Random Skateboard Memories: Sparks

Sparks

Skateboards are pretty magical. To this day, I still have no idea how slappy crooked grinds work. As a little kid, you
would play the video games and you would see sparks shoot out from your skateboard everytime you grind a rail.
In real life, that just doesn’t happen. However, it is possible to see sparks fly out when you are skateboarding, its
just pretty rare.

It is pretty rare unless you use a device that you stick to your tail to make sparks while you skid but let’s pretend
that product just doesn’t exist.

I’ve seen sparks shoot out while I’ve been skating. To see this occurrence, you want to be skating at night. It
doesn’t make the sparks happen easier but skating at night makes the sparks easier to see.

Start out by doing a flip trick and just mess up. If you get lucky, the bolt of your truck locking your wheel to the axle
will hit the asphalt at just the right speed and angle. It will shave off either a tiny bit of metal or tiny bit of rock and
it will spark because of the force of impact.

Once, in Florida, I was skating with my friend Adam and he was trying to do a kickflip over a pyramid. He bailed
half way and was just trying to dodge his board so he wouldn’t trip over it. His board slid primo over the concrete
and shot out about 10 to 20 sparks, quite rare indeed.  

Random Skateboard Memories: Sparks

Sparks

Skateboards are pretty magical. To this day, I still have no idea how slappy crooked grinds work. As a little kid, you
would play the video games and you would see sparks shoot out from your skateboard everytime you grind a rail.
In real life, that just doesn’t happen. However, it is possible to see sparks fly out when you are skateboarding, its
just pretty rare.

It is pretty rare unless you use a device that you stick to your tail to make sparks while you skid but let’s pretend
that product just doesn’t exist.

I’ve seen sparks shoot out while I’ve been skating. To see this occurrence, you want to be skating at night. It
doesn’t make the sparks happen easier but skating at night makes the sparks easier to see.

Start out by doing a flip trick and just mess up. If you get lucky, the bolt of your truck locking your wheel to the
axle will hit the asphalt at just the right speed and angle. It will shave off either a tiny bit of metal or tiny bit of rock
and it will spark because of the force of impact.

Once, in Florida, I was skating with my friend Adam and he was trying to do a kickflip over a pyramid. He bailed
half way and was just trying to dodge his board so he wouldn’t trip over it. His board slid primo over the concrete
and shot out about 10 to 20 sparks, quite rare indeed.  

Random Skateboard Memories: Massive Backside Grab

My first couple of times at a skatepark, I couldn’t do that much. I could barely ollie and couldn’t do any flip tricks,
grind, or launch any airs. The only thing I could do was drop in on some transition and roll up and down some
ramps. Of course, there were some ramps I would never think of dropping in on.

Towards the back of the park, there was a 12 foot vert ramp. This thing was a beast. At the time, it was the only
ramp I ever saw that had a flight of stairs to walk up just to get to the top of the ramp. Just out of curiosity, I
walked up to the top of the ramp and looked down. And all I saw was complete death. It could have been my
eyes playing tricks on me but it looked like the top of the ramp caved in on itself. The top didn’t look vertical.
It looked like you would drop 2 or 3 feet before catching transition. This vert ramp was either the biggest ramp
in the park or tied for it. There was one ramp that was probably bigger.

At the very back of the park was a massive quarterpipe that covered the entire back wall. There was a section
cut out making a channel gap because exit doors to the skate park were located there. This quarterpipe was at
least 12 feet tall.

I don’t think it was ever intended for anyone to hit the coping or do a halfpipe air on it because the top couple of
feet were covered with various stickers. Just slapping a sticker as high as you could was an achievement.

When I was young, I was standing in the back area of the park and I saw this one guy barel down
some ramps heading towards the giant quarter pipe. He launched himself up and I saw this guy get about
2 to 3 feet above the coping. He grabbed the board backside so he was doing a melon grab 2 to 3 feet out. He
couldn’t go too much higher otherwise he’d hit the ceiling. After floating there for a moment his wheels touched
down a few feet below transition and he rolled away perfect. He was the only man I saw that ever did that.

Random Skateboard Memories: Back Smith

I’d go to the park often to skate. Mainly, I’d be in the parking lot just practicing flip tricks. There wasn’t that much
to skate there other than mid sized stair sets. There was a 7 stair and a 9 stair but nothing smaller. If you wanted
to grind something, you had curbs and parking blocks.

There was this one parking block that I waxed up almost daily during the summer. My go to trick was to ollie over
the top to a 50-50 on it. I’d do that all the time. I could slappy boardslide it but that didn’t feel like a real trick. If you
don’t ollie onto it, it's not a real trick.

I never really figured out how to noseslide or tailslide it. On a few occasions, I got lucky enough to ollie over the
top to a 5-0 on it.

When I was young, there were some tricks that just seemed impossible. Like there was no way I could figure out
how to do them outside the video game. Bluntslides, smith grinds, and crooked grinds I could only dream of doing.

So, one day, I’m pushing up to the parking block and I’m just going for a 50-50. I pop the ollie and I can’t remember
what happened to my front truck or what it did or how it got there but immediately I’m doing a backside smith grind
on the parking block.

I looked at my board and I am completely locked in. The front end of the board is dipped down. The wheels aren’t
touching the ground and the right edge of my board is sliding against the concrete parking block. My back foot is
solid on the tail and I’m just sliding. I slid for a few feet and I was so stunned that I got into a back smith that my
body froze up and I just grinded off the parking block and rolled away.

This was the first and only time I’ve ever done a back smith.

No return

Growing up, one of my favorite games was the original Pokemon. I played red version for hundreds of hours.

There is a section of the game where you have to board the SS Anne, fight a bunch of trainers, collect the cut HM, and fight your rival. After you collect CUT and leave the ship, the ship sails away. And it never returns.

This is the only section of the game where you can never go back (without glitches).

I think about my time coming up. The things I've lost. But more importantly, the people I've lost. People who I've enjoyed their company and shared fond memories of. And unfortunately, the same people I would come to hate.

My hatred of them makes me feel regret.

If I had just been a little different back then, knew how to start a conversation, or just have had some extra charisma, or was willing to take more of a risk... maybe I wouldn't have come to hate these people.

Maybe the relationships with these people could have been sustained and become ... good.

But just like the sailor in Vermilion City says "The ship has set sail."