Tallahassee

   I got off work on a Tuesday evening at 7P.M., with my truck already packed with my full stock of gear, I headed back east a bit into the suburbs of Bloomingdale to pick up Josh. We loaded up his gear and started our trek to north Florida. First I had to gas up the truck and Josh wanted to grab a quick meal. When we hit the gas station, Josh ran across the parking lot to a burger joint. After I gassed up the Ranger and picked up a couple of "tall boys" and apples for the road, I ran over to meet him. As we waited for his food, we took notice that besides us there was only three other people inside the place. Behind us to the left was some high school couple - a boy and a girl - they were dressed as if they were on some prom night, high class dinner date or some jazz. A fancy table cloth was draped over with lit candles and they had wine glasses filled with nothing more than sparkling cider. To hell with that! Give me the real wine. Behind us to the right, across the dinning area was some older guy holding a video camera, filming the high school couple. Josh and I agreed to the conclusion he could be one of their dad's. No matter, it was still odd.

   By the time we got on the interstate, it was already 8:30P.M. and it was going to be a four hour drive. I had just worked a nine hour day at the photolab, which happened to include me chasing down a thief, a pretty big - six foot five thief - and retrieve a thirteen hundred dollar camera and lens kit he swiped. (But that's a completely different story). North bound on interstate 75 at a cruising speed of seventy-five. Tall boys and apples with tea, good old classic rock jams for the ears, grand philosophical conversations about life and skateboarding. Then it happened. A bit north of Ocala, about two - two and a half hours into our journey, the engine just loses power and cuts off. The battery light comes on the dash gauge, my dash lights work, headlights are working fine, even the radio is still jamming away. I mash down on the gas pedal, still no action. As the truck coasts down, I pull off the highway onto the right shoulder of the road. I put the gear into park and the old truck cranks, starting right up with full power. At first for a short while it's running good, but as we hit the rolling hills of I-75 between Ocala and Lake City, the Ranger starts shifting harsh on the inclines mostly yet also at times on the declines. A little while more down the highway the engine loses power again, it lost power a total of four times. Every time the engine would cut off I would just shift into neutral and coast [in the middle lane] and that old truck would crank back up and keep on. After we made it north of Lake City and onto interstate 10 west all the way into Tallahassee, the Ranger ran solid. Not one problem. 

   Thirty minutes after midnight we were pulling into the driveway at Phil and Matt's little block house. We unloaded all of our gear into the house, sat on the couch and cracked some brews, talking of our highway adventure and catching up with each other on the old grand times. An hour or so passed. Matt, Josh, and I were pretty hammered but even so, we decided to roll up to the Tallahassee skatepark for a cruise. We were the only three folks there. At first roll into the bank, I hit some kind of chunk of plastic [or something], locking up my front wheels, giving me a nice big flatspot and sending me jumping forward to run out of possible disaster. [First night in town - I already had my truck fucking up stuck in my head, now this, a big old flatspot on a new set of wheels.] I thought to myself, shit man - I don't want this next couple of days to go like this. I want these days to be the goodtimes. I pushed myself to pull myself out of that dirty funk. I knew I was there to skate and I wanted to skate. It needed to be O.G. It needed to be on the streets, raw and pure. Matt and I made a few moves that night yet for the most part we both were over the park. Josh - on the flipside of things - was ripping. I think it was sometime between 3 or 3:30A.M. when we left the park and headed back to the pad. Josh and I had to sleep on the floor in Matt's room. Josh had Matt's sleeping bag and I had a dusty old brown blanket from my folk's garage. I hit the floor wrapped in that old blanket and fell asleep almost instantly, thinking after nine hours at the photolab, a four hour drive, then booze and skating, I know I'll sleep well. I went to sleep that early morning knowing we would skate a full day that Wednesday. We woke Wednesday morning around 11A.M., a bit later than expected, but the sleep was well earned. I was the last one to walk out to the living room - to find Phil's grandparents were in town for a visit as well. I brought fresh fruits with me, I had bananas, kiwis, and avocados. We had tea and fruit breakfasts (sometimes with beer). About noon time we skated from the house, up the block and bombed a hill - that led us to an intersection at the halfway point of another hill. So we walked up the rest of the way to the top of the hill. We had to wait for the traffick light to turn green on the other side. Bombed that hill. When we got to the bottom, we were basically just outside of the cracked out side of the neighborhood. That's when some random crackhead broad walked up on us. She seemed to take kind to Josh. We were talking about going to get food and she was telling us there was a soup kitchen type of spot just around the corner giving out free meals to the homeless, and that we could eat there. Josh said to her that they probably wouldn't have sausage mcmuffins and that's what he wanted. She answered back with, aw baby you have to buy that. Them things are a dollar, you must be rich. She walked with us for a block or so and was drinking a can of Joose - it's an energy drink with alcohol. She told Josh it was her eighth one and it was only about 12:30P.M. We walked back up the hill, the rest of the way to the house and then piled into Matt's truck to go eat before we skated. We dined at this real jam Asian cafe spot, it's called Tans, it was proper for sure, and pretty cheap to boot.

   By now it was the middle of the afternoon and we were headed to a little ditty of a warm up spot that Matt and Josh knew of. It was an old abandoned small warehouse with a narrow width, long loading dock. Some other skaters had built a cinderblock ledge with angle iron, there was a real small flat rail, and the loading dock bank was just right for doing tricks into. It had a pretty big crack at the top and that basically made a small gap to pop over, but the landing ground of the parking lot was not so good, quite rocky - full of cracks, it was like an Ohio memory. Once again Josh threw down on a warm up sesh. From there we went more into the downtown area, and the Florida State University campus. We hit up these real good banks on campus and just as we were warming up, we got the boot. Kicked out by a security guy on a four-wheeler. This is something every skater knows how to handle - so we moved on. We found another warm up spot with two manny pads and manhole covers for good flat gaps. We left Matt's truck parked and just cruised the streets on our boards - bombing hills and hitting any little random obsticle or terrain to pull off a move. Matt led us up a few sets of three stairs into some little courtyard area outside of some official city building which also happens to be across the street from city hall. The spot had nice low brick ledges all over. We all threw down quite a few good moves there - all while some debate or something was going on inside and was being broadcast through loudspeakers. There were people outside smoking cigarettes on the second floor balcony. They didn't pay us any mind. Back to bombing street hills and back to the truck to again move on to the next location. 

   Matt drove us back across a chunk of town to another bank spot he and Josh (again) knew of. It was basically in the backyard of the house where Phil used to rent, and next to an abortion clinic. And yes there were protesters with signs outside in the parking lot. This was the spot I liked best. It had almost all the elements of any skate spot all in one - it had perfect smooth ground, it had rough patches with cracks and holes, there were rocks, low hanging tree limbs just over the banks, and the banks were perfect height and steepness yet made of pebble rock. So the banks also had smoothed out and rough patches. If you landed a trick wrong, you'd either stick and get tossed or slide out like it was ice. The three of us seemed to have had the day's best session there. The camera gear came out and sequences were captured. One from Matt, about half a dozen with Josh, and with Josh using my equipment - I even got in a couple of good [slam] sequences. Unfortunately due to the sun setting and loss of light, I didn't get the sequence or even the trick at all. I did however shred my left hand open. Hell, it's not a real session unless blood is drawn. Exhausted, dirty, sore, and a bit bloody, hungry as hell, we headed back to that small block house but this wouldn't be the night's end. Barge the house after such a hearty grand day with friends. Even before I wash the dirt and dried crusted blood from my sore hands, I go straight into the kitchen into the refridgerator, pour a glass of green tea and grab my left over mongolian tofu and rice from Tans cafe. Straight from the fridge without heating it up - I devour my plate of food. Now bring on the night filled with brew, music, friends, conversations, and the film Kids. Random chill photos were taken to steal the souls and memories. Another crazy boozed late night for the three of us [and it was a Wednesday night]. It was close to 4A.M. when we went to sleep, so it was definitely going to be a late Thursday morning rise. Again, it was around 11A.M. when we got up, [to again greet Phil's grandparents]. Matt, Josh, and I just sat on the couches in the living room watching Goodtimes on the television being complete wasted piles of shit for the early part of the afternoon while Phil, his girlfriend, and his grandparents went for lunch. We really were also waiting for Phil to get back. Yes. Phil made a guest cameo and not only came along for the sesh but he drove. Back to the downtown and FSU campus areas we were headed. 

   I loaded my camera gear with the boards into the trunk of Phil's four door Honda and we were off. We really didn't cruise around downtown. We stuck mainly to rolling around the college campus hitting up random hills to bomb, ledge and manny pad spots, and we finally did get the chance to cruise those nice banks that we got kicked out from on the first day. It was a good mellow cruise around campus session with good old friends. We all made moves and we missed a few as well. The camera gear didn't make it out of the trunk of Phil's car that late Thursday afternoon, but oh well, it wasn't that kind of session anyway. Evening was creeping on and Josh and I had to make our journey east on I-10 and south on I-75, four hours back to Tampa. We got back to the house, loaded all of our gear back up into the cab of the Ranger, and chilled for a short spell having a brew with friends before getting back on that old lone highway. We gave our last days cheers for the road just around 6P.M., said see ya later to our friends and backed out of the driveway into the street.

   There was one more mission Josh and I had to take care of before we hit the road. We had to go to his brother's apartment and pick up a little Yamaha scooter. We loaded it up into the bed of my truck, tied it down with rope Matt let us use, and hit a gas station. We were back on our way home. We got on the interstate 10 about 7:30P.M. and the Ranger ran solid the journey home to Tampa. We stopped off somewhere in Lake City for a dinner of sandwiches at some dive of a sandwich shop, on the highway we saw a gnarly accident in the north bound lane of I-75 with a flipped over car and emergency rescue vehicles, we listened to Hip-Hop, had grand conversations about the goodtimes we do live.

   I dropped Josh off - we unloaded the scooter - at his parent's house about 11:30P.M., and by midnight I was pulling into the driveway at my folk's.