Skateboarding in the Bronx - "YCTTBOOTB"

Pat O....kept them both busy was skateboarding. Pat was the first person my father knew who had a skateboard and so my father learned how to ride a skateboard by riding Pat’s. It wasn’t long before my dad began pestering his mom for a skateboard of his own. The pestering turned into nagging, the nagging turned into badgering, and the badgering eventually turned into torture until his mother finally gave in. Once his mom bought him a skateboard the boys spent every second of every waking hour on the skateboard. They began slowly and safely, mostly skateboarding down the IHOP parking lot hill, maneuvering in and out of the parking bumpers on their way down the hill. During the early days of skateboarding they wiped out often and they experienced a lot of bumps, bruises, scrapes, and cuts but like most 11 year old boys they just picked themselves up, brushed off the dirt, wiped the blood on their shirts and did it all over again. As they became more and more comfortable and confident in their skateboarding ability they increased the level of difficulty of the hills and obstacles they maneuvered around. They began skateboarding down the steeper hills in Kingsbridge like Kingsbridge Avenue, 234th Street, 233rd Street – the steeper the hill, the better! The only exception to “the steeper the hill, the better” was skateboarding in Manhattan College. Pat’s dad worked on Saturday’s in the Manhattan College Engineering building on Tibbett Avenue and after working up an appetite they skateboarded down Kingsbridge Avenue to McDonald’s near Off Broadway. After Pat ordered his “plain hamburger” and my dad ordered his Big Mac with everything they skateboarded down the street to see Pat’s dad and to skateboard all around the smooth floors of Manhattan College – it was like skateboard heaven! Early on most of their skateboarding was relatively safe but 11 year old boys get bored easily and so they needed bigger, more challenging, and more DANGEROUS hills to skateboard down.As you know Kingsbridge is essentially a valley between the high, steep hills leading up to Riverdale on the West and the high, steep hills leading up to the Sedgwick Avenue Reservoir on the East. One Saturday afternoon, after riding down virtually every steep hill in the neighborhood - they sat down in McDonald’s trying to decide the next hill to conquer. Think, think, think, think – then it hit them! My dad can’t remember which one of them came up with the idea but since it was a really, really, really stupid idea the chances are it was my dad’s idea. One of these two geniuses came up with the incredibly stupid idea to skateboard down Riverdale Avenue. Now keep in mind Riverdale Avenue is a four lane, long, steep, winding road with many cars driving VERY FAST up and going down the hill at any given time of the day. It was a totally insane suggestion and an even more insane thing to actually do – if I ever did it or even if I thought of it my dad would ground me for a year! Yes, it was stupid, insane, and a dangerous thing to do but this never seemed to stop my dad and Pat from doing anything and so...up the hill they went.When I asked my dad what is was like skateboarding down the hill he told me it depended on where they were on the hill. He said, “At first we started off slowly and so it wasn’t much different from going down Kingsbridge Avenue or any other hill in the neighborhood but then we started picking up more and more speed and at this time it was exciting and exhilarating! It was exhilarating because we were flying down the hill with the wind blowing in our faces and our coats flapping behind us - but just as we were enjoying ourselves - cars started driving past us going 30, 40, and sometimes 50 miles per hour which made it difficult to skateboard down the hill because we couldn’t swerve back and forth (which helped to control our speed). Since we couldn’t swerve back and forth we had to go straight – and by going straight we went faster and faster and faster and by about half way down the hill we reached the point of no return! The point of no return meant we were going too fast to jump off and we couldn’t pull off the road because the cars were driving right past us – within arms distance - and so we had to stay on the skateboards. We were flying down the hill next to each other with cars honking their horns at us and yelling out their car windows, “What are you schmucks doing? Get off the road!” We were going so fast it was hard to hear each other; Pat screamed, “If we try to jump off now we’ll crack our skulls open! I screamed, “I know! Whose stupid idea was this – I think we’re going to die!” At this point we stayed on our skateboards, our eyes were watering, our noses were running, we bent our knees (using them as shock absorbers when we hit the many small rocks, cracks, and small pot holes in the road), and then we looked straight ahead and prayed. Our main prayer was that the light at the bottom of the hill would be green IF, and I do mean IF, we made it to the bottom of the hill. If the light was red that meant the cross traffic would cut us off and it would mean certain disaster and possible death. It was the most exciting thing we ever did but at the same time, the most terrifying because if we hit a big pot hole or hit a big rock we would have literally flew off the skateboard into the air and without a doubt we would have broken our bones or worse depending on what the cars driving next to us did.” My dad is a firm believer in prayer and he said when they approached 231st they needed an answer to their prayers and they needed it quick; as they neared the bottom of the hill, going 35 miles per hour, the light was red, there were several cars stopped in front in front of them, and a city bus was turning left from 231st onto Johnson Avenue. Pat and my dad had to split up; Pat yelled, “I’ll go in between the cars, you go around them near the wall!” When they made it past the stopped cars they narrowly missed the bus but luckily they were now at the bottom of the hill and their skateboards were slowing down. When their skateboards finally came to a stop they hopped off and staggered over to one of the benches at the bottom of Ewen Hill and plopped down. Their hearts were pounding, their knees were shaking, and they were out of breath – they leaned back, looked up in the air, said a prayer of thanks and then my dad turned to Pat and asked, “Do you want to try skateboarding down Snake Hill tomorrow?