people trying to get petitions together in the neighborhood, but they were just being old grouchy people. A lot of the neighborhood kids would come by and they would get stoked on skateboarding. It kept them focused on something cool.<\/p>\n

I remember in college going over to that ramp because Cherry Hill closed.\u00a0What was your dad\u2019s reaction to Cherry Hill getting closed? Did he see it coming or was he as blown away as we all were?<\/strong><\/p>\n

He was just as surprised as we all were. We went there for a session and the doors were just locked and everything was emptied out. He tried to lease it before it was bulldozed for a private last couple of sessions, but it never happened. I guess the timing was off.<\/p>\n

It was all done.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. That was a punch for the gut for every skateboarder man in the area.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t believe it.<\/strong>So having that ramp in your backyard, did your dad foresee you turning pro? Was he trying to push you to go pro?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. None of that was going on. Towards the end of Cherry Hill, we were all starting to progress and having the park taken out from under our feet was a huge blow. The ramp was basically a continuation of that to stay. There was no future in skateboarding at that point.<\/p>\n

I remember when you would throw contests back there. Did you have to go talk to your neighbors or did you guys just barge it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We barged it. All the surrounding neighbors were pretty cool. The neighbors up the street were bummed, but we just charged it and had a contest and it was pretty crowded. It was cool. It was in the middle of the day so everything was cool. I don\u2019t know what people were thinking. The only time they would get bummed is when a board would shoot over the fence and hit their car or something. Besides that, they were all really cool.<\/p>\n

I remember that first road trip I took with you guys. We drove all the way down to Kona.<\/strong>I was like, \u201cMr. Groholski rules.\u201d It was so surreal because skateboarding was absolutely dead and he was still down to road trip.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. That was a pretty heavy thing. It definitely broadened our horizons. That\u2019s where we started seeing like-minded people that were still into it. It was cool.<\/p>\n

There are all those black and white shots that your dad took of Craig Johnson. When you see those shots, what does that remind you of as far as your dad being there?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was just great. Those dudes were way radder then we were at that point and seeing the Texans was really cool. Those guys were above and beyond and early and gnarly. Having dad there was great. The fact that he cared enough to take us there and document it all is awesome. There are no words to really describe how cool that is.<\/p>\n

Do you think he realized what the scene was and how gnarly it was for him to be there and to shoot photos? Was he as stoked as we were to be there?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think so. He was on a different level, but it was cool.\u00a0He had this group of kids, which was really unique. There weren\u2019t a whole lot of parents doing it.<\/p>\n

The shots that he took are quality shots.<\/strong>Were there any photographers that he looked up to? Would Friedman ever come over to your place?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We would bring Glen to Jami\u2019s\u00a0house and we would see him around different places, like Cherry Hill. As far as influences go, you would have to ask my dad.<\/p>\n

I just think it\u2019s rad. You had that half pipe in your backyard and your dad is taking photos. What was it like when he started seeing you get into the mags and you got sponsored and got your Vision Jersey Devil Deck? How stoked was he on that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

He was pretty stoked. He would just laugh and smile and be stoked and give me the thumbs up. It was pretty rad.<\/p>\n

Did he ever try to give you advice on your pro career? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Here and there he would give me advice, but for the most part it was, \u201cGo do your thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

How long did the ramp stay there because I know you were on the road a lot?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. I lived in Texas for a while and it was still there. We had ramps for 15 years. No one skated it when we were gone.<\/p>\n

When was the date that it had to get taken down?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I would say \u201888 or \u201889.<\/p>\n

Why did you guys have to take it down?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Basically, I wasn\u2019t living there so they wanted their yard back. [Laughs]<\/p>\n

Was that tough for you? <\/strong><\/p>\n

No. It had seen it\u2019s day. It was pretty outdated as far as the dimensions go and the shape it was in. You couldn\u2019t really improve it anymore than it was. It had a good last session on it.<\/p>\n

Who was at that last session?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was a couple of local boys from PA, like TZ, Bill Rogers\u00a0and a couple of their buddies. They said, \u201cWe\u2019ll help you take it down and skate it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where did you guys take it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We took all the plywood off and scrapped the rest because it was so holey. It had so many holes drilled in it and it was waterlogged. It was sad to see it go.<\/p>\n

Was that gnarly pool coping still up there?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. I still have a block outside of our garage here. The rest of it was cracked up. It had seen its day. I\u2019m super blessed to have had it for as long as we did. It was cool.<\/p>\n

Is there anything you would like to say to people about your dad?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m just stoked. Everything is super cool. I couldn\u2019t be happier to have an encouraging family. It\u2019s been incredible, so thanks to them, and thanks to you, and thanks to Juice<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Right on. What are the possibilities of getting your dad on the phone?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pretty good, man. He\u2019s sitting right here. [Laughs]<\/p>\n

——–<\/p>\n

BOB GROHOLSKI interview by JIM MURPHY<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Hey, Mr. Groholski. What\u2019s the word, man?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thunderbird. You know that?<\/p>\n

[Laughs] I know it well my friend.<\/strong><\/p>\n

How are you doing?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m doing great. Tom sent us all these killer shots and I\u2019ve always told people about how you were the top of the line skate dad. So I wanted to talk to you about the backyard ramp that you guys had in Jersey. What did you think when Tom first started skating and you started going to all those Jersey skateparks. What did you think of skateboarding?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I thought it was something that they wanted to prove themselves. They didn\u2019t want to play team sports and compete against anybody else. They wanted to compete against themselves. This was one way that they could do it that. They could see how far they could push themselves. That was always a component of seeing how far you could go. They were competing against each other and trying to come up with new tricks. One of the things I\u2019ve found is that I\u2019ve learned by looking back on what I did wrong in life. So that\u2019s why I started taking movies and pictures of them when we would go to a park. I would take movies, get them developed and before they would go again we would look at them so they could see what they did wrong and how they could improve themselves. That\u2019s how it started. Then we got into the 4-H and picked up some of their insurance. We used to have meetings at my house once a month and we had people in to talk to them about diet and exercises they should do before skating. It was just anything to help them improve themselves in doing something they wanted to do.<\/p>\n

Could you explain to people what 4-H<\/strong>is for people who don\u2019t know?<\/strong><\/p>\n

4-H is something that is throughout the nation. It teaches people how to raise cows or raise a lamb or want to learn the right way to teach their kids or care for an animal. 4-H is camaraderie, education and learning. It\u2019s the one thing I always felt kids should do. The other thing I found is that kids don\u2019t like to always do things alone. They like to have somebody say, \u201cHey, see this what I just did.\u201d Then the other one will say, \u201cGreat. Did you see what I just did?\u201d They egg each other on to see if they can get better.<\/p>\n

So you saw skateboarding as the perfect mix for something like that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

True. Not everybody wants to go out and be a football player. Not everyone likes to play basketball. If you grew up in the city, there is no place to go play tennis, but yet there are places where you could put a board up against a curb and skate.<\/p>\n

What was it like being an adult with a lot of skaters that came over and hung out and skated at your place? Were there any concerns on the parents\u2019 part about the skateboarding culture?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. Most of the time, the people would drop the kids off in front of the house and drive off before the kids got to the sidewalk. So I took kids with me to Cherry Hill. I took them to the shore. I took them to Somers Point. I took one kid to Apple Skateboard Park. The father dropped the kid off in front of my house with a suitcase in hand and drove off. He was too busy with his own life to worry about even coming and shaking my hand. He just said, \u201cHey, you\u2019re taking my kid for a week and a half.\u201d We were just babysitters. To tell you the truth, it didn\u2019t bother me because I figured the kids wanted to belong with somebody and we were the place for that to happen. I know you were at the house when we had contests there. We had one picture and we started counting the people and there were 147 people in our backyard. Can you believe that? We had 17 kids sleep in the house that night because they said, \u201cWhere can we get a room?\u201d I said, \u201cYou can sleep here. Put your sleeping bag under the piano, by the couch, on the couch, whatever.\u201d I gave my wife and daughter money to go to a motel so they wouldn\u2019t be going nuts with all the noise in the house.<\/p>\n

What did your wife and other kids think about the skateboarding thing and how it took over the backyard?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, the kids enjoyed it as much as anybody else. I remember days when it would be raining, and the small kids would put on their bathing suits, climb up on top of the ramp and slide down using frisbees as seats.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Sick!<\/strong><\/p>\n

I remember them going up there when it would snow. They would try sliding down it, and get halfway down, but the snow wasn\u2019t packed yet so they had to crawl their way down. I also remember times when Tom would go there and spend four hours shoveling the snow off the ramp so he could skate it the next day.<\/p>\n

What did you think of that? That was pretty hardcore, huh?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, yeah. He loved it and that\u2019s one of the reasons we built the first ramp. There was a motel down on Route 1 and they had a fire. They had a marquee over the top that was curved. They knocked it down when they were fixing the place. I stopped and said, \u201cWhat are you going to do with that?\u201d The guy says, \u201cWell, we\u2019re going to take it to the dump.\u201d I said, \u201cSuppose I pick them up. When can I pick them up?\u201d They said, \u201cIn three days.\u201d So in three days I was there with a dump truck. We picked them up and brought them home. I cut them with a saw. I started the nails. I held it up in the air while my wife drove the nails. That was the first ramp we had in the backyard.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Nice. That\u2019s hardcore.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get any more hardcore then that. Can you picture us driving nails? We ended up giving that ramp to one of the kids in East Brunswick.\u00a0<\/strong>He set it up in his yard. We had it for about two years and then we took it apart because we got the Fyber Ryder. So we set up the Fyber Ryder in the yard and then we ended up going to New York on Highland Boulevard and we got the Lexon Ramp. We set parts of that up going the other way. I don\u2019t know if you ever saw the picture in Kona Magazine where they had a ghost ramp and that was the Fyber Ryder Ramp going across and then we had a section of the Highland Park. It was from Highland Drive in Staten Island. That went over the top. I took a photo of it and then when I was fooling around in my dark room. I took the slide and made a picture and they called it a ghost ramp because it was a positive negative.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s killer, Mr. G. Were you really heavily into photography or did you get more into it with the skateboarding thing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Originally, I started taking pictures to show the kids what they looked like. I wasn\u2019t into photography that much before that. I had movie cameras and I took pictures when I was in the service and in Japan, China or California or Mexico. I started taking movies and pictures of the kids so they could see what they look like. Then they got excited about it. I remember one time we took a trip down to Kona and we were down there for four days and I shot 700 pictures. When I came back up and everyone would go to sleep, I would go down into the darkroom and start developing and enhancing. I had a shoebox full of pictures that I sent down to Kona. I said, \u201cI don\u2019t know who these kids are but I took at least three pictures of every kid down there that was skating. It turns out that one of them turned pro. I got the first elevated drop and he made it. I got a sequence of it. I had five shots of him. Kona put out a magazine a couple months later and they had 37 of my pictures in it. They didn\u2019t even send me a magazine though.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] They owe. Call Marty Ramos right now. He owes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Laughs] I ended up getting a copy and my wife started cutting the pictures out to put them in an album. I was saying, \u201cWait a minute. Why are you doing that? I already have the negatives. I could make prints.\u201d So I have the cut up magazine anyway.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Did you get into skateboard photographers? Did you look atFriedman\u2019s stuff or anybody else\u2019s stuff from Skateboarder<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. This is something that I tried to learn myself because I was trying to get pictures of the kids. I ended up getting a fish eye lens so I could get some shots where I could stick my arm out and take pictures of them so they could see themselves from a different perspective then a normal photographer. I was fortunate that I got that one shot of Tom that he ended up making the cover of Thrasher<\/em>.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] What did you think watching your son grow up and get sponsored and get into skateboarding?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was fantastic, but I could see where it was helping the guys who were doing the sponsoring more than it was helping the kids. Some of them were taking advantage of the kids and giving them the minimal amount of things they could for pushing their products. I think they could have taken care of them a little better and schooled them a little bit. If you are going to take a kid and throw money at them and give them clothes, wheels and trucks and ferry them around, then you have to have some kind of tutor teach them, \u201cHey, these are some of the things you have to look for and what we want you to do in life. It\u2019s going to help us and it\u2019s going to help you.\u201d Nobody did that.<\/p>\n

Do you know why they didn\u2019t do that, Mr. Groholski?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was probably because they wouldn\u2019t have made any extra money in their pocket.<\/p>\n

Exactly. The skaters would get too smart and make more money off them. [Laughs]<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s kind of like the Ramos\u2019. They did a lot, but when I look at the ramp they had, and the way they purchased that park, they didn\u2019t spend much for the first five years in improving the park or the clubhouse. They were selling everything just fine and that\u2019s what they had to do to survive. After that, they could have done a little more for teaching the kids and that\u2019s why I bought in 4-H. We would go and set up the tents and do things. When it rained, we were in a tent and the tent leaked. There were times when the guys had peanut fights and the ramp got too slick to skate because of that.<\/p>\n

I know I was at one demo and we were riding the blue ramp and I think it was indoors at a tent.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We had so many demos. I remember one time they had Hand in Hand where they bring those with intellectual disabilities and someone from the college holds their hand and walks them around. They have motorcycles there that they will give them rides in the sidecars and they get free balloons and free hamburgers from Burger King and different things to entertain them throughout the day. We set up across from Burger King and we found we had a problem because the smoke from the burgers cooking was blowing across and the grease would drop on the ramp. The ramp got too slippery to skate, so we had to get rags and wipe the ramp so the guys could skate.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] What were the reactions you were getting from the parents who were watching as you guys did demos?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The people looking said, \u201cI didn\u2019t know you could do that.\u201d We would set up the ramps and the kids would go there and do handplants, ollies or boardslides. It was simple things you could do on the ramps that we had made portable. They didn\u2019t know you could do that because it wasn\u2019t shown on TV or newsreels or anything. Now everybody knows what skateboarding is.<\/p>\n

What do you think of skateboarding today? What do you think of seeing the X Games and the megaramp? Have you seen that stuff on TV?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, all I have to say is that a lot of it is for show and to get attention. They should show some of the other things about what the kids are learning and what they are capable of doing. When you think of the engineering and the ingenuity of the things that the kids have come up with to make improvements on the ramps and on the wheels and on the shapes of the wheels and even the clothing, it\u2019s amazing. Now not everybody wears a pair of cutoffs and old clothes. Some of them will say, \u201cHey, I don\u2019t want to hurt my elbow.\u201d So they improved the elbow pads. I\u2019m sure right now that they\u2019re making sneakers that are made to stand up to skateboarding. After all these years they are finally putting the insulation in the padding and the strength where it\u2019s needed. Even the industry is starting to pay attention. It\u2019s the same way with the helmets. The helmets are entirely different then when they first started. Everything has improved down the line for safety factors. We had two kids get hurt on our ramp. One was a little kid that climbed over the fence and tried to climb up the ladder. He wanted to get off that and he started to slide on the Lexon and his finger got caught in the V so he ended up getting a broken finger. Another kid was hot dogging and he tried jumping off his board as it was still going and jumped onto the steel ladder that\u00a0we had going up to the garage. He missed his footing and hit his face on it and lost two teeth in the front. It was funny because two months later when Tom came home to visit, he found the two teeth out there.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Hey, if you\u2019re going to be dumb, you have to be tough.<\/strong>So you<\/strong>saw Cherry Hill and now you\u2019ve seen the concrete parks here that are getting built now. What do you think about skateboarding coming back huge?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s good. When I look at all of these movies that they make of the guys in California, even getting in airplanes looking for empty pools in back of houses, I really give them a lot of credit. It took a lot of initiative to find pools from empty houses that were deserted and then skate them.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s crazy. Did you ever think it would get this big?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No way. When I was stationed out in San Diego, one of the places that we used to enjoy going to eat was the Ninth Wonder of the World. There was a glass elevator on the El Cortez Hotel. That was a fancy place to go to the dining room up on the roof. When you would go up there, you could see the city lights from L.A. and the reflection of it. Tom tells me a couple years ago he was skating the El Cortez pool. I said, \u201cWhich one?\u201d He says, \u201cThe one in San Diego.\u201d I said, \u201cYou\u2019re kidding me.\u201d He said bums live there. It\u2019s just a deserted place with skating in the pool. I think that used to be the best place to eat in San Diego when I was out there.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] There you go, man. Skaters put to use things like that, all the old abandoned stuff. It\u2019s pretty cool.\u00a0<\/strong>Do you have any advice to parents about skateboarding?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If your kids want to skate, back them. The thing is, if you had a kid that wanted to be a basketball player, you would back them. If they wanted to be a football player, you would back them. If he wants to be a skateboarder, back him. This is what he wants to do. Don\u2019t try and bend him. Each kid is different. Wendy ended up taking up photography. She is taking pictures of rock groups and getting published. Tim is in a world of his own. [Laughs] You know that.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] What\u2019s Timmy doing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Right now Timmy has a slight problem. He was an apprentice for four years to be a licensed plumber putting in sprinkler systems commercially. He\u2019s worked on many commercial places all over New Jersey. Right now he\u2019s laid off, so he\u2019s waiting for them to call him back because he doesn\u2019t want to go scabbing and start doing something where he could loose his bit in the union. I don\u2019t like unions myself, but he\u2019s in it and he\u2019s loyal to it and he won\u2019t take a scab job.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s tough.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You should see what Tony\u2019s doing now. Tony is doing all of the miniature heads, like three and a half inches tall. He\u2019s working on 400 of them of Lars from Metallica. He did a couple hundred of them. When they put them on eBay for sale, in 30 seconds the hundred were sold. They are selling them for a $100 a piece. The signed copies are selling for $400. Tony has made some changes in his life. You should see him and Wendy when they set up a production line with a hundred heads that they hand paint. Tony is doing the carving, making the molds, doing the casting and doing the painting.<\/p>\n

Wow. Well, what have you been doing lately Mr. Groholski? Are you retired now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been retired for 11 years. I\u2019m just trying to survive. Since I retired, I think I\u2019ve had three surgeries. I\u2019ve had a knee replaced twice. I am now part cow. I have a cow valve in the heart, so I\u2019m just trying to survive.<\/p>\n

Are you doing photography anymore?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. Wendy took most of the equipment and I\u2019m even thinking of closing off the sink and all of that stuff in the dark room. If I ever sell the house no one is going to want a dark room with a wet sink. If I go to parks, I end up buying one of these cameras that take the panoramic pictures. I took some of Tom in the skatepark. I took one of the basement wall with 12 of Tom\u2019s boards. Aside from that, it\u2019s just throwaway cameras nowadays.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re not getting into any digital stuff?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No.<\/p>\n

Is that against your religion?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. It\u2019s just that I\u2019m getting too old to learn new tricks. In a couple weeks, I will be 76. I don\u2019t want to start any new habits. I should tell you that Millie is really the one that supported Tom, originally, more than me. She used to take him skating whenever she could. She would take him to every little rinky-dink place that she heard they had a park. She drove them to Paved Wave and they put something up in back of a gas station, so she would take them there. I remember when Cherry Hill was going to open. We heard about that and we went there and they were just pouring it. They told us when to come back and it turns out that it was around Thanksgiving that they were supposed to open. We said, \u201cCan we come opening night? They said, \u201cYeah.\u201d It turns out that I was hosting a dinner at the church that day and we had 400 tickets. I don\u2019t know how many turkeys we had cooked. So I was carving turkeys and I had to run the kids to Cherry Hill in the orange van. I was going to drop them off and come back home. We still had three seatings left and I was carving turkeys and washing dishes and everything else, as well as greeting the people. So I got to Cherry Hill and they said, \u201cWe are not open.\u201d So I had to take an emergency drive down to the Monster Bowl and then go back to the turkey dinners. When I finished there, I had to go to the Monster Bowl, pick them up and start dropping them all off. Tom always got home last.<\/p>\n

Oh, man. That\u2019s hardcore, Mr. G.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, that\u2019s what he wanted to do so that\u2019s what we helped him do. If you want to take him someplace, why take him alone? You guys were always welcome. If I could give you a ride someplace, we went.<\/p>\n

Yes. It\u2019s unbelievable Mr. G. I tell everybody about you growing up. That\u2019s why when I got these photos I was like, \u201cWe have to get a Mr. G interview.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Laughs] Well, I hope I helped you out a little bit.<\/p>\n

Yes. You did, Mr. G. Thanks for all you\u2019ve done. You\u2019re the man.<\/strong>I\u2019m proud of you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m proud of you. I hear what you\u2019re doing with Wounded Knee and I really appreciate it.<\/p>\n

Oh, thanks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I know the way the Indians were cheated in the United States. In New Jersey, they had people that wanted to buy land in Pennsylvania that was owned by Indian Tribes and they couldn\u2019t buy it because Indians wouldn\u2019t sell it. So they went down to Delaware and got some Delaware Indians to sell them the property in Pennsylvania. They didn\u2019t own it, but they sold them the property in Pennsylvania. When they went to court, the lawyers for the white man said, \u201cWe own the property now.\u201d The Indian said, \u201cNo. We own it.\u201d The lawyers said, \u201cWhere is your deed?\u201d They said, \u201cWe don\u2019t have a deed. We lived here for 2,000 years.\u201d They said, \u201cYou don\u2019t have a deed. We own the property.\u201d And they were thrown off their land.<\/p>\n

I know. What I\u2019m doing right now out in South Dakota is looking to build skateboard parks for those kids. Those reservations are super poor. They have a $3,000 a year median income and they have a huge suicide rate, so I\u2019m going to go out there and build skateparks so these kids have something to do.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s fantastic. I was talking to Tom and he was telling me what you were doing and I really give you credit for that. That\u2019s something that needs doing and you\u2019re doing it.<\/p>\n

When you have good people helping you out when you\u2019re young, you\u2019re just inspired to help other people, so thanks for being so kind to me when I was growing. It meant a lot to me.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was glad to help in any way I could. You know that.<\/p>\n

Thank you, sir.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Take care, Murf.<\/p>\n

———————–<\/p>\n

“Bob Groholski was like a\u00a0second father to me….\u00a0A person who loved skateboarding when all else fell down in the skateboard world…\u00a0A father\/man who would not give up or give in….\u00a0A mentor that took care of us skaters that sessioned Tom\u2019s ramp and Cherry Hill….\u00a0Mr. Groholski drove us to skate Apple Skatepark and I met up with a friend of mine from my start in skateboarding… Bobby Reeves….\u00a0Mr. Groholski shared his life with young minded crazed people….\u00a0We all turned out just fine and we all have a bit of Bob G. in our souls.” \u2013 CHUCK TREECE<\/h2>\n

“Bob Groholski was one of those fathers that everyone liked, even if you were a teenager. I remember before I could drive he and Tom drove at least 2 hours out of their way to bring me down to a ramp with them in the Philadelphia suburbs. Then they took one of those classic southern California Lucite ramps and put it in their backyard, smack in the middle of New Jersey. When I saw the picture he took of Tom with his ultra fisheye, I insisted that Thrasher\u00a0<\/em>put it on the cover, and they did. No doubt the first father\/son cover ever in a skate mag, and well deserved. Not many people as cool as those folks.” \u2013 GLEN E. FRIEDMAN<\/h2>\n

FOR THE REST OF THE STORY, ORDER ISSUE #68 BY CLICKING HERE…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

INTERVIEW BY JIM MURPHY INTRODUCTION BY JIM MURPHY PHOTOS BY ROBERT GROHOLSKI When I was growing up in the ’70s, skateboarding was viewed by the majority of people as a trend for kids that really wouldn’t culminate into anything as prosperous as the organized sports of the day. It was viewed as something the outcasts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4028,4041],"tags":[4326,4325,4328,3818,14255,4046,4143,4327,4329,4324,2509,14262,4330,4331,3171,3315],"class_list":["post-7858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","category-skate-2","tag-apple-skatepark","tag-cherry-hill","tag-fiber-rider","tag-jim-murphy","tag-juice-magazine","tag-juice-magazine-68","tag-kona","tag-kona-skatepark","tag-monster-bowl","tag-ramps","tag-robert-groholski","tag-skate","tag-skateboard-city","tag-staten-island","tag-tom-groholski","tag-vert"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/58-59-GROHOLSKI.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7858"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89589,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7858\/revisions\/89589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}