Day Ten
Much to everyone’s relief, today was sunny when we woke up. Sunny but cold. As we got in the car we realized that it must be cold because well, it was freaking cold out and the sun wasn’t melting anything. We were a little pokey getting to the job site, which had a light covering of snow. The flat was pretty easy to clean off but the other side was crusted with ice and a top layer of hard pack snow. It took us quite a while to get it scraped and swept off, and when we did, the ramp slowly started to dry in the sun. Everybody was in a pretty good mood, but we were bored because we forgot the radio. As Grover and I began the second layer of plywood, Gordo began to work on raising the platforms with the aid of a scissor lift. We also got word that the Skatelite would arrive tomorrow at 8am. It looks like we’ll get at least one full day of work in. skatelite, for those who don’t know, is a masonite-like material that is supposed to be waterproof because it is made with a concentration of plastic mixed with wood. Our drills ran out of charge fairly soon, so we were reduced to using our one corded drill at a time while Gordo used whichever cordless drill had the best charge.
Andy, one of the guys working for the promoter dropped by with a guy named Carl who has something to do with the Hawk tour. I guess Hawk has got an arena tour planned something on the order of the Swatch tour from the early 90’s only bigger. It supposed to have crazy huge ramps that are pre-fabed and can be put together in a couple of hours. Carl has copped an attitide and Andy is shedding some light on who the potential riders are for what we are building. It turns out that he doesn’t have anyone locked in yet and is playing DC Shoes off the Etnies team. (This comes back to bite him in the ass later…) Like the rest of the Ice Village, this deal seems to be coming down to the wire. We also found out that it will cost from 10 to 15 bucks to get in, which sounds absurd. Carl doesn’t like our construction methods and we don’t like him. After they left, Grover took the honors with the inevitable first ride before the ramp was fully plyed. I don’t think there is a ramp that has ever been built that wasn’t skated at the first possible moment, just as soon as one transition was partially covered.
Gordo had planned on buying another drill, but instead he went off to borrow one. He found one in a box. We nicknamed it “Birdy.” Why would we come up with a name for an ancient power tool? If you used it at anything other than full speed it made a sound that bleats out like a dying loon. Gordo drove off for another hour to get us an extension cord. Work progressed slowly on the transitions because it was hard to press the plywood down and keep your footing in the cold. We decided to quit plying late in the afternoon because even though the sun was still out, the temperature was dropping rapidly, causing the plywood to crack instead of bend. Casey didn’t show today, but the old guy that asks all the questions came by again with a friend and asked if he could take a picture of our “art”. I don’t know what is up with this guy. He doesn’t look quite old enough to be retired so I don’t know why he’s always there in the middle of the day. He’s not a bum. He’s probably some combination of lonely and or bored. We helped Gordo try and do in a hour or so what had taken him most of the day to do. It was easier with a couple guys. We raised the fifth and sixth platforms (out of eight) and called it quits because it was bitter cold and we were worried Gordo was going to drill a hole through his fingers.
We left the job site and headed over to Marine Products to scope a session the miniramp. We get there and the manager is a real jerk, but this guy Tyler that works there was pretty friendly. It turns out that you only can ride when they are officially open, which makes sense. The bad news is that they close at 6:00 and it’s currently 5:45. I don’t know who shows up to skate during work and school hours, maybe retired folks or the unemployed. Tyler took us back to the warehouse to show us the ramp we weren’t allowed to skate, even though we technically had 10 minutes or so. It’s called Hangar 18. It’s a nice mini that has 6ft transitions, an extension, an escalator, a couch and a stereo. No matter how hard we tried we couldn’t talk him in to letting us session for a couple of minutes. Oh well. We took off for Real Ride Skatepark again, but not before stopping at another hobby store to look at RC gliders. It turns out that they carried nothing but plastic models, thousands of them. Weird. I’ve never seen a store that only carried models. The sign said “Closed until Saturday” but the door was open so we bum rushed the store. This made the guy that came out of the back room very nervous, but he let us look around anyway. We bailed and went to Real Ride. Once there, I realized that I had forgotton to bring shorts and I was still wearing my quilted Carharts. Three years ago I broke my knee and spent a week in the hospital and six months in a cast. Earlier this year I broke my elbow and had three bolts put in my arm. I’m pretty gun-shy about riding without pads, and they wouldn’t fit under or over these bibs. I went to the pro shop (ha ha) and tried to buy some shorts. They had none, so I was left with no choice but to skate in my long underwear, no shorts. Grover decided to skate in his long underwear as well, allegedly to provide moral support. I suspected it had more to do with the fact that he sometimes can’t keep his clothes on in social situations. This made it easier for him to repeat his annual tradition of skating with his pants dropped to his knees. I don’t have a photo, but I did capture his posterior for posterity on video. Grover insists that I have been shooting the world’s most boring documentary, but with this added footage and some creative editing it could be amusing. For some reason the locals at the park weren’t down with our freaky style. Even the rollerbladers thought we were goofy. Despite our attire, our session was pretty lack luster and nobody wanted to skate with us. Grover gave himself a huge charley horse trying to do a hand plant to grind thing on the platform behind the platform. We dorked around in the foam pit and then split.
At Gordo’s house, I realized that I had left my jacket at the park. I drove back on my own and discovered the joys of Disney Radio and their programing format comprised of non-threatening pseudo hip hop aimed at 12 year old girls. When I got back, Grover decided to go to bed earlier than Gordon’s 11 month old infant. It seems he’s reverted back to his usual routine. Tomorrow I suspect we will finish the second layer, the platforms, and start on the Skatelite.
Next Day: Really cold Skatelite.
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