DECONSTRUCTION
22 THRASHER
WING GENDE
Words and Photos
by Nik Freitas
had heard of the aban-
Wdoned house through some
friends of ours who had gone to
a party there. They dropped the
whole schpiel on how cool it
was, who got with who and so
on. Then one of them dropped
the word "pool." How silly of
them. Saying "abandoned house"
and "pool" in the same sentence
to someone who rides a board is
like giving the combination of a
bank safe to a thief.
Directions received, we begin
the hunt. Pools are few and far
between nowadays, so when the
word is heard... that's it. We
pulled up to a parking lot across
the way and tried to act calm and
cool walking towards the house
with brooms and buckets in our
hands. The house faces the free-
way, and we had pulled into a lot
behind the house. There is only
half of the backyard fence stand-
ing, with half of the pool visible,
so while you are walking towards
the house, you can see the pool
waiting. At about 100 yards, walk-
ing began to speed up; 75 yards,
a little faster; at 50, we were run-
ning. The prognosis: a square
pool with a tight transitioned face
wall-the side walls are kinked but
looked way more skateable than
the face-and a love seat posi-
tioned in the left corner looked
like the hardest thing to hit.
There was a sigh of relief when
we saw there wasn't that much
hell in the bottom of the pool. We
relieved the pool of the foul-
smelling goop, and within a half
hour we were skating.
One of our comrades went to
check for some water inside the empty
house while we were skating. A few min-
utes later, we heard some racket coming
from within the walls of the house. He
poked his head out and yelled, "House
session!" We went to inspect.
The carpet had been removed so
there was a nice smooth surface to ride
on. Smack dab in the center of the
house was a fireplace surrounded by a
shin-high ledge with smooth tile on it. We
were stoked. We opened the doors on
both ends of the living room to get
speed, and the next thing I knew we were
schralping a house.
We skated the ledge until the tiles came
off and decided to take more runs in the
pool before it got too dark. Dale was try-
ing Indy nosepicks on the love seat
when wham! he pulls a Wilson coming
back in. He was hurt, and we were
bummed as we rushed him to the hospi-
tal. Compound fracture is the diagnosis
for going too gnarly.
Even though the session had ended
on a bad note, we all knew we had
found some house off the side of the
freeway and skated it, inside and out.
Session everything.
Clockwise from top left: The victim. Tim
Garner does the ol' run-and-jump-on-your-
board-and-50/50-across-the-tiled-counter
trick. Dale Blackmon sinks a frontside pivot in
the corner pocket before going to the hospital.
Tim Garner dries his sweat-soaked kiester in
front of the fireplace. Backside 180° nosegrind.
to a
Then
ame.-
a thief.
act
faces
vard
kinked
wasn'
a har
007 we were
and th
is in the
shed him
nd some
23