Skateboard Sunday School

Laura & I drove the boys over to the Lenexa skatepark Sunday afternoon. She’s taken them a bunch of times, but it was the first time for me. As the father of one of the non-skaters on the concrete (Jeremy brought his bike, and Eli’s more of a Razor scooter stylist), I was impressed with how accommodating and polite the teenagers there were. (According to Laura, that’s not always the case!) Now granted, not only did they know I was a dad, but I also had a big dog on a leash with me, which has to help remind everyone of the whole courtesy thing.

So we were blessed by a sunny afternoon of good exercise (Eli eventually moved on to tennis and a walk by the stream, while Jeremy was in biking mode. I mostly sat with the dog—and watched.) Now, I love my family and spending time with thet, but that was definitely the second-most cool thing about the afternoon. The first was an almost-accident that a young hip-hopper very deftly avoided. It was highlights-reel caliber, and I’ve got to pass it on:

There were about six serious skateboarders on the ramps. Most looked like California skater central-casting, but one seriously looked like he’d climbed out of a rapper’s custom coach bus (which, I’ll confess, made me doubt whether he’d be as good as the ones who ‘fit’ the part more). One of the other skateboarding teens had brought his little brother—I’m guessing the boy was 5-6 years old—and the two were of such different skill levels that while the older brother kept an eye on his little charge, he wasn’t usually close by. And of course, the place just buzzed with skaters flying (or in the case of the kids, putzing) by left and right.

All of a sudden, I saw the little boy heading right into the path of the now fairly high-speed rapper-skater. It happened so fast I couldn’t even shout, Look out! (or what would a skateboarder yell? “Dude!”?) The young man saw the impending collision, too—and the 150 lb weight differential it would involve—and in one fluid motion kicked his own skateboard out at an angle so that it rocketed past the little boy. But because there was no way he could alter the vector of his own bodily momentum, he kept heading toward the boy, but leaned forward, put his hand down on the concrete (which must have left a decent abrasion burn) and in one fluid motion slipped right past the little guy in a bona fide 10-point cartwheel, like smack out of a gymnastics floor routine.

When he turned around to survey the almost-accident, the young mae shook his head and muttered something kind of skaterish and understated, like “Whoa!” Of course, the little guy’s big brother comes over, relieved, to thank him.

And as a passive but impressed observer, I walked away with some important skateboard reminders on a Sunday afternoon:

1) Dude, like, wear a helmet.
2) Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Or, more to the point,

3) It may be cool to look fly, but it’s cooler still to know how to do it.

James 2:17 So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.