Day 60: July 30, 2009 (skateboarding on the job)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 11

Sales: $439.38

Tips: $68

Hours: 3.88

Total Wage: $26.06 per hour

Tonight is the first night of ESPN's X-Games, which doesn't really affect my life other than I like to watch the skateboarding, since I grew up skating. But before I leave for work, I catch a pre-X-Games show called Homecoming with Rick Reily, and this particular episode has Tony Hawk returning to his junior high school for a town hall-style interview. All the old Powell-Peralta Bones Brigade members are there, and they relive Hawk's career and the history of skateboarding. As with most television, it's programmed for maximum emotional response from the audience––with several mentions of Hawk's father dying of lung cancer in 1995––and by the time I leave for work, whether out of my own nostalgia for my skateboarding past or my sense of personal failure compared to Hawk's success, my eyes water when he gives the school kids the hackneyed advice that no matter what they're into, no matter how strange it seems to people, to stay with it, and they will have success in life.

Tonight and tomorrow night, I will try to watch the X-Games skateboarding in the store before and between my deliveries. Tomorrow night, Danny Way, who is my age, will injure his knee and will barely be able to walk, but he'll continue trying tricks on the Big Rail Jam. He will fall every run, then finally pull off an impossible trick––a switch 50-50 on the rail––and win the gold medal. He'll be interviewed after he wins, and they'll ask him why he kept riding even when he's severely injured, and he'll say, "It's not for the money, that's for sure. I love skateboarding. I've been doing it my whole life . . . I just have a passion for skateboarding; it's like a fire that keeps burning and it doesn't ever go out." That's how I feel, even though I sprain my ankle almost every time I skate now.

While out on one of my first deliveries of the night, I see four kids skateboarding in the Morgan Run complex. Well, two kids are trying to ollie from the curb out into the street over their friend's skateboard, while one kid films and another sits around. Neither kid is even close to landing the gap as I pass by and slow down to watch. They film me passing, and laugh. I think back to a couple months ago when one of my fellow delivery drivers poached a backyard pool while on delivery. He set up his camera on self-timer and managed to capture himself turning in the deep end. I thought it was one of the coolest delivery stories I've ever heard, and I was stoked to see the photo.

After my delivery, as I'm passing back by and the kids are still not making the gap, I hear them say, "Film the pizza guy, again." I lean out my window and say, "You want me to bust it?" They yell out, "Yeah," and ask if I can skateboard. One of them loans me his deck, which feels loose and funky, and I push down the sidewalk feeling contest-like jitters. I don't normally skateboard in the low-top, Converse Chuck Taylors I'm wearing, so I don't feel confident at all.

My first attempt to ollie the gap is way off, and the board flies out in front of me, though we both clear the gap. On the second attempt, I feel almost less confident and more shaky than the first, and when I go to ollie, the board turns sideways, and even though I clear the gap, I have to run out of the landing. The kids let out a collective, "Ah." I know if I had my own board and regular skate shoes, I could probably backside or frontside 180 (turn 180 degrees in the air) over the small gap. 

With a little more confidence now, I say, "One more time," and the kids encourage me. At this point, I'm worried about spraining my ankle, because I have a half-marathon coming up in a couple of weeks, and I don't want to be injured for that. I roll back to my starting point on the sidewalk and begin pushing, cutting through the dirt overlapping the cement, and on toward the edge of the curb. Everything feels right. When I approach the curb's drop off, I stay right, where the gap distance is shorter, and clear the board with ease. The kids cheer, I hand back the board, and as I drive off, one of the kids says, "I'm always going to get THE Pizzeria." And I'm always going to skateboard, I think.   

The next day, out of pure boredom and curiosity, I checked Youtube to see if the kids posted the footage, and I found it (it's my first Youtube video):