It doesn't matter if the light is green or red, most of the Skateboard Kids have committed to racing through.

On the Ave outside the bar you'll occasionally see the Skateboard Kids. As the name implies, they are teenagers -- and sometimes those teenagers who are actually well into their twenties -- who skateboard down the southward incline of the street. Going the other direction, they hitch on the back of buses to pull them on their way.

Most are just passing from points A to B, striking a pose of practiced insouciance on their boards. Some, though: the street and its cars are a challenge, a slalom. There is a crosswalk mid-street by the University Bookstore, so pedestrians sometimes become needles to be threaded. Sometimes a particular needle doesn't get threaded successfully, and people go down. Sometimes that includes an elderly person. No one expects the Skateboard Inquisition.

On those occasions a firetruck is called; the police arrive. The skateboarder is long gone, of course: the elderly person is sitting on the curb by then, attended to by kind strangers. Kind strangers; Seattle still has some of those.

Outside the bookstore entrance there are frequently young adults collecting signatures for one cause or another: an environmental group, Planned Parenthood. Sometimes these people help; sometimes they continue to coax passing people into signing their list, hopefully with a donation. You can make a difference. You can also make a difference by helping the old lady who just got bowled over, but they want to make Big Differences. Which require signatures. And donations.

There is a cross-street just south of the bookstore. It doesn't matter if the light is green or red, most of the Skateboard Kids have committed to racing through. Usually they make it. Once in awhile though, they crash into the side of a car that has pulled out to make a turn. A few of these meetings end with the skateboarder flying over the hood of the car, landing on the other side. They are young: they typically bounce right up, retrieve their skateboard and leave, the driver now looking at his car for damage. And telling what just happened to somebody on the other side of their cellphone.

Infrequently, the Skateboard kid doesn't get up. Or gets up, only to stagger to the curb and sit down, hunched over and hurting. On those occasions a firetruck is called; the police arrive. Most people walk by. Some are smiling as they do: these people are tired of the Skateboard Menace, and mentally chalk one up on their side of the scoreboard. Karma and Gravity.



- james james

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