Wow, summer 2011 is almost over. At least the fun part, if not the actual season. Hard to believe we’re down to the last two weeks of BBQs, beaches and babes.
It’s been a good summer. I’ve caught a few of the Twilight Dance Series concerts on Thursdays down at the Santa Monica Pier. I love these events as they bring out the community in a happy way. People enjoy themselves on the pier dancing, or on the beach chillaxin’, to use one of those new words that I don’t know where it came from, but I understand its meaning. This was the summer of trying new things.
As one of my efforts, I’ve been learning to ride a skateboard. Yes, at my age it was time to go back to my childhood and do what I was not allowed to do. As a kid my mom was extremely protective of me, which meant no skateboards, no cotton candy and no piercings. Tattoos hadn’t even been considered a possibility when I was kid.
Anyway, I decided this summer to get a skateboard, so off to Craigslist I went. I figured that it didn’t make a great deal of sense for me to go spend a few hundred dollars at ZJ Boardinghouse on a board that I could easily see myself using once or twice and never touching again. So I found one that a mom was selling because her kid was off at college and didn’t need it any longer. Forty-five dollars later and I’m ready to pull a muscle.
Being a bit older, I’m not as impulsive as I used to be, so I did stop by ZJ’s and buy some wrist guards and knee pads. Getting geared up, I decided that the parking lot behind my office is the perfect place to start, and after viewing a few videos on YouTube I was ready to ride.
Watching these videos I found myself learning a new language. I always thought “Goofy” and “Mongo” were cartoon characters, but not so in the world of skating. They mean how you ride. Being 44 and having the young buck at ZJ’s explain it all to me helped a great deal with this man who is evidently trying to recapture some last wisps of youth.
I know I’m not alone in doing crazy things like this. I have friends who have broken arms, torn ligaments and pulled muscles trying to be 18 in a 40-year-old’s body. Which is why I took some precautions and have gone slow. You won’t find me racing down the hilly slope of Pico Boulevard at 11th Street, yet. I’m still getting my legs under me on the board, and as the summer sets I hope to have some confidence on the board by Labor Day.
This was a stay-at-home summer for me, and for most of the people I know. We’re all still digging out from the last two years of bad economy. The only trips I’ve had this year have been work related. But I hope to be in Vegas by Halloween, and spend the Christmas holidays in Mexico with a friend in Guadalajara.
I wanted to get back in the water and scuba dive this summer, but so far, that’s not happened. I’ve been working on a fourth book that is due to come out in the next month and as the summer recedes, and fall is waiting in the wings, I’m thinking about this last quarter and how to finish out the year.
We have four months until 2012 is here. I’m not planning on the end of the world stuff that is predicted by the Mayans and believed by the lunatic fringe. I’m certain that next year the world will continue to spin, the sun will rise in the east and set in the west.
The setting sun, the turning of a season and the end of the lazy summer remind me that time is fleeting and we should make the most of it when possible.
So I’m going to go skate and enjoy the last days of summer.
David Pisarra is a family law attorney focusing on father’s rights and men’s Issues in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He can be reached at dpisarra@pisarra.com or (310) 664-9969.
