SEARCHING FOR MYTHS, MONSTERS, AND MEAT
(Oregon - Summer 2004) words - Mark Takahashi : photos - Takahashi, Greenwood, Culp, Harrell page 1 : page 2 : page 3 The state of Oregon is known for many of the finer things in life: clean, crisp air; Coho salmon; sky blue streams and rivers; endless acres of green trees; PBR on tap; and some of the best skateparks on the planet. Oregon (and the Great Northwest in general) is also the stomping ground of the mythical creature known as Bigfoot or Sasquatch, seen in this vidcap from the famous Patterson film. Bigfoot believers have tried in vain to document Bigfoot's distant cousin, Seffsquatch, but Seffsquatch sightings are extremely rare. By all reports, Seffsquatch is a shorter version of Bigfoot with less hair, he has an appetite for raw pool coping and rare steaks, and he has a distinctive fart-like mating call. According to legend, Seffsquatch is hard of hearing in one ear, which makes it easy to sneak up on him if you approach him on his bad side. Seffsquatch sightings have occurred near campfires or other smoky environments, suggesting that Seffsquatch is attracted to smoke. Taking up the challenge, a group of amateur anthropologist-skaters gathered in the summer of 2004 (July 9 to July 18 to be exact) in search of Seffsquatch and other mythical creatures, tasty meat, and concrete heaven. The crew consisted of Roger Harrell (master outdoorsman and professional woodchopper), Mark Takahashi (master of the oververt slam), Seff Nieto (deaf chef extraordinaire), and Jeff Greenwood (wildlife photographer). This is their story.
Friday (July 9) - Mark arrives in Portland with a 103-degree fever, full body muscle aches and joint pain, and a jacked up knee caused by some extreme stroller pushing. Jeff arrives next, the expedition vehicle - OK, it was a rented minivan - was procured, and they decided to kill some time at Burnside before picking up the rest of the adventure team. Jeff skated like a champ while Mark spent the time shivering, cold sweating, complaining about his bum knee, and huddling like a junkie on the deck. Great way to spend your first day in Oregon, Mark! After a quick, mellow session, Jeff and Mark returned to PDX for Roger and Seff. Not wasting any time, the crew returns directly to Burnside for more skating and shivering. Roger, fully amped up to skate Burnside, pays his dues by promptly slamming while carve grinding the blue bowl. Top to bottom. Directly onto his padless left knee. Ouch. The condition of Roger's knee - different sizes, colors, hardness, and shapes - would provide entertainment for a week. Any mortal skater would sit out the rest of the trip with an injury like that, but Roger wouldn't let a little swellknee get in his way. By the way, do yourself a favor and skate Burnside before you die. Saturday (July 10) - Saturday morning began with what appeared to be a definite score: one dollar travel coffee cups adorned with "WOW" stickers! The coffee drinkers quickly realized "WOW, these cups leak!" Whatever, a dollar doesn't buy you much these days and defective cups were better than no cups. With Mark feeling slightly better, all four of them rolled around at Burnside that morning. The session included Arizona Steve, who had recently transplanted to the Northwest, the Brothers Culp (Peter, Patrick, and Philip), Cold War Steve, and Arizona Josh, who was ripping the place apart. Seff settled in and threw up some nice backside and frontside Smith grinds all over the place, and Roger got some payback in the blue bowl by grinding the shit out of the coping. Some dude from Ohio did a butt board drop in from the tall banked wall, carved the shallow parking block wall, and flew in and around the blue bowl. Crazy line, bro.
After getting full of Burnside crete, the boys headed over to Newberg, where they hooked up with Tom Miller of www.pdxskaters.org (thanks for the shirts, Tom), Tacoma Brock, and Arizona Josh. Mark, still nursing a 100+ degree fever, joint pain, and weak muscles, quickly became PussBoy after twisting his never-to-heal left knee after skating for only 20 minutes. At least the price for lunch was good: $2.50 for a burrito, a bag of chips, and a soda. Some good skating also went down as the big bowl accommodated the big frontside air assault of Jeff and Peter (vert jocks). Jeff also spit out some inverts, Madonnas, tailslides, and backside 5-0 grinds in the deep bowl. Tom Miller is a local and it shows - that guy has all of the flow lines around the park. Newberg is rad, period. Wear your helmet, flow forever, and support the Newberg snack shack. Newberg is a mythical place. Speaking of myths, have you heard of Santa Claus? Of course you have. Have you heard of his distant cousin, Skater Claus? Of course you haven't, jackass! Skater Claus travels the Northwest during the summer with a couple of short, brown-skinned elves. Like his famous cousin, Skater Claus is on the portly side, and he sports facial hair. Skater Claus is often seen wearing a red mesh trucker cap and black Vans. Skater Claus targets needy skaters who have been good boys and girls over the last year, and hooks them up with new decks, wheels, trucks, shirts, and/or stickers. Skater Claus rules! Who the fuck cares? You should, because Skater Claus is an ambassador of skate and he spreads skateboard love all over the place! Do you believe in Skater Claus? Arizona Josh does: Skater Claus paid a visit to Arizona Josh while the crew was skating Newberg.
Back to the story: after a quick pitstop at Subway (still searching for some good meat, and Subway didn't satisfy the craving), the three crews headed to the Donald skatepark, the definition of "quality over quantity." Donald sports a killer backyard style kidney with a tight shallow end, shallow steps, and pool coping. Oh yeah, a concrete mini ramp, too. Tom Miller, Arizona Josh, and Luis from www.oregonskateboards.com served as tour guides for the adventure team and the Brothers Culp. With this combined crew in town, the population of Donald was increased by more than 1%. Nice. Tom was ripping (crailslide in the shallow - yikes!), it was a great session for all, and everyone met the challenge of the stairs. People swore they saw a Seffsquatch attacking Donald's coping, Smith grinding the shallow, and killing the hip. Arizona Steve took a nasty shallow end slam to the back of his head, but kept on charging. Skater Claus gave away some stickers and stoked out a little girl with some pink Black Label stickers. The girl told Skater Claus: "you're a real nice man." Check out the real nice first rule on Donald's sign.
A little miscommunication sent the Brothers Culp to West Linn while the remaining troops hit Aumsville for the final session of the day. Aumsville is a rad flow park that has a curved spine, many hips, a flat bank wall, a vert section, and walls of different heights. Look up the word "flow" in the dictionary and you'll find a picture of Aumsville. Tired legs, blinding sun in the eyes, and Nazi-like cops digging in the trash cans for the slightest trace of empty beer cans really bummed out this session. Pennsylvania Matt was absolutely ripping the park with huge airs, inverts, and transfers. Not bad for an old fucker. Unfortunately, Roger had to sit out this session due to his swellknee, which now resembled a mutilated cantaloupe. Only two days in the books and everyone is wrecked: Swellknee, Fever Boy, Deaf Chef Seff, and Tweaked Wrist Jeff. Skateboarding rules, baby.
Sunday (July 11) - The minivan crew hit Denny's for breakfast and caught a glimpse of the sickest move of the trip: the cashier chick's thong trying to escape the confines of her hip huggers. God bless America and God bless Oregon chicks. Onward to the ritzy suburb of West Linn. The West Linn skatepark is a pool coping paradise that forces skaters to maintain constant awareness due to its tight layout. West Linn boasts a bona fide deep end, intermediate walls, plenty of hips, and a nice oververt pocket. The massive amount of pool coping at West Linn attracted Seffsquatch out of the hills and he was seen killing the pool coping in the oververt pocket and throughout the bowl complex. The Brothers Culp and a crew from Fresno also participated in the coping assault. Everyone with healthy knees grinded the oververt pocket during the two-hour session. Fun for all! 
Knowing that Seffsquatch dislikes the hustle and bustle of the city, the adventure team hit the road toward the Oregon coast. Lunch and beers were had at the Golden Valley Brewery in McMinnville. The 10-beer sampler was pretty good, aside from the orange blossom flavored ass ale - yuck! While searching for a swimming hole, the team stumbled across the McMinnville shitpark, which sports a sign that reads something like: "Welcome skateboarders. Please walk your skateboards to the skatepark." Classic. In lieu of skating this piece of crap, several crewmembers jumped in the river for a cool down. Roger took a shot at some extreme rope swinging but didn't jump for fear of slamming in the shallow end. A little more driving, then the crew got settled in at the Devils Lake campground in Lincoln City, headed to the LC2 park for a quick session, and returned to the campsite to feast on some gourmet fire grilled carne asada tacos prepared by Deaf Chef Seff. Oh yeah, the LC2 park is sick as can be: a cradle, two shallow end pockets, a shallow U-channel that spines into the cradle side, a vert deep end with pool coping, and a vert wall with pool coping that opposes the back side of the cradle. I want LC2 in my backyard.
Monday (July 12) - Mother Earth treated the crew to a 30 second earthquake on Monday morning. That was a nice touch. After downing some coffee, the adventure team headed down the coast and skated the Newport park. Although substandard compared to the other stellar Oregon parks, Newport is still a fun cruise and would be a welcome sight in SoCal. The crew rolled around a bit, and Street Dog Mark posed for some good rail tricks.
The minivan cruised down the coast a little further and stopped at the funky Waldport park. There are a lot of "PORT" cities in Oregon, why is that? The Waldport park has a freaky parabola dish oververt thing in an otherwise shallow clover bowl. Strange tranny in the dish makes it very difficult to skate. The race track line around the dish was fun, and the crew formed a skate train with some of the local kids. The park is located in a beautiful setting among the pine trees . . . a perfect place for Skater Claus and his elves. Speaking of which, Skater Claus hooked up a couple of good kids with new decks. One kid had a hole all the way through the middle of his crusty deck, and the other kid was rocking a dilapidated Walmart special with a custom hand painted "BIRDHOUSE" logo on it. Sad. These kids were very deserving and very happy to see Skater Claus. page 1 : page 2 : page 3 |
