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January 30, 2006

Defying Gravity

Sometimes my kids amaze me.

Now, I'm not one of those parents who is in constant, indiscriminate awe of his children; I think part of loving them is helping realize that they aren't the most special people in the whole world (except to me, personally, in my heart, where that sort of thing belongs). My kids do great things; they also blow off their homework and forget to feed the dog. They are, in short, human.

But I gotta hand it to Bun and Zam - they have one thing all over me.

My ex-wife and I started the kids on roller skates very young; I think Zam was barely three years old, and Bun was probably a little over four. This is a good thing; with that boundless capacity for absorbing stuff that little kids have (unless they're stuck in front of a TV wasting that capacity), they developed balance and relative fearlessness about falling before I finished lacing up my skates. They both skate rings around me, and most people to boot.

Last night I took 'em skateboarding - there's an indoor skateboard park in Golden Valley, behind the Louisiana Avenue Taco Bell. It was a three hour session, and I did it largely to buy myself a couple of hours to get some homework done.

I didn't wind up leaving the building. I was amazed.

Part of it was the show on the floor. I find most "skater" "culture" pretty depressing; "Viva La Bam" has to be the most depressing program on television. There's a grotesque nihilism in the way the culture is marketed; one sticker last night was subtitled "Hate. Kill. Destroy", completely with nazi/fascist motif; the ad sells skateboards. Another ad for, I think, skate gear billed "Gear for the Youth Revolution". Advertisers wanting to reach skateboarders seem to mine Goebbels and Guevara with equal aplomb.

But the silliness of the ads was a momentary distraction from the park itself, and all the skating. Which was amazing; watching the older kids - late teens and early twentysomethings, mostly - sailing off the tops of ten-foot quarter-pipes, flying over ramps, flipping their boards, and ending up atop another ten-foot pipe is a daunting display of applied physics for a guy who on a good day can do a straight line in in-line skates.

And I spent most of the time watching my kids. My son is a lot more physically fearless than I ever was (to say nothing of the way I am now), but even he felt a little daunted the first time he stood at the top of the three-foot quarterpipe. He tried kicking his board down - and fell over.

And then he did it again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And yet again.

And then he almost got it, but fell over at the last second.

And then - he made it. He kicked his board over, so he was heading nearly-vertically downward (if only for a foot or so), then bottoming and rolling smoothly across the flat black (what else) floor.

Bun is a lot more like me; she contented herself with rolling down the ramp and across the floor - occasionally over a small ramp in the middle of the floor - over and over again, basically making sure of her balance.

Short quarter-pipe conquered, Zam and his friend made a beeline from the "bunny slope" room to the big park. Zam's friend - let's call him "Jeff" - is one of those kids I remember envying; the right height for his age and size (when I was 15, I was 6'2 and 125 pounds), for starters, and thus coordinated and graceful in a way I could never be (and have never been). He was doing screeching turns up and down quarterpipes, flying over ramps and mastering elementary tricks by the middle of the evening.

Zam went a little slower, but was navigating the tall ramps in the big park with ease - down from about 10 feet to about five, then across the long table, over a short ramp (no tricks, but fast and balanced) and up the ten foot ramp on the other side with a short flourish. They both had a grace and command of...of balance that astounds me.

I watched them - down the ramp, up the ramp, down the ramp, up the ramp - for two of the three hours of the session, Bun and Zam (and of course the advanced skaters, whose tricks gave my knees sympathy pangs). The effortlessness of it all - even in Sam's simple gliding - was mesmerizing. I can understand the fascination.

Oh, yeah - and some of my faith in the next generation is restored. If you watch dreck like "Viva La Bam", you might get the impression that serious skateboarders (like anyone in any area where the worst traits of adolescence are glorified) can be self-indulgent, emotionally-stunted jagoffs. And you'd be right. A couple of the kids, early-teens with great skating chops and minimal social skills, tried to throw their weight around with the beginners - and Bun, Zam and his friend handled things well, holding their own and not backing down and yet not getting into a fight - the sort of thing you hope your kids will do, though on some of the darker days of raising teenagers you hardly expect it.

A great night, all in all.

Posted by Mitch at January 30, 2006 07:30 AM | TrackBack
Comments

I can certainly relate... I do enjoy the occasional slice of life posts...

One question tho' Mitch... Bun and Zam?

Isn't that a bit Zappa-ish?

Posted by: Doug at January 31, 2006 11:07 AM

I use their nicknames in the blog.

Posted by: mitch at January 31, 2006 01:34 PM

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Posted by: at June 26, 2006 11:33 PM

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Posted by: at July 1, 2006 06:41 PM
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