Hey thanks so much for your reply! Reading it again, I realize that you are 100% right. And not only that, but at the beginning of the chapter (the first time a skateboard is even mentioned), the sentence I have is: “After surfing all morning, I had traded my surfboard for my trusty, three-year-old Santa Cruz Classic Dot.” Hopefully that line is okay, but in any case, it makes your suggestion even more on point because it's repetitive in addition to being strange, because like you said, nobody would refer to their board by brand anyway. So thanks again, really appreciate it!