ROMAN
HOLIDAY
but during the week, too! You
could say we were barging at
will, hoping to get another taste
of the forbidden fruit that dangled
before our little eyes, turning us
humanoids into serpent snakes.
The Garden of Eden was in the
Wilshire District in the City of
Angels in Robin's backyard to
be exact. The end would be
coming soon. I could feel it in my
old bones. The blood stench that
pool sharks smell was attracting
the lesser-known species as well
as the bigger ones like Makos,
Hammerheads, and, the most
feared of all, the Great White.
They were coming in droves
from San Diego, OC, San
Francisco, Norway and
Denmark, Arizona, Germany, the
greater LA basin and even
Brazil! The sharks could smell
blood for miles. The word had
leaked out. Rocket Bowl was no
longer a closely guarded secret.
I started taking my son Jesse
with me. He played in the sand-
box with his toys while we grind-
ed, flew, carved, slid, and just
generally made pests of our-
selves. Robin kept saying.
"Come back anytime," but I knew
he was tiring of us. I could see it
in his eyes.
History Lesson #2
Talking to Dennis the caretaker
was cool. I got to know him a lit-
the better, and he was amazed
by our technical prowess and
ability to "fly out of the pool and
back in again." Neighbors and
friends alike were introduced to
our skateboarding stunts.
One day I was bullshitting with
Dennis when he announced that
Tricky Dick Nixon used to own
this very house back in the day.
While he was cleaning up the
basement one morning, he came
across some genuine Nixon arti-
facts like handwritten notes, anti-
communist pamphlets, United
Nations charters, newspaper
clippings, a "Summit" handbook
and some swastika-covered
faucets. Truly weird stuff. It
seemed Tricky Dick was wholly
ABOVE: FRONTSIDE 50/50S IN
BACKYARD POOLS ARE FEW AND
FAR BETWEEN. MATT MOFFETT
ALL ALONE IN THE DANGER ZONE
RIGHT: IF YOU'VE EVER SEEN
RICKY STILES SKATE A POOL,
YOU KNOW THIS LIEN TO TAIL IS
IN THE BAG.
TOP RIGHT: VERY FEW POOLS
YOU WILL EVER RIDE HAVE THIS
MUCH TRANNY IN THE SHALLOW
END. TONY FARMER GOTS NO
PROBLEM WITH THAT.
ILLUSTRATION: A SCARY DEPIC-
TION OF THE SOVIET PEACE PLAN
IN THE LATE FIFTIES.
anti-communist, and a steer to the
far right (National Socialism any-
one?) was not too far off base in
Nixon's character references. We
got to joking, and Dennis said,
Just think, Nixon probably
boinked his wife in this very pool!"
Believe it or not.
The End Is Coming Soon
A month went by since I knew
about this beauty, and, by then,
the owner's nerves were a bit
frazzled and shot. Who could
blame him! A shitload of skate-
board's finest rode the pool by
then like Lance Mountain, Rune
Glifberg, Rick Howard, Rueler,
Maddog. Mr Stiles, Nakama, 540,
Tony Farmer, Joey Tershay,
Christian Brox, Alva, Bruno, Hults,
DP, Swope, all the greats of
empty cement ponds.
The day was coming for it all to
end, and Dennis told me that next
weekend was it, the owner Robin had had enough. So, that
last weekend, we sprayed the tiles and coping ala Bellmar's
and Chicken's for a better slide, because it was the sticky sort.
The pool was mega slippery in the shallow end, so we also
bathed it with some muratic acid to make things more tolerable.
Ruel and Matt Moffett were destroying the shallow end tiles
over the stairs with frontside 50/50s. Rune did big backside
ollies, backside disasters, tailslides, and lofty, frontside feather-
like airs. Tony Farmer hit his head so hard trying to bust a
frontside shallow slappy that I almost called 911! It was one of
the worst beefs I've witnessed since Pipeline in '88! Ricky was
devastating the deep end with big airs off the face wall to the
side wall. Lance was the master, doing body jars, eggplants
and inverts, Indy airs, and tail slaps on the broken comer
piece. Nakama blasted kamikaze grinds and took a beating on
his already swollen hip. I was stoked because I could slob and
frontside air from the side wall back into the face and could do
frontside disasters. It was just too good to be true!
I just want to say thanks to Robin the owner (you guys can
swim anytime!), Dennis the maintenance man, Rich and Max
for finding and draining the thing, and last, but not least, my
man Brandon Cruz for making it all possible. I doubt anything
like this will ever happen again. So long till next time.
-Salba
74 TR