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Lord Bob’s Journal — Sunday, Nov 6, 2011, 9:30pm. Today I travelled down to Belton, Texas, to meet up with  Mike Moore (MMS) and various other Central Texas types for a nice ditch skating session. The occasion? One more trip around the sun for Mike. Yes, the old booze-slinger turned 46.

As I left Dallas I already knew the weather situation would be sketchy. I ran into small bursts of rain all the way down, and as I turned off the main highway to head out to the Moore Compound  the rain really came down. But the showers were very isolated, and Mike’s neighborhood was totally dry.

Shortly after my arrival, Jack Newkirk, Erik Conn, Mark Hanks, Brete Anderson, and John Armstrong showed up. After briefly riding the excellent mellow hill of Mike’s street, we loaded into our vehicles and headed out in search of ditches. First stop was to be the ditch known as Miles.

Mike Moore gets some lip at Chuck's. Photo by Jack Newkirk.

I first skated Miles with Mike ten years ago. He named it Miles because is very long. Great ditch for long, flowing runs. As we approached the area of the ditch,however, the rain began to come down hard, and the ditch was flowing with water. Strike one.

We had passed the ditch known as Chucks on the way to Miles. It was dirty, and some idiot road crew assholes had gotten rid of some extra tar a few weeks ago by pouring it into the ditch. We decided to go check it out anyway. Luckily much of the original tar had already worn/washed away. The damage was not as bad as it had seemed, so we got out the brooms and shovels and soon had Mike’s favorite ditch back into skateable shape! Hopefully no more tar demons will visit and defile this sacred ground.

Yes folks, good things to occasionally happen to good people, and apparently we had at least one good person in the group.

Awesome session. Jack Newkirk warmed up by doing aerials over the little channel in the ditch, followed by John Armstrong and Erik Conn doing various foot-plants over it. Mark and Brete flowed around the ditch, and Mike showed his home-turf knowledge of the ditch, extracting some nice grinds from the top edges of the walls. I did my usual stuff – g-turns, spins, etc., with a few grinds and tail taps thrown in.

We skated for a good two hours. Really fun. The youngest skater there was Erik, and he’s 41. I think Brete is 52, with the rest of us in the mid-to-upper 40s. All these old dudes cleaning and skating a drainage ditch on the side of the road. Classic. You know, there are skateparks all over the state now, but really, skating “natural” terrain is just so preferable to me. I guess it’s just all the years of not having skateparks, of having to make the most of the terrain available. As noted by Ian MacKaye and various other thinkers of deep thoughts, skateboarders are the masters of reinterpreting their surroundings, and I suppose once that habit and way of thinking is programmed into us, we just can’t stop.

After the session, the other guys departed back to Austin and San Marcos, while Mike and I went to back to his house, where he cooked up some great sausages on the grill, and we ate with his two boys (12 and 14). You would be correct in assuming that many jokes were made about the big, hot, juicy sausages. Lots of fun. After dinner, Mike’s lovely wife Dana got home from a day-long outing, and we all chilled in the main house, watching “the Walking Dead” — a fun zombie show on TV. Then I retired to the guest house, where I sit in bed, typing this story, drinking Gatorade, and eating graham crackers.

Oh, the guest house has a composting toilet. Just thought I’d mention that. Makes every BM an adventure!

So, for his birthday, Mike got a fun ditch session and a good cleaning of his favorite skate spot! Twas a pleasure to help him out, and to see so many friends from Central Texas. Dana told me that Mike was just so happy about the whole thing, as was I. Happy Birthday, man!