Playground
Two weeks ago, I bought a skateboard. Before that purchase, I spent a grand total of about 5 minutes of my life on skateboards, spread over four or five separate occasions and probably about 10 years. On all but one occasion I bailed horribly and hilariously. The last time I tried was in Uganda, at the skate park my friend Brian helped to build. It’s the only skate park in Uganda, and the only skate park in Africa outside of South Africa. After my ridiculous fall, one of the local kids patted me on the back and said “Now you are Buganda!“ Tribal initiation by concrete.
But that’s not what this post is about. Still, I recommend checking out the above links, because they’ve got a lot of rad photos of African kids really shredding. They’re totally ‘core. The last link is a video that Brian put together.
No, this post is about the “Skater Eyes” that I’m starting to develop. I’ve always been quite aware of the “caps” that are put on the edges of curbs, benches, or handrails (basically they’re little knobs that stick out, preventing a skater from sliding along said edge with their board), but I’ve been less aware of generally skatable surfaces. All this is changing, now. The image I’ve attached was taken a couple years ago in Richmond, it’s the empty parking lot of the Lansdowne Centre. I took the photo because I was disgusted at the magnitude of emptiness. Parking lots kill communities and green spaces, while encouraging the use of cars (which also kill communities and greenspaces, among other things). That particular parking lot takes at least five minutes to traverse.
While I still hold the belief that the last thing the world needs is more parking lots, I’m starting to suffer some cognitive dissonance - because such a giant parking lot would be a lot of fun to skate around on. Since I am still not yet skilled enough to do anything more than push myself around in large circles, big flat surfaces like the Lansdowne parking lot are attractive, now. My neighbourhood, which I love so much, is terrible for skating. The roads are old, bumpy, and occasionally potholey. The same goes for the sidewalks. It’s got lots of hills. It’s largely residential, though there plenty of grocery stores, restaurants, and shops just a couple blocks away. The only parking lots are at schools, and are small, cracked, and often occupied (except on weekends). In other words: you can’t skate here! There’s nowhere to go!
Having a skateboard almost makes me wish that I lived in a residential neighbourhood in the suburbs. Smooth roads, driveways, very little traffic, and giant parking lots. The very things that I have grown to hate are suddenly appealing. It must be true what they say: Skateboards really do corrupt the youth. Maybe I’ll take up smoking, next.
