Manteca was a pivotal time in my life. It's where I learned to skate irrigation ditches. A friend and I saw some older kids, skating a nearby ditch, just outside of our housing community. We waited until they were gone to make our attempt. Accessing this DIY mini ramp required scaling a wall and crossing some railroad tracks. Not for the faint of heart elementary kid. But we wanted to try out our skills to see if we could master the ditch.
Once we had safely made it, we scoped the scene. OK, it had about a ten foot drop, nothing steep. Maybe a 45 degree slope. The transition into the floor of the ditch was rough, decently sharp. "OK," I said with confidence, "we can do this." I positioned myself at the top of the wall and took a deep breath. My Nash board had original hard plastic wheels. Great on smooth cement, not so great on gravely coarse stuff. But I went for it anyway.
I placed my lead foot onto the board, made a 90 degree turn and I was heading down the ditch wall. OK, here comes the transition, maybe lean back a little, yes. The next thing I felt was ground pealing away some flesh. It doesn't hurt at first, but give it a minute and road rash feels like what lava probably feels like if it touched your skin. I dusted myself off and headed back up the wall. My buddy was not feeling good at the sight of a little blood on my palms and arms. "Give it a try," I told him. He just looked at me and shook his head from side to side. My wipe out was all he needed to decide against this chance to level up his skating skills. "Fine!" I said, "I'm going again."
At this point, I knew that I had to do something different on the transition. So I decided to hop up a little, transferring my weight off of the board but not loosing contact with it. I set up again and found myself heading down the wall. Just before the transition I hopped and whatayaknow? I was flying across the floor of the ditch with another transition quickly approaching. Another little hop and I was heading up the other side of the ditch. With the momentum running out, I made a quick 180 degree turn and was heading back down the wall. I was basically on repeat at this point. The sensation was amazing. I instantly fell in love with rough half pipe environment and longed for every minute we spent skating in that ditch.
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