The skatepark was jam packed with kids watching the first competition to be held at the recently opened facility. It had rained on Saturday, so two days of events had to be condensed into Sunday's time slot. I arrived late in the afternoon, just in time to see the prizes for the last event, the "best trick in the bowl" category, to be handed out. There was music and commentary being pumped from the tent perched atop the "volcano"--an otherwise useless, plateau-shaped pedestal with steep-sloped sides at the street end of the park. It's as though the park was designed with festivities such as this in mind, and the carnivalesque sense of fun pushed aside questions that might arise in an old skaters mind, questions such as "is this really what skateboarding is all about?"
Without going into unseemly ideological discussions here, let me relate my response to this spectacle of organized skateboard mayhem. I can't take the modern, UV-laden sunlight in large doses. It radiates up from the concrete and undermines my ability to concentrate on the task at hand. So I took refuge in the only shade available: a laneway between the skatepark and YMCA that allowed access to the garbage bin enclosure. There were about five or six skaters likewise situated, and an exchange of skateboard maneuvers ensued in the shady patch of pavement. A tallish curb was also available for our enjoyment, and we took turns finding creative approaches to engaging with this feature. When we got too hot, the air issuing from a wall-sized exhaust vent from the Y's swimming pool cooled us.
The spot was a little oasis of shade, cool air, and chill-scale urban obstacles that offered a counterpoint to the glare, noise and crowding of the competitive skateboard comp raging just a few feet away. The situation was made all the sweeter by the manner in which systems not designed for human enjoyment were reappropriated to alternative use: the cooling system, the garbage removal lane, the tall curb surrounding the underground AC unit (ten feet down, past a protective metal grate set in its surface), and, finally the skateboard competition itself, which provided a carnivalesque background and "mirror", revealing the incorporated version of the original practice that spawned it. There in the shade a group of skaters gathered who did not feel comfortable amongst the prescribed herd of spectators/competitors and took refuge in the shady, industrial grotto inadvertently provided by the chance constellation of events and infrastructure. Thus, the spirit of street skating flourished for a moment on the very periphery of the structures erected to attempt to tame and corall it. Thank God for Vitamin X!
