Benneto Centre Curb

The North End of Hamilton has a reputation to uphold for being rough, but it has one of the best public swimming pools and rec. centres in the city. Tonight, on my way in to swim, there was a group of kids sitting around in the lobby. I had my skateboard with me, and one of the kids said, "You skate? You look like you're eighty!". I said, "I'm not that old yet, but I hope I am still skating when I'm eighty!".

On my way out, after doing a few laps of the pool, the same kids were waiting around outside the front doors. In front of the rec. centre, there is a well-waxed, nicely rounded curb at the edge of the parking lot nearest the front doors. I took off my coat and shoulder bag, and started doing a few grinds. As soon as I did one little trip, the kids on the stairs started screaming "Oooooooooh!" in a kind of mock adulation. But I kept skating and they came over and started talking to me.

A couple of the kids borrowed my board...one guy had baggy jeans, the hip-hop ball cap and a white kerchief tied to one of the belt loops of his pants. He tried some kickflips and heelflips, and asked if I could do certain tricks. I demonstrated some of my oldschool board maniupuations; I may not be able to do the tre-flips and the heel flips, but I can string together a line of moves from 1989 that would do Ray Barbee proud.

So I skated with the kids and lent out my board. I wiped out one time, landing on my back to avoid further spraining my wrist, and the kid with the kerchief asked "'sall good?". Some older guys came over--a guy named Mike who is the youth pastor at the Baptist church on Hughson. It turns out the kids were all there for a basketball game that Mike hosts on Mondays. I don't know if I really impressed them all that much with my feeble old moves, but Mike thanked me for lending out my board (and not getting pissed off about the eighty year old man comment).

When the kids left, I had the curb all to myself and threw down some long, fast frontside grinds before heading home. The air was chill and I was breathing heavily due to the cold, but the almost full moon was beaming down from behind a thin screen of billowy clouds as I walked through the empty north end streets, back to my appartment where a stack of essays on the dangers of Disney were waiting for me.