doodledee

A guy I work with caught me in one of those situations where he asked me to do something "sometime" and I said "sure, that'd really be fun" when what I was actually thinking was "sure, that'd probably be fun, but there's also a chance that he'll forget about this whole thing right after he walks away and if that's the case I'm totally cool with that, too." I'm sure you've been there, we all have.

But of course he didn't forget and every week or two he'd bring it up again and I'd have to pull out my book of excuses (soccer, out of town, kickboxing, whatever) and reply with my regrets. To be fair to me, though, the 'excuses' were always legitimate conflicts, never just made up stories to avoid getting together. But he stayed with it - not without some encouragement from me, mind you - and eventually we found a mutually agreeable date and time.

Now here's the part where I tell you that last Monday night me and this guy from work got together down at the Saint Louis Park skate park for a late night ramp and flats throwdown straight outta 1988.

I'll give you a minute. Ok, let's continue.

And here's the part where I tell you that sure, I still push my [now vintage] board(s) around the neighborhood on occasion. It's perfect for when you need to run down to the park to meet the family and you don't want to walk your bike home, duh. So I'm still comfortable and confident enough on flat ground that I don't feel like I'm going to hurt myself or those around me. But WOW has it been a long time since I rode any type of ramp. Or attempted anything other than an ollie. Or done a 180 for that matter. I'm thinking it's been over 15 years. WOW again, I say, WOW.

I'm going to break the rest of this story down into two parts. The first part will be the park, which is actually a nice little park. When I think about how we used strap our boards on our backs and ride our bikes down to the Country Kitchen to grind the same curb over and over - because that was the only game in town - it just doesn't seem 'normal' to have all these little ramp parks all over the place. At least they seem to be getting used.

Anyway, I hit it up for maybe 20 or 30 minutes and found my grove pretty fast. I didn't drop in or anything crazy, but I got up and down and got my turns on and they've got some rails and funboxes and stuff and I tried - and failed miserably - to hit those a few times. All in all not too bad. Better than I expected, even.

Now the second part, or, what I like to call the "More Advil? Yes, please" part. Because WOW did I pull some stomach muscles. Who knew I even had stomach muscles? And who knew that if you pull your stomach muscles it hurts to breathe and walk and laugh and eat? All things I do often. It was brutal. But I didn't go to the doctor. Because I know he just would have said "take a ton of Advil" so that's what I did and I think it's finally better. Only a week. I'd say it was worth it.

I'd go back.