Growing up in the San Fernando Valley, we had a junior olympic size pool with a diving board. When we weren't out on our skateboards, or riding our bikes, the entire neighborhood seemed to be hanging by our pool.
One summer, a bunch of us kids snuck into a strip mall on Parthenia that was being built but had stopped for some reason. We collected up boards and plywood and built some pretty elaborate launch and landing ramps inside the building and started doing jumping competitions. There were no walls inside so you could get quite the long run up to the ramp. We all wore two pairs of pants, a couple jackets, and some form of helmet. I wore my Rams helmet that I really don't think would have done much to protect my skull. My bike was an AMF Roadmaster (like the one pictured) that I had put cross bars on and changed the seat to a BMX style seat. I didn't like the orange color so I took it apart and painted it Roger DeCoster yellow with one of my mom's paint brushes. From a distance, it looked pretty cool.
Finally, someone came in while we were all in there and it became a game of who could ride the fastest through the man door. It was a bummer to have that go away.
One other summer, my dad had emptied the pool because either the heater or filter was giving him problems. While my parents were away at an art show tour for about a month, we decided it was perfect for skateboarding. It really wasn't as it had very sharp transitions from the floor to the wall. But it was 12 ft deep so it became a contest of who could hit the lip. I was the only one to be able to do it. Don't get me wrong, I sucked at tricks (I could barely do a 540), but I got a lot of practice in on that pool and figured it out. I had a fiberglass banana board with a kick tail, Chicago trucks and Cadilac wheels. It was quite the board back then.
Then of course, one of my brother's friends decided it would be great for bicycles too. Unfortunately, the black tires made an awful mess of the pool in less than an hour. I think my ears are STILL ringing from when my parents got home and saw it. Spankings didn't begin to describe the punishment. We also had to find any job we could find (for me that meant trapping gophers, mowing lawns, and pulling weeds) and earn the money to pumice and acid wash the entire pool and repaint it. I remember we were working late one evening on the pool and had the pool light on. My sister squirted it by accident with a hose and the think exploded, throwing glass shards everywhere. That also cost a lot more gophers and lawns.
I had a fun childhood but us kids could often be our own worst enemies.
