BEHIND THE WHEELS : In the ‘70s, skateboarding was about big hills and simple thrills. A new appreciation for those early days is emerging.

They soared like phantoms through the cool, night air. Gliding down smooth, new streets, unable to contain their Cheshire cat grins.

Their quiet suburban world was being bulldozed, steamrollered, tarred and paved, which was fine with them. They were skateboarders. They were in it for the asphalt.

In the 1970s, as more and more of Orange County was being plowed under for houses and shopping malls, many young residents went on a roll. Armed with skateboards with smooth-riding polyurethane wheels, they turned fresh-paved streets into freewheeling playgrounds.

Orange County didn’t invent skateboarding, but in the mid-1970s, the sport was as much a part of the local youth scene as Pop Rocks and pukka shells. Skateboarders were everywhere.

You could hear them coming from a half-block away. Clicketyclack, clicketyclack , rolling down the sidewalks, riding that imaginary wave. For most, skateboarding was a casual pastime, something to do when the waves died down. But for others, skateboarding was a soulful experience: a graceful means of self-expression, a rolling, barefoot ballet. Some days, you felt you could fly.

Of course, not everyone was so enthralled.

Mothers complained that they’d never seen such dirty feet. Dads demanded to know how the patio steps got chipped again. And motorists blared their horns at those who dared skate the streets.

Warren Bolster remembers those early days with a smile. As editor, writer and chief photographer of Dana Point-based SkateBoarder magazine, Bolster watched the sport evolve from pastime to prominence.

“There was so much energy in skateboarding then,” says Bolster, who often worked 18 hours a day. “I don’t think it’ll ever be like that again.”

Bolster, now 48 and a photographer in Hawaii, may be right. Skateboarding today is a different sport altogether, one that emphasizes aggressiveness over grace.

Maybe that’s why a growing number of old-timers, in Orange County and around the Southland, are beginning to dust off their boards and go for another spin.

*

No one knows for sure who invented the skateboard, though it’s believed that the earliest models originated nearly 50 years ago in northern San Diego County. Steel wheels were pried from roller skates and nailed onto wooden planks or 2-by-4s. “Skateboarding” was born.

The introduction of composite or “clay” skateboard wheels, offering more traction and maneuverability, gave the sport a boost in the 1960s. Parents were suddenly being needled for Super Surfers or Black Knights, skateboards that sold in bicycle shops for $3.99. If you were really lucky, Mom and Dad forked over 15 bucks so you could ride in style on a beautiful, handmade, laminated Hobie.

“Skater Dater” presented skateboarding as art. This 18-minute film, nominated for an Academy Award in 1966, packed the Fox theater in Fullerton. The film featured no dialogue, just skateboarders braving hills and managing tricks few thought possible: riding up curbs and jumping over low benches. Skaters in the audience were stoked.

But tricky or basic, the moves rarely came without sacrifice. Clay wheels--which resembled the tires on Fred Flintstone’s car--had a tendency to stop instantly when they hit small ruts or rocks. At high speeds, the wheels sometimes overheated to the point that they’d smoke, crumble and fall off. Road rash became the sport’s merit badge.

Fortunately, someone reinvented the wheel.

Frank Nasworthy was his name. The Encinitas resident struck gold in 1973 by adapting the polyurethane wheels on roller-skates for skateboards. “Cadillac” wheels, as the honey-colored orbs were called, absorbed so much shock, so much vibration that a ride down a pebble-strewn street felt downright smooth.

Improvements didn’t stop there. Flexible boards of fiberglass, plexiglass or aluminum added a sense of weightlessness. Softer, wider Road Rider wheels offered a rattle-free ride. Like surfing on a glassy day or skiing through fresh powder, skateboarding became almost sensual. Its spell dug into the soul.

Retailers didn’t miss the cue. Sporting goods stores began stocking mass-produced skateboards. Surf shops offered boards and wheels that were “da kine.” At Hanifin’s surf shop on Balboa Peninsula, skate rats as young as 9 or 10 hung out for hours, mesmerized. Stacks of gleaming new skateboard wheels could have been treasures from King Tut’s tomb. The same reverence was applied to each edition of SkateBoarder. You didn’t read SkateBoarder; you absorbed it. Where else would you learn that pro skater Mike Weed just bought an $82,000 home in Mission Viejo? Or that Stacy Peralta, who amazed onlookers at a skateboard demo in Costa Mesa, improved his balance by practicing tai chi?

Parents tried to tune in, but decoding the lingo wasn’t easy. Stokers , they learned, were oversized wheels. Trucks were the thingamabobs that held wheels in place. If your trucks were too loose, you could get the dreaded speed wobbles , which in turn led to hairy eats .

Some skaters, inspired by freestyle contests around the Southland, honed their skills several hours a day. Nose wheelies, tail wheelies, 360-degree spins, headstands, kick flips. . . . You could master such tricks in a couple of weeks--but not without your share of stubbed toes.

Many strived to be the next Skitch Hitchcock, a onetime gymnast from Orange County whose fluid repertoire (“Let’s give Skitch a hand for that fingertip handstand!”) made him one of the world’s best free-stylers.

Others were more interested in conquering asphalt mountains. Anaheim Hills. Lemon Heights. Mission Viejo. Laguna Beach. . . . The county was blessed with paved Himalayas. Due to daytime traffic, Newport’s legendary Spyglass Hill was often attempted at night. Cautious skaters took it slowly, zigzagging like novice skiers on a Black Diamond run. Others--usually those sporting maniacal grins--shot the hill at full speed.

Few outdid Guy Grundy, the professional human blur. Wearing full motorcycle leathers and a crash helmet, the world’s fastest skateboarder was clocked zooming down Anaheim Hills’ Knoll Ranch Road at 68 m.p.h.

Skaters sought challenges off the street too: empty swimming pools, abandoned reservoirs, drainage ditches that offered ridable banks. The Brea Spillway in Fullerton, the Fruit Bowl in Garden Grove, the Reservoir in Corona del Mar . . . roller coasters for body and mind. Speeding down a steep, concrete wall, you felt fear, speed, weightlessness, even joy.

Hours later, the exclamation marks were still etched in your brain.

*

By 1976, skateboarding had gone Hollywood. Ten years after the debut of “Skater Dater,” the sport had come to this:

* Skateboarders performing on the “Tony Orlando and Dawn” show.

* Walter Cronkite describing “skateboarder’s fracture” on TV.

* Actor-turned-skateboarder Fred Astaire, 77, falling off his board and breaking his wrist. Skateboarding was no longer a subculture of surfing. You could buy “skateboard clothing” at JCPenney. You could buy a Hobie board at Sears.

The industry thrived, especially in Orange County. Santa Ana-based Free Spirit produced 7,000 skateboards a week and couldn’t fill all its orders. Hobie of Dana Point received 100 letters a week--from as far as New Caledonia and Morocco--requesting distributorships.

Mr. Bennett, the Howard Hughes of the industry who never revealed his first name, made a fortune selling his “Hijacker” trucks via Newport Beach P.O. Box 1415-F.

The Costa Mesa-based International Skateboard Assn. sanctioned competitions and offered business advice to the growing numbers of professional riders, some of whom earned six-figure incomes. Sally Anne Miller was ISA’s executive director. It must have been good training. She later became Sally Anne Sheridan, mayor of Irvine.

“It was just a fun time,” Sheridan says.

By 1977, skateboarding was the fastest-growing sport in the nation. An estimated 40 million boards had sold in two years. Skateboarders appeared in TV commercials. Skateboard parks--like the Concrete Wave in Anaheim and Skatopia in Buena Park, were spreading across the nation.

It was a huge success, except . . . Local city councils, fueled by wildly varied estimates on skateboard accident rates (one report said half of all injuries were that of skateboarders’ parents ) , were abuzz with debate on how to control the activity. Newport Beach banned skateboarding on all streets that had a 6% or more grade. Other cities banned skateboarding on streets and sidewalks. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department began citing those who dared to skateboard on county roads.

Skateboarding was being swept from the streets. A run down Spyglass Hill could land you in jail.

One safety agency lobbied for a nationwide ban. Norway did just that. Locally, skateboarders wondered where they were supposed to ride. The Brea Spillway had been filled with dirt, the reservoir in Corona del Mar torn down. Fearing skateboard accidents and liability suits, almost all the sites were altered or destroyed.

Skateboard parks--sprawling complexes filled with cement “waves”--were supposed to be the answer, but it was only a matter of time before they, too, ran into problems. Insurance costs were rising. The parks started going out of business. In a sad statement of the times, SkateBoarder magazine’s Q&A; interview one month was not with a nose-wheelie king or a downhill racer but an insurance salesman from Orange County.

Sure, there were those who pushed through, those who developed new tricks and kept skateboarding alive. But by the end of the decade, the sport’s character had changed. Skateboarding was developing a different mind-set. Skateboarding was going punk.

The new generation of skateboarders laughed at what they considered the dumb old days--days when the best riders wore bushy hair, surf trunks and lime-green knee socks. Days when they listened not to Black Flag or Green Day but Jackson Browne and Honk.

But now a quiet resurgence has begun.

The Hot Wheels skateboard shop in Huntington Beach recently developed an in-store museum paying homage to skateboarding’s past. Thrasher, a contemporary skateboard magazine, recently published a tribute to ‘70s skateboard star Laura Thornhill. In Orange County and around the Southland, some skaters roll down the streets on ‘70s-style longboards.

Nasworthy, father of the “Cadillac” wheel, says he and a few other former industry leaders are planning to reintroduce their old products. Nasworthy says he has hundreds of thousands of wheels in storage, along with several hundred mahogany boards.

“I was burning those in the fireplace for a while,” Nasworthy says. That is, until a friend got on his case: “Hey, some day you’re going to want those,” he told him.

Nasworthy now knows that’s true.

A resurgence is definitely happening, he says. He has witnessed it on the streets. Some old-time skaters are digging out their boards.

And some, like Nasworthy, a father of two, are skateboarding alongside their kids.

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Catching the Concrete Wave in the ‘70s

* An empty swimming pool in Anaheim is a favorite of skaters. The “Boar Bowl” offers the extra thrill of out-sprinting a wild boar that wanders in from a nearby yard.

* Corky Carroll’s debut single, “Skateboard Bill,” plays on rock station KMET.

* Industry guru Sally Anne Miller, later mayor of Irvine, is asked her opinion on Mattel’s new mag wheel skateboard. Miller tells them: “Go back to making Barbie dolls.”

* Environmental correctness is yet to be discovered. Ad for a plastic skateboard boasts: “No Recycled Products!”

* Vans, made in Anaheim, become the skateboard sneaker. If you don’t wear Vans, you go naked.

* Teens from Brea discover “bedboarding”--riding old mattresses attached to skateboards at speeds up to 40 m.p.h.

* One skateboarder says his goal is the same as his peers: own a Porsche and a house in Laguna Beach.

* Inventor Jhoon Rhee introduces the Safe-T-Butt, a huge rubber diaper no skateboarder would be caught dead wearing.

* Philosophically, skateboarding is divided into the aggressive style of Santa Monica and a let’s-be-mellow style of San Diego County. O.C. generally sides with S.D., probably because the two counties shared the same 714 area code back then.