Mud island Skate Demo

I got a invite through Facebook from one of the local guys, Aaron Shafer, to attend a skate demo at the Mud Island River Park. A park that is located on an Island in the Mississippi river. There are plans to build a skateboard park here (this event has nothing to do with skate park), the project has been approved by the city government but the when and how long have not been finalized, so who knows. The skate demo is part of a community get together for some foundation, I did not pay attention to some details, not sure of the name.

I got there right at 1pm expecting  some skate action, paid my $5 to get through the gates and proceeded to an empty parking lot that had various skate obstacles: grind boxes, launch ramp, grind rails and a wall ride.   There were a couple of basketball goals on the adjacent area (out of the way) set up with games going as I walked through the lot but no skaters any where I could see. This was the spot, the notice I got on FB said 1pm but no skaters here. Even so, the pavement was awful for skating, no wonder no one was here. It was a cheaply done parking lot surface that was rough and had tiny tar pebbles scattered all over the surface. This surface does not make for smooth rolling, a skaters peeve. So I kept walking.

As i walked past the area I heard the clatter of boards and concrete, there they were set up in an area that had a couple set of stairs and smother concrete and brick surface. They had a wedge ramp set up on the stairs and were riding up the ramp doing flip tricks up and down the ramp. There was one Caucasian man and  a few teenage African American boys skating the site.  The white guy is named Mark, he works at the GreenLaw community center and manages a skateboard miniramp built there this year. Mark is from the UK, London area and hates football, haha.

I find out that the demo is now going to happen at 3pm, not 1pm, so I decide to just wait and hang out. Other people started show up, another white guy named Darren, then Chris, Shannon from Cordova Skate shop, and  Michelle Shafer. Then you had this 18 year old kid, Ace, from Greenlaw attempting Laser Flips down the steps. We sat and cheered on Ace as it took him a good hour to land one successfully, congrats Ace.

3pm rolled around and the skaters went over to the badly surfaced skate area setup for the demo but again, no demo happened. It was just several skaters hitting the grind box here and there, no one seemed to be motivated and the people throwing the event made no effort to show case any type of spot light. Mark and company decided to pack it up and many of the skaters said they were headed across the bridge to Marion and session there. This was not the skaters fault by any means but the organizers of the event, who seem to be clueless when it comes to skateboarding.

I ended up going to Highpoint for a visit to the Greenline grand opening party and home.

And i have not skated this week at all due to tendentious in the left ankle, maybe next weekend. And no, I have not built a mini ramp yet, I have the details mostly worked out, going to start working on the fence maybe today or next weekend, moving the fence is step one. will post details as I have them.

Later folks