Skate Park

There is a local skate park in the urban section of town, and as you can imagine, it’s a favorite destination of Ns. It’s designed for skateboarders, but it’s open to kids on BMX bikes and scooters, they’re all part of the same crowd and accept one another. The park has been around for over 10 years, and they did a really nice job with it, especially when you consider that we’re out in the wilds of New England. I even met the guy who designed and helped build it, he’s one of the former owners of Whaleback Mountain, which is one of our favorite ski hills.

After a dozen years of use, you can imagine that the park is in a bit of disrepair. The guys behind it decided to have some sort of fundraiser/benefit to help rebuild the place, and naturally N wanted to go. Even A expressed some interest, maybe to see rebellious but cool teenage boys? She’s at that age, but I can’t speak for her motivations. We figured it would be a party, at the very least, so we packed up N’s things and headed over. He didn’t want to bring his riding stuff because he figured it was going to be a skateboarding event, but as I always tell them, bring it along and if you don’t use it, fine, but if you do want it, at least you have it. It’s better to regret what you have done than what you haven’t done, right? Yeah, yeah, whatever.

The event was a little more low key than I had expected. I thought there would be a barbecue and tons of loud music, but there was none of that. Even the crowd was smaller than I thought, though it really picked up later. The skateboarders were really good, and it was fun just watching them go off and try to outdo one another. Teenage male testosterone, you can’t beat the spectacle.

The skate park is near Price Chopper, so I went shopping for food while the kids stayed and watched the various competitions. At some point A was bored, and kept asking to leave, while N wanted to stay all day. After a few hours, we finally did head out, but not before getting some ice cream at Fore-U. Our timing was good because as soon as we got home, the skies opened up and it poured. Life is all about timing, is it not?

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to patrick janicek for the pic.