Lately in our house there have been two different languages spoken. On one side of the age divide is talk about goals and touchdowns, passes and punts. But there is a lot more talk of ollies and verts, coping and rails on the younger side of that divide.
In our house a truck isn’t the thing I drive to work every day, it’s one of two pieces of metal that fasten wheels to a deck so that my boys can ride around the neighborhood. And no, a deck isn’t what I wish I was sitting on, glass of Champagne in hand, it’s what my kids plant their gigantic, Vans-covered feet on to ride to school and back. In essence it’s the way they move from place to place rather than using their big feet to walk there on their own power.
I’m pleased that my kids are active. That they choose to challenge themselves by dropping in on a ramp so high that I wouldn’t even slide down it on my butt. I’m thrilled when they are able to fall and brush off their shoulders and try it again. But we have somewhat of a disconnect when it comes to our appreciation of sports.
While I grew up a tomboy and spent some time on a skateboard, my boys in turn, don’t care for the entire selection of sports available to them. They like skateboarding and surfing, but they don’t care much about fútbol or football.
They don’t find significance in the Immaculate Reception—one of the greatest NFL plays of all time—or more recently, the glorious, record-breaking 15 saves that Tim Howard made against Belgium in the 2014 World Cup soccer match. I have a sneaking suspicion that they also just don’t care.
So, to try and bridge that divide—between (pre-season) Sunday football games that is—I let the boys turn off the TV and grab their boards, and we headed to the skatepark on a recent weekend.
One of our favorite parks to go to is in Solvang. I say “we” not because Ron or I are getting out on the board with them (because, really, at our ages who can recover from those kinds of falls?) but because it seems to be the only park that pleases everyone.
Solvang Skatepark is hidden within Hans Christian Andersen Park. To get to this woody little park visitors enter through a castle arch, which I think is super cool, and my boys—though they will never admit it now—also thought it was cool too, when they were young, which of course, they aren’t anymore.
It’s a public skatepark but it rarely seems to be too crowded. It does draw a younger crowd—with parents in tow—but there are plenty of times you can find the park relatively empty. The park itself is expansive, woody and picturesque with convenient facilities, and barbecue and picnic areas. The temperature is usually an intense 80 degrees, which is perfect for alternating between the sunlit picnic tables and shade of the park while watching the skaters grind, kick-flip, and catch air.
There are two peanut-shaped bowls separated by a spine with an island in the middle for doing airs or half-pipe tricks. There’s lots of coping to carve on, a mini ramp and a vert (vertical) wall—at least that’s what my kids say in their skate lingo.
On a recent weekend, Ron and I took our youngest boys, Chase, 13, and Sebastian, 7, to visit the park. I took in some sun while Ron bravely stood in the middle of the bowl with a camera as our boys and other skaters whizzed—and sometimes crashed—passed him. One of the whizzers was 7-year-old Tyler Stenzel of Ventura.
He and his dad often come out for the day so that Tyler can skate this gem of a park.
Long bleached-out locks peeked from beneath his helmet as he dropped in with the best of them. Crouched low on his board he would glide by flawlessly following the flowing lines of the concrete bowl and then up over the coping. His dad said Tyler has been skating and surfing solid for three years—and just for emphasis, that’s since he was 4 years old.
His dad said he likes to surf with his son but at the skatepark he opts to sit aside and watch because, as he noted, “If I get hurt here, it’ll keep me out of the water.” In other words, falling off a board on the concrete has more of a long-lasting ‘ouch’ factor for people of a certain age than falling off a board in the water. Ron, who doesn’t even try to skate with our boys anymore, lest an injury from a ill-timed vert keeps him from surfing, eagerly agreed.
As for me, well, I’m satisfied just sitting in the warm Solvang sun, remembering the days when my joints seemed to be made of rubber, bouncing back quickly after being pitched—barefoot—off the little blue skateboard I used to ride—onto the uneven pavement in front of my house, in the days before skateparks, in those pioneering days just after rubber wheels were introduced. It’s in this mellow mood I like witnessing my boys zip back and forth across the park, dropping in and catching air, and creating what will become their memories after their own rubber has worn a little thin.
Editor Shelly Cone can be contacted at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Aug 27 – Sep 3, 2015.