Cher Strauberry
oardsliding coffins in Antioch, California, was part of growing up for Cher Strauberry. Her mother worked at Higgins Chapel funeral home, and when Strauberry wasn’t sitting through services (“I was a pretty depressed kid. Maybe it was a lot for me to see that young”), an embalmer she endearingly calls Heavy Metal Tom would cut coffins for her to skate over. He also bought Strauberry her first guitar and taught her to play Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man”. When she broke her ankle for the third time in a year, she was told she wouldn’t skate again for at least six years, so she started playing a nylon-string guitar that was her grandmother’s and found punk. She left home as a teen, paid $200 a month to
