Fall, 2003
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GO TO THIS PARK!
Saturday afternoon, Jessica and I headed North for a little birthday weekend getaway. She suggested I bring my skate stuff, since we were going through Lansing and there's a park there that we've all been wanting to check out. I was a bit leery of skating over the weekend 'cause of the Mason session the night before; I was still majorly sore, and a bit swollen.
We got to E. Lansing and found the Ranney skatepark with no problem, it's on the main drag (Michigan Ave.). There were maybe fifty kids from age six to seventeen riding the concrete streetstyle course and the banked mini-half type area. The place is so huge that those fifty kids hardly filled half of the place. I dropped into the mini half, and took a few turns. Not bad, but Mason kicks ass in that department. Ranney's banks seem to have slow transitions, and the corners aren't linked up very well.
So far I wasn't that impressed, but I knew there was a bowl there. I took my big-ass board over there to take a look.
From the pictures I had seen before, the egg shaped pool didn't look very big. As I peered over the edge, I was happy to see that it was 9 to 10 feet deep in the deep end and about five feet in the shallow. It just comes to vert in the shallow end and has maybe half a foot to a foot of vert in the deep end. I didn't really pay attention; I was kind of whacked out to just pull off of the highway into a city park and have an empty swimming pool waiting to be skated.
Yeah, I said waiting to be skated. Nobody was riding the pool. There were tons of kids there doing flippy tricks in the street area, and the pool sat empty. What the fuck? I dropped in and took a few turns.
As I was trying to get the bowl wired, this kid comes up to me. hands me a board and says "you want this?" Well, somehow he could tell that I was an old guy ;) I looked at the board and saw that it was an old Powell Skull and Sword model. The kid said that if I took a rip on it, I could have it. I dropped into the mini, and cruised around a bit. Maybe they knew the next day was my birthday.
We stayed maybe a half hour, with plans to come the next day for longer. Before we left though, a kid came and skated the pool with me for a minute. He was carvin' it well, and it was nice to see a punka rocka who could actually skate (unfortunately, I didn't get a good shot of him skating).
On my birthday we woke up, ate, and got on the road to get back to the park. I could hardly sleep the night before; visions of carve grinds danced in my head. We pulled up to the park and this time there were more kids than the day before. Not a single one was skating the pool. Now, I'm all for street skating, and doing tricks on walls and rails, I was raised on that shit. But, to have 50 to 100 skaters avoiding the empty pool that sits in front of them is just fucking wrong! I couldn't believe it. It was kinda like when we went to Mason the first time and Wes was sitting there saying, over and over "I just can't believe this shit is here". And no one was riding the pool.
In an attempt to stay positive, I'll switch gears here.
As soon as I started skating, this dude comes over and rides with me. He was maybe twenty, probably younger. I found out later his name was John. He was trying to wire some backside grinds that day. He flowed in the pool. We took alternating runs and every now and then a kid would jump in the pool and take a mini rip.
There was one total mini shred who was looking over the edge and wanting to skate the pool. This kid was probably eight years old. I had seen him trying to ride the mini-half, but the bigger kids kept snaking him. I convinced him to jump in the pool and take a try. He crawled in, and as he tried to learn to fakie, I told him that he should take advantage of this empty pool. I let him know that since this pool is empty most of the time, he could have it to himself. I pointed to the streetstyle area and said that once you start carving vert, none of that shit matters. Ok, street skating is awesome, but again, an empty pool surrounded by skaters riding a concrete step? Unbe-fucking-lieveable!
John and I kept riding and I busted out the camera and told him to hit that grind and I'd post it on the website. He was stoked and fully hit it. I got the pic, but missed the grind by about a millisecond (and John, the email address you gave me doesn't work). He was a cool dude. Hopefully he'll be up there again when all of us cruise up there sometime.
After a while, Jessica asked if I was ready to go to Mason. I said "we don't need to go to Mason." But, she wanted to see it, and as it turns out, it still rocks. Carving tile is the whip. So, I think the next time we go up that way we'll skate Lansing, then have a cool down sesh at Mason.
Needless to say, I had the best birthday I've had in a LONG time. My friend Chris called me to wish a happy birthday and asked if I felt old. All I could say was, "actually, I feel pretty young today." The fountain of youth? You be the judge!
Check out some short vids from the pool:
Lansing local Dave C. stoking the groms. Well actually, stoking just about everybody!
Wes gets his vert on.
Trevor finally learning to carve!
