The Last Great Pool Season

This summer has seen a bumper crop of pools in the Portland area. There must be a lot because even I know about them. The last time I rode this many pools in such a short time period was shortly before I dropped out of school. Since I can’t post the pics of the pools that are still going, you can see some highlights of my poor decision in the late 80’s.

I distinctly remember a decision made one late Fall at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. I had suddenly realized that it was the time of year that Midwest pools were being drained right before the freezing weather hit. I was at a make or break point that semester. If I didn’t buckle down I was going to fail. On the other hand, I had been brainwashed by Thrasher Magazine’s legends of pool riding. I figured if I didn’t go scout out and skate those pools I wouldn’t get another chance to skate a pool til the next year, or maybe even never. I’m not saying it made any sense, and I was halfway looking for an excuse to drop out anyway. So for a short but exhilarating week or so I spent my time looking for and skating various mostly crappy pools. As the bad weather hit, I tried to get back into school, but I had lost some crucial part of an assignment in a group project in one of my classes. Rather than go through the embarrassment of admitting it in class, I decided to blow off the whole semester. Awesome. I are a college student.

Above Top Me, decked out in an assload of pads. Below Clockwise from the top: 1 A crew consisting of Brad Krohn, Karl/Clark Kingery, and unknown in the shallow of the Travel Lodge Pool. 2 Some empty pool in an apartment complex somewhere. Notice the guy in the corner skating around the water in the deep. 3 Brad Krohn throwing down a slide at a big public pool in Champaign. 4 The Mertser AKA Martin Pelequin, possibly the Chancellor Inn. 5 Mike Poor at the Travel Lodge

These pics are orange because they were poorly exposed, developed, and fixed. I don’t have prints, just the negatives, and the only way I could get a usable scan was to set the scanner for color negatives. I have plans for putting galleries of all kinds of old shots I have. I’ll keep you posted.