Hallelujah! Someone besides me believes “With No Direction Home,” a new narrative nonfiction by Jack Smith, is an exceptional book for all readers pre-teen and older. However, please don’t assume what the book is about by its cover or because you met Jack before he retired and closed the Morro Bay Skateboard Museum on the Embarcadero. Yes, skateboarding is involved as the “vehicle” by which Jack’s characters “push” to discover that destiny happens when you least expect it.
Teens will enjoy many superbly crafted adventures during that tenuous coming-of-age time. Middle-aged and seniors will relish Jack’s nostalgic images of America in 1976. Guys will enjoy the guy-talk and gals will appreciate the insightful, yet crisp, conversations. Everyone will recognize the human-quest to solve life’s mysteries of belonging and the commonality of questions about what’s next. For me it is the best book I’ve read since I read EBN’s Debbie Noble Black’s award-winning “Sara and the Ghost Clothes Series.”
However, I needed to verify a male perspective to confirm my over-the-top kudos applied to all. Jack mentioned he’d already been on 920KVEC “The Dave Congalton Show,” so I listened to the Blog interview posted on 9/11/2026. Morro Bay’s Michael Erin Woody was Dave’s guest host. He was enthused and infused with the same emotions I had. Michael introduced Jack as an American legend and icon: legendary because one of Jack’s skateboards is featured in the Smithsonian; an icon because Jack and two Morro Bay High School buddies — fisherman Jeff French and contractor Mike Filben, were literally the first to skateboard across America.
Michael offered high praise for the novel and questioned how the boys’ families felt about them venturing across the USA on skateboards in 1976? When the boys explained they wanted to do something significant to mark their transition into adulthood during their summer after graduation Jeff’s and Mike’s fathers understood and encouraged them. Jack’s father wasn’t sure, but after a week he too recognized such a trip’s potential benefits.
Believe Jack…or me…or Michael Woody, when I paraphrase Jack’s pitch about what “With No Direction Home” is really about: “Middle America is the setting. Skateboarding is the driving force that moves the story from coast to coast. This is a coming-of-age story that showcases the kindness of most folks as three teens encounter challenges during a journey that no one had ever tried before. The first day they realized it would be harder than anything they had ever tried, but they pushed through one lesson after another that would change their lives forever and create an everlasting love for small-town USA.”
Jack Smith is a skateboard industry legend who launched his sports marketing career soon after this adventure. Future celebrations of life seemed to demand he “push” across America more than once. He’s completed four trips by skateboard and a couple by car. In 2003 he made the trip after his son passed away and in 2013, he skateboarded with another son to raise funds for the Alzheimer’s Association, the disease that took his father from him too early.
Noteworthy is his first and his latest trip – one on skateboard and the other by car to celebrate both America’s Bicentennial year and this year’s USA250. He and wife Cathy had a film crew for a month, who trained Cathy to film the rest of the boys’ original route completed by skateboard. Jack explained “With No Direction Home” began as a movie script. It was the format Jack was comfortable writing since he had co-written the script for the 1993 movie “New Providence” with Director Thor Moreno. Impatient and not finding the right Hollywood connection, he decided to write the story in book-form and integrated multiple true experiences and remembered dialogue from the original tour and highlights from throughout his career.
Jack credits Cathy, a retired teacher, for guiding him during their two-year investment of time writing the book. He recalled his biggest struggle was how to end the book. Driving home from a business trip he decided to turn off all sounds in the car and focus on what he needed to do to change the ending. The idea came to him, so he pulled off the road to call Cathy. Jack said, “We both cried!” Finally, they knew it was the right ending.
Jack’s descriptions are vivid. Most readers will visualize their journey while others will relive a coast-to-coast Americana in that simpler time during 1976 when there were phone booths to call home instead of cell phones; travelers could trust sleeping under the stars or hitchhiking rides with strangers; and folks got very excited when three teens passed by their town doing something that had never been done before. They also discovered celebrating their American heritage on Independence Day would always be important to them.
The following quotes and curiosities are taken directly from the book. They are not spoilers, but hopefully teasers to what you will discover: “Is it human nature to want what you don’t have?” “Would attending 17 schools until Jack’s parents moved to Morro Bay leave him restless for life or make him want to settle somewhere?” “Would the little girl ever play on a swing set again?” Some American holidays traditions must be celebrated. “…like a rolling stone…“You’ll find it when you find it.” And “Maybe America is full of good people wanting to be a part of something?”
Currently the book is only in paperback and available at Lulu.com, Amazon.com and Volumes of Pleasure Book Shoppe in Los Osos.
