The Kid packed two high-definition digital camcorders and an old Super-8 film camera and his skateboard. When he left on a direct flight from Sacramento, The Wife and I had visions of 18- and 19-year-old boys gone wild. But the story that accompanied the boys on their return was something quite different.
On the first day in Honolulu, the boys learned that skateboarding is illegal -- everywhere.
The Kid and his friends are street skaters. By definition nothing they do is legal. Over the years I've allowed The Kid freedom to skate (as though I could prevent it!) in exchange for a promise that he would abide by two rules:
- Never deliberately destroy private property
- Never run from the police
The second rule stems from a youthful indiscretion on his part at the age of 9. He and some buds were at Mira Loma High School skating the senior steps when sheriff's deputies arrived. The kids (remember they are only 9 and 10 years old) tried to outrun the officers and, when that failed, tried to hide. All they succeeded in doing was getting the deputies angry. Each of the boys lost his skateboard and had to appear before a juvenile court judge.
I was raised in Los Angeles. My mother taught me from an early age that you say, "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" to police. No quick movements, keep your hands in plain sight and never, ever, run. You just don't back-talk people with guns, she lectured.
The Kid apparently took the lesson from Mira Loma to heart. Years later, he was caught with several friends skating the water slide tubes at Water World. I got a call from the Cal-Expo police asking me to come down and pick up The Kid. When I got there, the officer in charge was absolutely effusive in his praise for how "nice" The Kid was, how polite. The Kid got off with a "Don't do that again" lecture from the officer. He even got to keep his board.
All of this is to say, I wasn't surprised to learn that The Kid spent every night in Honolulu illegally skating, collecting film footage that will be used in his next DVD.
Early in the trip, the boys located a wide cement ledge that provided a ramp to a long handrail. Every night, The Kid hit that spot attempting to 50-50 the rail. Translation: The Kid attempted to ride the skateboard on the rail, sliding on the metal trucks that house the wheel axles.
Night after night he tried, and night after night he failed to land the trick. The video below shows two of those failed attempts, including a collision between the skateboard and the camera. [Warning: If you are at work, mute the sound.]
And then, on the second-to-last night in Hawaii, The Kid landed the trick. [The Kid won't let me show the clip of him landing it; that's to be reserved for the DVD.] It was about 2 a.m. and the boys were still celebrating when a car pulled up to the curb and two Hawaiian girls started yelling at the boys. The Kid picked up his camera and was walking over to film what was happening when four very large Hawaiian men came up behind the boys and started throwing punches.
The Kid was hit it the face and knocked down, but managed to get to his feet and beat it back to his hotel. The boys figure the girls dropped the guys off around the corner and then drove up to distract the boys while the attackers snuck up on them.
Two days later he arrived back in Sacramento with a modest shiner as a surprise for his mother. (We didn't learn of the misadventure until we met at the airport.)
The Graduate had his Hawaii 5-0 and returned with his Hawaiian eye.(Yes, technically, it was a Hawaii 50-50, but we're not going to let a little fact like that get in the way of our fun.)
And as a bonus I'll throw in a glowing edges treatment of his shiner.Day 44 of 365
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