Ricky Ortiz
College Writing 1
Professor Waite
September 24th, 2012
Skateboarding
To this day I would’ve never thought I’d have such a passion for skateboarding or even be involved in this world for that matter. I could’ve probably seen myself playing football but skating? That was definitely something I didn’t see coming. I first got onto a board when I applied for a summer job at the Chelsea Collabrative Offices in Chelsea, Massachusetts. My job title was park ranger. We were the kids you saw awake early on those summer mornings cleaning parks and creating games for kids in the neighborhood to play.
The job was pretty easy and fun because I worked with a lot of friends so it saved me the work of getting to meet new people since we all knew each other. My good friend from school, Kevin Mendoza, always used to bring his board to work but I can tell he never really skated much, he just liked to cruise around and do a trick here and there. I was never really interested in it until one day I saw him actually doing tricks and trying to skate. Once I saw that I was hooked and I just had to give it a try. Of course I wasn’t going to do a kickflip or anything cool at that time, but I just wanted to ride it and get the feel for it. So I asked him If I could use the board and I tried riding it for the first time and I fell, A LOT. Something about it though kept me so
intrigued that I wasn’t even aggravated or annoyed about it, I had grown such a quick interest for it that I wanted to actually get somewhere with it and progress.
Once I had made my decision to buy a board, I used my first paycheck and bought one from a friend for fifty dollars. At the time I didn’t know how crappy it was because I was too excited on having my own so it didn’t really matter to me. Back when I started was really cool too because I had a lot of friends of all skill levels that were always willing to skate because they loved it just as much as I did. The main people I skated with was Carlos, Wii, Louis, Jackie, Alexis, and Denis.
Overall I’ve been skating for 3 years, but my first year was pretty annoying. I used to get a lot of crap from kids while I was trying to come up. People would look down at me because they thought I was going to turn out as a poser kid or in other words, a kid that does something for the look rather than for the love of it. I did my best to pay no mind to them because in reality it was all a bunch of stupid bullshit that needed to be avoided because it didn’t mean anything, so I didn’t really let it get to me, I just kept doing my thing and over time I started getting acknowledged by kids who were better than me.
Even though I had that situation under control, I still had an internal conflict to deal with, which was doubt. I knew that once you started going back on your words, It’s all over, but sometimes when I would get annoyed or frustrated, It would be hard to stay focused and persevere. At times I just wanted to quit and give up, but even on the days I did give up I always came back another time to finish what I had started. I changed from a very serious attitude, to a more mellow and fun oriented attitude. What I mean by that is that I used to be very serious
about skating, so serious that I was already dreaming of being a pro at 1 year. It’s a nice dream, but a stressful goal at that. So I decided to relax, and enjoy it. I’ll still be very serious about skating, but I’ll focus more on having fun and being really good at it and not to achieve the title of professional because If I play my cards right, that’ll be in time.
To this day I still stick to my board and closer than ever. Unfortunately not a lot of my friends followed the same paths due to lack of interest or life caught up with them and kept them busy with something else. Some of my old friends still skate so It’s not all bad but now that I’m getting better and making progress, It’s all about going out into the city and networking. Meeting new people and discovering new places to practice and hone my skills.
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