Skate and DESTROY

Brother Rick shares a cool memory!

AW SHIT WES!



     Callin me out like that.  You know its kinda
strange that you brought out the sky hooks.  Last
night I was unpacking  some boxes at our new house and
found a bunch of old skate photos.  Some from around
the barn ramp time, others are from the wayback
machine.



  Back in about 77 a skatepark opened in Toledo called
Soaring High.  I had been skating a few years and had
a slight idea of what was going on with pools, pipes,
and then parks.


  
  Shortly after it opened I was able to go for the
first time.  It was a rolling continuous piece of
concrete.  Poorly designed, but it had a few bowls. 
They each had a name.  There was the Stokin' Bowl,
Bathtub, but the big daddy of all of em' was the
Soaring High peak.  It was about 25 feet deep w/ a
vertical slab that was probably 7' or 8' feet high. 
It actually looked like a drainage ditch, long slow
w/kinda flat walls.  I was 12 or 13 at the time and it
was all over for me.  This was "IT".  The next time at
the park I just went up to the manager before even
gettin my shit on.  Bam, I asked for a job.  He asked
how old I was and said I could work on the safety
patrol.  It was a ticket to ride.  Tues and thur
nights, sat and sun days.  All I had to do was skate
and tell someone if there was an injury.  Lots of
broken legs in that place.


  
   One day this Ratty lookin crew of older guys showed
up.  Smellin like weed, laughin, just having the best
time.  They turned out to be from A2.  Dale Calvert,
Jim(juggler guy), Derek(Disco) And  a couple of others
that I vaguely remember.  Dale and I were instantly
cool with each other.  It was  always more fun when
they were around.  They would bring weird shit with
them to the park.  I remember a slalom board to carve
really fast on, a unicycle, and really vague memories
of Jim using some sort of SKYHOOK contraption to catch
big air off this natural jump.


  
   Brian Mank worked there also.  Later in life we
would talk about that place and bullshit.  I always
remembered Jim doing full on frontside hand plants on
the base of that block, but Brian said BS.  Last night
I found a photo of it.  It is just fuckin' rad.  The
back of the photo has a date of feb 79.  Hopefully it
will scan ok and I'll get to you for the site.  Enough
rambling.




                        Rick from Toledo (now Montana)