On My Thirteenth Birthday, Gravity Nearly Beat Me to Death With a Skateboard

I think every male born in the late-eighties to early-nineties has played and loved the game "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2."  I owned this game for Game Boy Advance, which allowed me to carry it with me at all times and play continuously for hours.

This game was particularly engrossing because you were able to earn and spend points to improve the skill of your character and the skateboard that he used.  My character was so juiced up on points that he could ollie 7 feet in the air from a standstill and survive a 40 foot fall onto a vertical pole.  Hell, I could skate perpendicularly up to a rail at 40 miles per hour and just by hitting a button I could instantly turn ninety degrees and grind down the rail at the same speed.  My character was indestructible and superhumanly talented.  This gave me the false courage to try it for myself.  So, for my birthday, I asked for a skateboard.

Though I asked, I wasn't sure if I was going to get one.  My parents had expressed that they were worried that I might hurt myself since skateboards have a reputation for occasionally putting teenagers in wheelchairs.

When my birthday finally rolled around, I was excited when I was presented a suspiciously skateboard-shaped box.

I tore open the packaging to see the bulkiest, heaviest skateboard I'd ever seen.  It was the Volvo of the skateboarding world.  My parents must have thought that the boxier and clumsier the skateboard was physically, the better the crash test ratings must be.  Just because it's shaped like a toaster, it doesn't mean it comes with side curtain airbags, Mother.

Despite the form-factor, I was still excited about the skateboard and I wanted to try it out.  Immediately.

I hoisted the skateboard up over my shoulder like a fireman carrying a chunky lady out of a burning apartment building and marched it outside.

My mom met me in front of the house with a helmet and a warning.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Oh, yeah, it's easy.  You hit A to jump and Y to rail grind.  It's gonna be awesome."  I reassured her confidently.

I took the helmet and put it on.  Then I walked the skateboard over to the top of my driveway.

I placed the skateboard down and aimed it generally in the direction I wanted to go.  I gave my mother and father a thumbs up and jumped onto the skateboard with both feet.

The skateboard began to roll forward.

The feeling was euphoric.  The sensation of floating along above the ground was amazing.  I thought my extensive video game playing would afford me some experience, so I tried to emulate what I saw the guys do in the video game.

I knew you had to tilt the board to turn so I tried it, but the leaning thing was new and it made me feel off balance.  I was probably going to have to put in a little bit more practice before I knew what it was supposed to feel like.

Then I realized how quickly I was going.  I had picked up some substantial speed.  I hadn't remembered my driveway being quite this steep.  Also, I had forgotten about those menacing thorn bushes lining the bottom of the driveway.

Then a new thought that should have shown up long ago casually strolled across my consciousness:  "How do I stop?"

Uh oh.  I had no idea.  Usually in my game I was never not moving unless my character had just fallen face first into a wall, but then he would just pop up and skate away like nothing happened.  I had never, ever seen how anyone had stopped a moving skateboard.

I better figure it out quick.  I only had a few seconds before I was going to be crowd-surfing those thorn bushes.

I decided that I was only going to go faster, so the sooner I took action, the more mild the consequences.  So, I took one foot off of the board and stepped onto the ground that was rushing by beneath me; I kept the other foot on the board to keep it from careening off somewhere.

My ground foot and my skateboard foot had different agendas.  They couldn't agree, so they asked Gravity for a little input.

After very little deliberation, Gravity took me down like a DEA attack dog looking to get its next crack fix from a junkie's jugular blood.

I was driven down headfirst into the asphalt with such unbridled fury that I was sure Gravity was God's bouncer for Earth and I was getting kicked out of the club.

My body bounced like a ragdoll down the driveway, finally coming to a stop a few feet from where I fell.  I don't remember that, of course.  That little nugget of the story has been recounted for me.

A bit later, I woke up with my parents and sister huddled around me.

"Are you okay?"  My mom questioned frantically, grabbing desperately at my head.

"Yeah, I'm thuper."  I lisped.

"It's a good thing you were wearing your helmet."  My dad said, holding up two halves of my former helmet.

I was too woozy to understand the weight of the situation at the time, but I think that might be as close to I've ever come to a mortal wound.

I'm not usually a proponent of helmets (it messes with my doo) but in this instance, one of those silly foam hats gave its life to keep me from drinking the rest of my meals through a straw.

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This is going to turn into a little PSA:  If you're on something that has wheels but no windows, please wear a helmet.

Wear a helmet or go faster.

When people come to the hospital to ask how you're doing, you don't want the doctor to use air quotes when he says you "survived."