A sensible reply to an irrational argument.
In case it goes missing. Thanks Shawn!
I’m heartsick by the article titled “Mad about Skaters” that Mr. Hart wrote for the Aug. 24 West Linn Tidings. I’m heartsick, angry and disgusted.
My family, which includes an almost 10-year-old, a 7-year-old and 3-year-old, uses the skate park no less than three times a week. I’m shocked to hear Ms. Elder’s claim that there is drug use, alcohol abuse and “who knows what” going on in the restrooms. Now are the restrooms a place I’d like to spend time in? Not really, however when I’ve been there, there has been no foul activity. As for the claims of adults and not children using the skate parks – so what! Many of these adults my children have had contact with. Did anyone bother to find out who they were? So they don’t look like “West Linn residents.”
I can’t believe we’ve become a city that (because of) the way you look you are not only not welcomed, but you are also considered to be a “bad” person. Why not start worrying about why we pay really high property taxes?
Did any of you realize that we have (skateboard) competitors here on a regular basis because we have the best vertical drops? The guys have been unbelievably helpful in getting my oldest son to do a lot of great moves. They’ve given advice to the kids on how to rebuild their skateboard, given encouragement when their wipe-out involves blood and how to turn the trick around to work for them. I do appreciate the fact that the neighbors who live by the park do hear a lot of conversations and noise – but you also bought the house! We’ve found that just talking to the skaters and asking them to mind their choice of words does wonders.
As for forming a “vigilante group” to mind the skate park, who would these people be? Business people who wear Kenneth Cole, Faconnable and Cole Haan? Instead of complaining to the paper and your neighbors why not create an ordinance and get it passed so the police could ticket the individuals who are causing your neighborhood so much distress. I can’t imagine the “loosely-formed group ‘Friends of Tanner Creek Park’” would be the individuals monitoring the skate park, as they seem to have no passion for the sport or the people who use it. I’m disappointed that the West Linn Tidings didn’t interview more people for the article who actually love to use the skate park.
Shawn Hughes is a West Linn resident.
1 comment
Zach
This is the same kinda of crap the uppity old dolts put us through when I was a teen. Now I’m old, fragile, and no longer a skater. Anyway,
They’d piss and moan non stop about how “kids these days” are such “rotten little creeps”, but when the kids would find a productive and truly rewarding activity like skating they’d trump the kids every chance they could (new anti-skating laws, higher fines, stricter enforcement, etc.)
I think the kids and the grown-ups that skate West Linn should quit and let the city demolish the park. Turn it into something more asthetically pleasing like a golf course or a grave yard. Then the bored skaters can start a campaign of vandalistic neighborhood terror.
Blowing up mail boxes and bottle rocketing houses isn’t half as fun as skating, but if that’s what these purse lipped old turd sacks expect of you, give it to em. No one likes to be proved wrong…….