The Sk8 Park

I’ve been living on Hill Street for 8 years and I’ve always known that there was a skate park in Spalding Park next to my house which is also right next to Franklin. I used to only go to Spalding Park to play tennis, which I’m actually pretty decent at and got 2^nd in a Labor Day tournament but don’t quote me on that. Anyway, Spalding Park was a pretty normal park with the average amount of utilities and facilities, except that in the far corner you can see a pretty well rounded skate park. I was super surprised when I first saw it, and whenever I was young, I would pear over the fence to watch the skaters and admire how deep the pit was and the courage skaters had to go down it. But I would never go inside because I didn’t want people thinking I could skate and some of the people there were pretty sketchy and looked like weirdos. In addition, one day I went to Spalding Park with my friend and Omeed to play tennis, and soon enough two kids come up to us trying to act all macho even though they were at least 2 years younger than us, and they tried to steal our bikes. After a little bit of awkwardness figuring out that they weren’t just “trying to see your bike” but steal it, we just left because they weren’t going away. From then on I tried to stay away from that park because I assumed that the people there were all weirdos and wanna be tough guys who tried to steal bikes.

It wasn’t until last week that I started to visit the park again, it was out of boredom but my friends and I thought it would be a good idea to grind some rails and shred the course on the down low. I had drove past the skate park earlier and there had been about 2 dozen people there and they all fit the description of the people I saw a couple years ago. So we decided to go at like 10pm with 3 scooters 1 rip stick and a BMX bike. Funny thing is, there were still 4 kids there in the pitch dark smoking weed, so we tried to act casual walking in with everything but a skateboard to the skate park that late. We used our headlights on the car to shed light on the course, and when Tony Li came in with his scooter, one of the kids said “I’m tired of seeing Mother F***ers coming in here with scooters”. I found it really funny and we just ignored them. The next hour turned out to be really fun, I was finally able to go in the course which I had been peering through a fence hole for years. None of us were actually able to do anything, but just riding around on ramps and slopes was thrilling and motivated me to one day be the best sk8r in the streets, I have played skate 3 on the PlayStation 3 for a couple years so I think I would be pretty decent to be honest. I have visited the park once after that but I plan to visit the park more often from now on, regardless of whose there because you’re always going to get judged and you have to start somewhere.

Here’s a go fund me for a buying a skateboard for me and my super poor friends, any amount of cents donated is welcomed.

https://funds.gofundme.com/dashboard/7xx6w-skate-board