Who Needs a Sleigh?

Not far from the Christmas parade route from last week’s City Walks, there’s a skate park. And at the parade the local skaters were out in force. I’ve posted a photo of the park in the past. It sits on top of a filled-in reservoir, and it’s suitably grungy.

But unless you’re a hopeless, heartless grinch, you can’t go there when it’s busy and feel like it’s a bad place. You’ll see skaters of all ages hanging out and teaching each other new tricks. It’s the kind of community that curdled, judgmental right wingers who read The National Review think Americans should get from churches. Except the people who go to skate parks are the real deal, not a bunch of nasty vinegar-hearted hypocrites.

In fact, skating may have made this grinch’s heart grow three sizes.

There was a steady stream of skaters going by for a while.

In Skaters We Trust

This sounds like the start of a joke, but it’s actually serious. One of the differences between skater culture and the Catholic Church that right wingers want running the country is that people trust their kids around skaters.

It’s pretty common to see parents bringing their kids to the skate park and hanging around on a bench, just like the days when I drove carpools to soccer practice. Except at the skate park there are no coaches running things and the kids are on their own. Here are a few who took part in the parade.

And there’s more to the issue of trust. If someone is going 20 mph on a patch of concrete and doing a huge move, they have to be able to trust the skaters around them are respectful of their space.

These skaters took some time to show off their trust. They brought a ramp…

… and then they took turns lying down in front of it under jumpers.

(She jumped higher than I expected and I missed her head)

I never saw anyone’s trust get broken. The worst people in the world think this collection of unorthodox people are part of an imaginary “war on Christmas.” You’d hope at some point those horrible people would wake up and take the side of the skaters instead.

They truly embody the spirit of the season.