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GALLERY
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Tuesday August 07, 2007 |
| HOT HOT HOT!!!! That's the weather...not so much the skating.(haha) With temps around 100 and a heat index of 105-108, it was a miserably hot day. Throw
on top of that humidity that would soak your clothes in sweat just standing around outside, let alone skating. But some of us made it out to skate anyways. I showed
up around 6:30 and pretty much had the run of the flow bowl and peanut. There were only about 4-5 of us skating either one. Lots of kids on the street section, but
not many elsewhere. In fact, we were out numbered by roller-bladers for a good while! Early folks included myself, Tony (last name?), Jeff (aka. RedMenace), and a guy who I didn't catch
his name but he was 42 or so and just got back to skating....took a run in the bowl and back foot slipped off....did the splits and tweaked his knee pretty good....
he vowed to be back though! Around 7:30 or so, however, a few more skaters arrived. There was one kid rippin the
bowl padless. I asked his age and where he was from. He was 15 and from San Antonio. I told him how I use to work in San Antonio a while and we got to talking about the
Lady Bird Johnson park there. I asked if he knew some little rippin kid there that skated for Gringo. He gave me a funny look and said "uhm...I think that we me and my little
brother...." Turns out is was him!!! Raney Beres! But I hadn't seen or skated with him in about 3-4 years. Geez...he had grown up and I didn't recognize him. Too funny!
His mom, brother and he were passing through along with their friends, the Cherryholmes (Heath, his sister and mom). The moms were great! They knew all the old school
Texas guys (John Gibson, Craig Johnson, Dave Nielson, Jeff Newton, Todd Prince, Ken Fillion, Jeff Phillips, etc), Carter Dennis and the San Antonio/Austin crew,
and some of my own friends like Greg Stubbs of the Texas Pool Sharks! We had a blast just sharing stories!!! They were on their way to some competition for the daughter in
North Carolina and were hitting as many parks as they could there and back. In fact, they had hit Oxford, MS just that morning!!! But the Texas skaters didn't stop there. Another
guy named Rubin from Austin but now living in Atlanta showed up to skate. He knew all the same people as the others. He hadn't skated in several years but wanted to get back to
it and the new park/bowl was the perfect motivation. After watching a bit, he finally padded up and got to it. I'm not sure if he was fibbin a bit on his time away, but he
didn't skate like someone who took several years off. He got right to it....working carves all around and even a frontside grind because as he said "I just had to see what
that felt like in here". haha Aside from the visitors, some of the great locals showed up too....Al, Steve-O and Tim "The Heckler" Humphries. OF course, Tim was entertaining
as always. We all skated well into the night and pretty much closed the place. I had a great night by my measure. Got way more comfortable in the bowl and finally doing some
tricks. Also found some lines in the flow bowl including riding up and over the tombstone which I was pretty stoked to do! By 10pm, I and most everyone else was done.
I was sore, drenched in sweat and tired.....but I'd be back tommorrow for more!...oh yeh, P.S....forgot to mention...LOTS of hot moms wandering around the park this night...more than
usual and hotter than usual as well....but as Humphries scolded us all at the bowl "Guys, we're here to skate, not pick up the ladies!" (haha) |
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Tube ridin! Frontside over the hip with a little help
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Tony tucks into the corner of the flow bowl
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Tony works his way up the silo
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San Antonio local and Gringo/Zorlac skater Raney Beres visits the park
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Raney pops into another high frontside tuck knee
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Steve-O in motion as Humphries looks on
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Humphries whips by with a backside double-truck carve grind
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Al gettin up on frontside grinds
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Humphries double-truckin frontside
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Steve-O frontside grinds over the hip
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Wednesday August 08, 2007 - Old Man Session night |
| Another hot, sticky, humid, sweaty, muggy, hot (did I mention hot already?) day in the ATL....but that wasn't stopping the Old Man session night! What a great night it
was too...at least 20-25 people showed up to skate the session at the bowl. The usual suspects made it out....Ray Fennessey, Jimmy O'Brien, Load, Shawn and Chris Coffman,
Martin Marshall, Wes, Roobs, Alf, Pete, Woody Trend (left early), etc. New and surprise guests included Sid, Fred "Fast Foot Freedy" Reeves, Ohio Paul along with 2 other rippers from Athens,
and Rubin Garza (Texas pool ripper now living in Atlanta). Along with these, there were probably 5-8 other people that I did not know. The session got a slow start (due to
the heat) but once it got going and everyone was just amped up to skate, it didn't end till they kicked us all out at closing time (10:30 pm!). The only downer of the night...
about 3/4 into the session, one of the Ranchero's friends, Lee, was just getting back to skating and took a run or two in the bowl. On his third run, a board shot into the bowl from the flow area, Lee tried
to dodge it, but slammed and broke his collarbone....oddly enough the board came from the same guy that has shot a board into the bowl at least twice every session since
the first week! Lee knew right off that it was broke because he had just broken the same one not long back. The paramedics were called and arrived, but not before Lee
gave us all a good scare by passing out on the bench by the bowl...I mean eyes rolled back in his head, pale white, shaking....it was crazy! That slowed the session down
a little, but by that time, we only had about 40 minutes left anyways. Like I said, the session kept going till they kicked us out! Ohio Paul and the other Athens guys
got a slow start but seemed to get the bowl down later in the session. Towards the end, their crew were taking every other run or so. Fred Reeves showed up late too. He started
with the flow bowl, but soon, as he said, had to come join the bowl session. He seemed to be still getting the feel for the deep end, but he was ripping in the shallow with
standup-grinds and ollies into smith grinds. Ray and Shawn kept up their friendly competition of tit-for-tat...airs, inverts, grinds....those two just keep pushing each
other! Jimmy O'Brien was skating very well...lots of tricks over the deathbox, super-fast sweepers, inverts, airs, backside ollies...and all the while making his
jokes and keeping us laughing. Even I (Solomon), finally put down my purse and got 50-50s in the deep end...God, I was being such a pussy about it...but that bowl still intimidates
me! This was the first time I had seen a lot of the kids in the park just stop skating, come over to the bowl, gather around on the ledges or along the
fence, and just watch the skating. Every so often, I would hear "man! Did you see that?!?" or "How do they grind like that?!?!" or "How do they
go that fast?!?" or "Did you see that air?!?! Wow!". It was cool to see the younger guys getting so stoked on the bowl session. Maybe that will kick start a
few of them to get in there and try now. If every Old Man session continues this way, Wednesday nights just got a whole lot better in Atlanta! |
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Day starts with another interesting skater...those things are NOT attached to his feet...he is standing on metal plates with 2 wheels attached on each!!!
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View of left side of flow bowl
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View of right side of flow bowl
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Gettin Smithy in the flow
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Nice view of the tombstone wall
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Shawn Coffman warms up with a Lien-to-tail on the oververt pocket
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Like father like son...Chris Coffman Lien-to-tail in the flow bowl
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Speedy grind over the deathbox
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Ray inverted...that's no sissy handplant!(haha)
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Throwin down the sweeper early in the session!
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Chris Coffman palms a frontside air
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The Old Man session crowd starts to arrive
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Wes double-trucker through the deep end
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Big man with big grindage
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More arrive for the session at dusk...nice sky...not retouched!
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It's all fun and games till the EMT's arrive
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Lee gets checked out for his broken collarbone
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Vance getting low in the shallow
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Fred Reeves joins the bowl session
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Shawn Coffman in flight
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Jimmy O'Brien smithgrind over the deathbox....damn slow camera setting!
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Shawn Coffman stand-up grind with style
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Vance laysback in the shallows
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Shawn Coffman inverted
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Jimmy O'Brien with a super-fast sweeper!
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Athens local visits the session
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Fred Reeves is too fast for a photo
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Jimmy gets in the last run as they run us out of the park
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