Quiet Riot

It's such a lovely weekend in the Ohio Valley. 30 degrees or so... freezin' rain, for days on end. Or at least often enough that it never dries out at the park, nor gets above my 40 degree tolerance skate rule. Nevertheless, when I left the house today, I was in shorts... with my old man black socks pulled up, neoprene knee wraps already on, and shirts layered topped with a toboggan and a scarf... I needed to SKATE dammit! The call was out to hit Riot Skatepark with Junior and Skidzilla. Earliest session, with hopes of the pre-teenies not gettin' dropped off by mom and dad until later... no luck. It was PACKED with prepubescent groms all givin' us the WTF look. Turns out they were mostly friendly, even the snakers, but still... OLD people weren't really supposed to be there. It was amusing being the tallest people in the room. Everyone had helmets on, but only us, and maybe 2 other groms including little ripper Micah Wu had full gear.

Think you can skate? Check out Micah's blog loaded with videos and learn the truth. You're old and can't skeet none. http://micahskates.blogspot.com/ He's suprisingly powerful and agile for his small size. He's so much fun to watch. Dad Dave is so cool to bring him all the way from Lex, in this crappy weather, just so the kid can skate. Man, I hope I get to be that dad! (My luck, Indy will wanna play football... that'll be just terrific.)

Anyway... we hit the 3' spined mini ramp as much as we could. But with such a packed house, it was 1 run per 10 to 15 minutes... And I was too figedity for that. Skidz got lil' bs-to-fs grind transfers over the spine, hit his pivots and even a couple 5-0s, though the lip was STICKY. Which was in sharp contrast to the rest of the ramp surface which was skeery slick. But after a few runs, you get used to it. I eventually went for a slide transfer and hit it MUCH easier than I expected. Then felt lame that I had to "nut up" for it. I headed over to join Jr. on the bank and quarter.

This was the least crowded spot. Only one other grom ever joined us, so we were getting plenty of runs, but the bank was just a lil' too steep, so the bottom was bit jarring. But the quarter was good and larger than we're used to skating at 5'+. Josh hit stalls and plenty of bs and fs slides on the bank. Dave got his pivots and a step off version of the fs pivot to tail. I hit several good bs disasters and pivots. I really wanted to throw the 270 stall, but comin' in fakie on the bank just wasn't a good idea. I tried it, once. I didn't die, but there was no way I was gonna try to really pump it.

Skidz had to head out for family duties, and Jr. quit skating and went and chatted with Micah's Dad. I had been watchin' the lil' buggers hit an orange barrier wall set up on the fun box of the street area. I KNOW I can slide it, but whenever I saw them bail from it, my mind said, "Dude, don't do it. That'll hurt." But we were having such a good session, despite the short and large crowd. I'm glad I didn't listen. 3rd try and the barrier slide was locked in, repeatedly. It was funny to see the groms clap in surprise rather than actual props. It was far easier than expected, but still caused a bit o' puckering each time, and required some faith that I wasn't gonna plow over a grom inadvertently crossing my path. It was certainly no krooked grind, lipslide, nosegrind or 5-0 that the kids were throwin' down, but I still think I was having more fun. We definitely have to have a full-on Concretins session here. But it will need to be on a sunny day so the kids are all downtown. I can't wait to watch Mofo destroy that mini-ramp! (http://www.riotsk8park.com/)

On the way home, amidst tons of stupid people on the wet roads not really watching (nor apparently knowing) where they're going, I realized that for the past 2 hours, I hadn't stressed about, nay, even thought about Christmas shopping, bathroom reconstruction, cabinet building, car buying, family visits nor my impending parenthood (well, I do remember hoping my kid skates like Micah)... I was relaxed, and stoked. All because 2 'Cretins dragged me to a hole in the wall, dust filled, babysitter called Riot Skatepark. My friends are so cool. Life is good.