Even though the photo is in black and white, the image of a Fayetteville girl riding her skateboard on a road dampened by falling rain is everything but old-fashioned.
The 1970s vibrates from it.
All of it is magic — her dark pigtails against the gray sky; the softness of her sweet face; the umbrella she holds over her head; her confidence as she rides with one hand in her coat pocket.
It was a rainy Saturday in January 1979 when late Fayetteville Observer photographer Steve Aldridge happened upon his 10-year-old neighbor Shaunda Shane as she rode her skateboard down Dinsmore Drive.
The photo, with a caption that misspelled her first name, might have only lived in Shane’s memory if Observer photographer Andrew Craft hadn’t included it in an online gallery of shots from the ’70s a few years ago.
It still could have been lost to the ages, if the Instagram page Blackarchives hadn’t shared it Sept. 21.
But on Saturday, when legendary pro skateboarder Tony Hawk shared that glorious photo of Shane to his combined 15 million followers on Instagram and Facebook , the girl who grew up in Fayetteville, raised three children here, and still calls it home, became a legend, too.