Solitary Child

It’s really not warm enough or sunny enough most days yet to feel great enthusiasm about going out for a walk, but I am trying to do it anyway each day in hopes that I will not forget how to do it. Today, I headed up Benson to check out the iconic cow, who is yet wearing his silver tarp and beige corduroy hat, but has moved away from the barn and up closer to the street. I thought she might be preparing for Valentine's Day, but not so (or not yet). Then a little way past the cow, I heard this strange noise. At first I thought it might be someone chopping wood, but it actually sounded more like metal on wood and it was sufficiently off-and-on not to sound like a standard work kind of sound. Puzzled, I crossed Benson at the entrance to Baker Field to see what I could find.

Barely off Benson (where, alas, it appears that come people have concluded the entrance to the Field is a marvelous place to dump entire bags of trash), I saw my sound. It was a work sound, but not the kind of work sound I was thinking of. Instead, I found myself watching a boy, maybe 13 or 14, on a skateboard, repeating his skateboard moves over and over at the local skateboard park. I watched him for awhile until he noticed me which caused him to decide that this was a good moment to take a little rest. So I moved on and wandered around in the woods for awhile, leaving him to his work. But it made me think.

First of all, this was the first time I’d seen the skateboard park, which was put together with some kind of community group effort about eight years ago. If I hadn’t spent the last year with the P.R. Community Association trying to get the community events sign rebuilt, I would not for a minute have even begun to appreciate how much work it must have been to actually get this little skateboard park constructed. It’s maybe 20x30 feet (I have little skill with estimating distances so I could be wrong in either direction by a factor of two, but it probably wasn’t 10x15), with a little stand of bleachers that might hold a dozen people sitting close together. And it has 4 or 5 different places to do different skateboard maneuvers. So, first off, congratulations (belated) to those who got this to happen. A substantial piece of work for a good purpose.

Second, was the sight of this lone boy, practicing his moves over and over in the late afternoon. Kids nowadays seem to come equipped with lots of velcro tabs, such that they are always attached to some other kids or some adults. To see one adolescent alone for an extended period of time harkens back to a couple of generations ago when kids spent a lot more time on their own than they do now, what with lessons and groups and constant adult oversight to keep them from being kidnapped or something. But here was this kid, and here it is 2009 and he was working on something he cared about all alone.

And that’s another good thing about Point Roberts. You can be a kid and be alone outdoors here.