The Most Wonderful Sound
Yesterday I walked to work. This is what I do for excersie on days when I don't have time to go on a run. It's a whopping 2-mile walk--maybe less than that. My pedometer is broken, so who really knows how long it is. If I book it, I can get to work in about 20 minutes. Usually I don't book it; yesterday, for instance, I was groggy and a wee bit hungover, and I'd stopped at a bakery for a latte and a scone. So I ambled along in the Sunday sun, nibbling my scone and gulping down my latte. (I have no illusions about lattes. They are, for all practical purposes, warm milkshales for adults).
My walk takes me past little Berkeley houses, the kind that cost half a million bucks and look delapidated and semi-trashy from the outside. I figure mot of these homeowners have lived there for decades, and they don't feel any irony in their stockpiling of broken chairs or splintered palets in their tiny front yards.
But at least they are green front yards, with trees around and fairly little automobile traffic. It's a nice little walk. I rounded a corner and heard the wonderful sound of skateboard wheels on the sidewalk behind me. When I was a young boy-crazy girl, I associated this sound with cute skater boys and their drop haircuts and oversized pants and t-shirts. It always made my ears prick up.
That was long ago. Now that I am a married lady on the eve of her 30s, I associate the sound with mu husband, who was once one of those cute skaters with comically gigantic t-shirts. He still skates, but now he wears clothes that fit. I didn't know him back in his skating heyday, but I'd rather be married to him now than have had a crush on him in 1992.
So I heard these skateboard wheels rolling towards me as I walked to work with the foamy dregs of my latte lining the paper cup in my hand. I didn't turn around, but I did move to the edge of the sidewalk to make room for the skater. He rolled past me, and it was a kid--a kid who couldn't have been more then nine years old. He had a sleeping bag tucked under his arm. He was probably coming home after spending the night at a friend's house.
It made me happy. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like you never see kids do stuff like that these days; their paranoid parents drive them everywhere. Maybe someday Joe and I will have a kid who skates to his (or her) friend's house with a sleeping bag in tow. That would ne nice. I'd have a third image to associate with the sound of skateboard wheels on pavement.
My walk takes me past little Berkeley houses, the kind that cost half a million bucks and look delapidated and semi-trashy from the outside. I figure mot of these homeowners have lived there for decades, and they don't feel any irony in their stockpiling of broken chairs or splintered palets in their tiny front yards.
But at least they are green front yards, with trees around and fairly little automobile traffic. It's a nice little walk. I rounded a corner and heard the wonderful sound of skateboard wheels on the sidewalk behind me. When I was a young boy-crazy girl, I associated this sound with cute skater boys and their drop haircuts and oversized pants and t-shirts. It always made my ears prick up.
That was long ago. Now that I am a married lady on the eve of her 30s, I associate the sound with mu husband, who was once one of those cute skaters with comically gigantic t-shirts. He still skates, but now he wears clothes that fit. I didn't know him back in his skating heyday, but I'd rather be married to him now than have had a crush on him in 1992.
So I heard these skateboard wheels rolling towards me as I walked to work with the foamy dregs of my latte lining the paper cup in my hand. I didn't turn around, but I did move to the edge of the sidewalk to make room for the skater. He rolled past me, and it was a kid--a kid who couldn't have been more then nine years old. He had a sleeping bag tucked under his arm. He was probably coming home after spending the night at a friend's house.
It made me happy. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like you never see kids do stuff like that these days; their paranoid parents drive them everywhere. Maybe someday Joe and I will have a kid who skates to his (or her) friend's house with a sleeping bag in tow. That would ne nice. I'd have a third image to associate with the sound of skateboard wheels on pavement.
posted by Lefty at 9:59 AM
2 Comments:
nice in theory but wait til you have one. It's scary to have them in the other room..
Funny. Being a skateboarder back in the early '90s, I too was excited when girls were around my friends and I while out rolling around. It didn't happen very often, but sometimes there they were--the girls--seemingly materializing out of nowhere. I probably just ignored them for the most part, and focused on my skating, but another part of me knew they were there, watching, and I would try to skate maybe a little better that day just to show off a bit. Stupid. But that was my way of trying to be "cool" or something. 'Cause most of the time I was just a big, skinny dork. As dumb as it sounds, my skateboard gave me confidence and power. I could accomplish anything while on it. I was selfish while skating, because I knew I was pretty good, and I thought most other people sucked because they could not skateboard as well as me in my little town. Ha!
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