Entries this day: wild_skating_adventure

wild skating adventure

July 1993

I went out on a Thursday night a couple of months ago and met some skater dudes, and we skated down parking garages, and through a tunnel underground that connects some underground garages. We had to haul ass through the tunnel because there was a security guard down there, and we are *not* supposed to be there. I was not great at going up or down steps, but I had to learn really quickly in the tunnel.

I went on roller blades to the Freedom Festival out by Allen Parkway for the 4th of July. It was super cool. I met about 30 skater people, many of whom are part of the Urban Animals, a skater group in the city. I met a girl named Beth, and she and I went people surfing while singing the melody to the Hawaii Five-O theme song. People surfing means whizzing through the crowds of people at high speed and trying not to hit anyone. We did great. We were flying through the crowds as I would yell, "break right!" or "break left!" so we would zip around to the right or left hand side of the next people clog (for lack of a better word). Very cool.

At the end of the fire works display, all 100,000 people at the show got up and left at the same time. That was a major traffic, bike and people jam. Cars were too darn big to move, people with bikes found it too crowded to ride, and pedestrians were just slow because they aren't on wheels. However(!), we 30 or so skater dudes were on wheels, so we could haul butt, and we were people-sized, so we were maneuverable. All 30 of us went racing and howling (literally) through the crowds of cars and people and everything and everyone just parted like the Red Sea. People in the crowd would stop to watch or howl with us as we whizzed by. We skated entirely across the city twice during the night, and I was out with them until about 2am. That was so fantastic.