Reality

Street skating is where the fun is and will always remain, but it has left me with too many injuries, torn ligaments, dislocated ankles, throbbing wrists, and more scrapes and bruises than one can imagine.  An aging man can not remain a street skater if he expects to walk straight into his fifties.  Sadly, the time came for my transition into ramp skating.  From the peacefulness of our neighborhood pseudo-park to the dangerous downtown streets, my journey slickly moved into the steep transition of a half-pipe.

As a street skater I had always despised ramp skaters.  They wore helmets and pads, and they didn’t know how it felt to pound against the hard cement after kick-flipping a set of stairs.  But as I aged, my mind slowly opened to other possibilities and I began to truly contemplate options that were much less dangerous. 

Frank’s ramp is in a fenced-in backyard, with nicely trimmed grass and a donation box at the door.  Despite the serenity of the place, I quickly realized this would be a place to learn how to skate ramps.  After the discovery of Frank’s ramp, I would ride out to his place day after day and practice skating his small four-foot half-pipe.  However, as Frank became a close friend, my fellow skaters and I eventually convinced him to add more to his backyard skate park.  Frank began construction on a new six-foot half-pipe.

Because I was too anxious to wait for the complete construction of the half-pipe, I found myself getting seriously injured.  Before the half-pipe was built and the layers of skatelite were applied to the ramp, I had to be the first to thrash up the ramp.  I stalled on a 50-50 grind and came crashing six feet down onto my shoulder.  My collar bone snapped and nearly punctured my lung.

Ok, maybe ramp skating isn’t so “wussy.”  While recovering from my injury, I swore to myself that I would go back and conquer Frank’s ramp.  So after dedicating about a month to recovery, I strolled out to Frank’s ramp.  Kids were ripping up grinds and slides, so I jumped in without giving it any thought.  Skateboarding was back; the adrenaline rush was there, and most of all I was still having fun.