Sleezy in Florida

   Every winter holiday my good friend Matt from the Sleezy skates crew in Ohio comes down to Tampa for a spell. It's been this way for the past eight years. Except this year's trip wasn't going to happen - or so I thought. Matt called me the beginning of December informing me that he was going to make his winter holidays out west in San Diego. I knew he had never been out to Cali, so I told him to go and have a great crazy adventure. Only the kind of adventure Matt is well known to have. He made it two weeks, spent the third week - and new year's out in Las Vegas, then back to San Diego where his travels went sour. A turn for the bad and Matt was over it. I got an e-mail from him, telling me how he was buckin' on S.D. and wanted to catch a flight back to Florida - back to Tampa. He flew to the east coast, into West Palm. His folks were already in town over that way. I was headed east on State Road 60, through small anonymous towns, country - cow fields and randomness. I had a few hours to drive. When I pulled into the hotel, there was good old Matt skating the curb - doing slappies - on a board shaped like a churchkey. Right as I steered my truck into the parking lot, Matt looked over his shoulder at me with a crazy grin and barged a nice frontside fifty-fifty slappy, and continued - skating off to lead the way to the room. I cruised my truck slow, window down with my arm hanging out while Matt led the way skating, doing little ollies and power slides along the way. Other guests at the hotel who saw this gave snobbish looks. Of course it didn't matter to us. Once in the hotel room we had a short - good conversation with his folks. We gave hugs and made our way onto interstate 95 north.

   This winter's trek became a vacation for a few of the Sleezy guys. Matt and I were now on our way to Sanford. We were meeting up with Zack and his girlfriend Ally, they were Matt's friends from Athens Ohio. Zack and Ally had a twenty-five foot camper trailer set up at the Wekiva Falls RV park. This was to be our base camp for our adventures which took place four consecutive weekends over a month's time. It was a Friday, we met up with Zack and a Sanford local he randomly met named Brandon, at a Tropical Smoothie cafe where Ally was working. After some smoothies, the four of us hopped in Ally's jeep with Zack driving and back onto I-4 east to Daytona. Within a half an hour we were at the Daytona skatepark. Skating was done and photos were taken. On the way back to the camper life in Sanford we stopped at a grocery store for grilling supplies - food and beer.

   The next day Zack, Matt, and I took off in my truck and went to Altamonte Springs to skate the Maitland brick quarter pipes. One more afternoon of schralping and photos shot. Later that Saturday evening we found ourselves back on the east coast in Daytona at my friend Will's house, which is also a non-profit artist academy. They were having a grand opening art show. Will took us on a tour of the house, we had conversations, drank beer and wine, ate sushi, and checked out the artwork. On Sunday we all had a late morning rise at the campground in Sanford. That afternoon we stayed in the Orlando area, ending up at this house called The Trails. A crew of BMXers lives there. The front yard of the house is a track with dirt jumps, the back yard has a mini ramp with a couple of hips, and a quarter pipe wallride on the side of a shed. There was also a big lake out back. Matt and Zack labeled this place Biketopia - the BMX version of Skatopia. The guys at The Trails were real cool with us skating the mini ramp. Another good session with new friends and lots of beer. That night Zack, Ally, Matt, and I once again headed to the east coast to St. Augustine. We went to some small dive bar to see an all fem punk band - Rag Rage. The bass player, Meg, was another old friend of theirs from Ohio. We all drank and raged hard and I shot a few photos. At the end of the weekend Matt and I were on our way back west to Tampa. During the weekdays we had sessions with LBK and Robert out at Wauchula skatepark, the New Tampa park, and Fish Hawk park. The nights were filled with films, beer, skate videos, conversations, and music.

   By the second weekend Henry was now down in Sanford, staying with Zack and Ally in the camper. Matt and I got an early jump on this weekend, leaving just before 8P.M. on a Thursday night. Round two - back to the camper life at Wekiva Falls in Sanford. About two hours later, around 10P.M. my dusty old well traveled truck was pulling up - in front of Ally's camper. As we unloaded our gear from the cab of my truck, Henry came around from the back of the camper to greet us. I hadn't seen good old boy Henry in about three years. I grabbed him and put him in a headlock. Zack loaded the grill with the charcoal and lighter fluid and fired it up. We drank Busch, shared crazy great stories, Henry rolled up cigarettes, while Ally cut Matt's hair - giving him a wide-fat mohawk by candle light. We all drank and talked late into the night, watching big gray clouds blow in fast over head, and the wind started to pick up. Matt very drunken and half assed set up my tent for his sleeping quarters. The damned thing was leaning over. Ally, Zack, and Henry went inside the camper and I watched the lights go off. I took an old blanket I had out of the cab of my truck and laid it out in the bed of my pick-up. I had no pillow, just the blanket and the old flannel Henry gave me and a hooded sweatshirt with a t-shirt underneath. The wind gusts continued on with the clouds still blowing in. I was lucky I didn't get rained on. I awoke on Friday morning to Henry yelling, "he's over here, asleep in the back of the truck!" I rolled over, pulling the hood off my head, looking skyward to a nice gray clouded sky. Zack, Henry, Matt, and I took Zack's dogs, Brutus and Butter; for a short hike on a trail along the river there. We loaded up Zack's four door Camry with our gear and the dogs, and headed for the New Smyrna skatepark. The day stayed cloud filled. When we got to the park, the four of us barged the small shack of a pro-shop, told the kid working behind the counter that we all had been there before so we skipped out on signing any paperwork. Helmets were required at this park, Zack and Henry wore their construction hardhats. The Sleezy guys know how to hold down a gnarly, crazy-fun, live skate session. Dogs, beer, schralping, and of course jams. Henry had a heavy duty Dewalt ghettoblaster with Zack's Ipod playing DJ. Loud fast crusty Punk to Country! Barge and take no prisoners. We had a good afternoon session for a couple of hours, but the sky had to finally open up and let loose, pouring on us. Rained out. We stuck around. The showers were soon over but any chance the sun would show, a cloud would just blow over and block it again. The park wasn't drying. We decided to split and yet again make our way to the Daytona park. As we pulled out of the grass and dirt parking lot, I saw a jeep parked across the lot and a few of my Skatepark of Tampa mates hopped out. Zack pulled up next to the jeep and we chatted with Frosty and Dillow. They all had just come from the Daytona park. Frosty said it was real crowded. On the way to Daytona, we hit up a grocery store where Matt and Zack did a dumpster dive, and we came up on three big boxes of day old baked goods - breads and pastries still in sealed packages. When we got to the Daytona park it was dry and not too crowded. Each of us downed a beer in the parking lot, eating pastries, then grabbed the Dewalt radio and went into the park. This was too good of a session, so I chose to skate and not shoot any photos. Schralping was done. I even took quite a few cruise lines in the bowl.

   On the third weekend, Zack and Henry came over to Tampa. Saturday night we went up to Ghetto in Zephyrhills and had a good session with Jimmy the Greek and Charlie Crank from Murder Ride Skateboards. Sunday was another cold, cloudy day and we met up with the Lazy Sundays crew at the Bro-Bowl in downtown Tampa. When the fourth weekend came, Henry had already split back up to Ohio, trading places with Amber. Now she was in Sanford staying at the camper. Friday; Zack, Ally, Matt, Amber, and I, with the two dogs packed into Zack's car and headed to New Smyrna again but the rains came even before we got to the park. Once again we ended up in Daytona, but this time at Stone Edge skatepark. The rain didn't let up so the four of us along with Ricky Burns and Barnes ended up going to some dive bar where the beer was cheap and the bartenders danced naked on the bar. I woke up feeling rough, we all had another late morning rise that Saturday. The late morning was gray and dreary with big gusts of wind. We weren't sure if or when it would rain, ending our day. Yet we stuck to our plan to go skate. And again onto I-4 east, our journey that Saturday was to Deltona. A mid afternoon meet up with Barnes and some of his friends also from out of town. The spot was known as the Fiber Rider. It was really in the middle of nowhere off a dirt road. The Fiber Rider was this fiberglass race track sort of thing, kind of like a Hotwheels track for skateboards. It was built in the 1970's and it was made for skateboarding. Also on the property was a huge, above ground [on a hill] cement clover bowl, and another smaller bowl that reminded me of a mini Lula bowl at Skatopia. But before we had our sessions there was work to be done. A crew of guys were doing concrete work on the smaller bowl. Just as it is at Skatopia in Ohio, if you plan to skate, you better put in some work. Matt and I lugged 80 pound bags of cement, and Zack and Amber got in some actual concrete work. Between the work, Ally and I got in some photos. Lots of beer was drank by everyone and we had great sessions till the sun went down. This would be my last trip back to the camper life. That Saturday night I would be on my way back to Tampa, and the following weekend the four of them would be off to Nashville Tennessee to go see Hank Williams III.