Wednesday, June 21

Notes From the Wilderness

By Mike Vallely

Notes From The Wilderness 6.21.00 By Mike Vallely

Woodward Journal Entries Week #2

6.11.00 1:34 am

The weekends at camp are mellow. Very little skating goes down. Most of the campers are coming or going. The hold overs are the only one's allowed to skate and only at certain hours.

Stacy Lowery and I split camp today and headed into State College where we hooked up with Jesse Fritsch. We did lunch at some buffet stir fry place, it was good.

Came back in and had a good vert session tonight.

6.12.00 12:59 am

Demoed in Lot 8 tonight... it went well. Long, boring, rainy day today. There just doesn't seem to be any excitement in the air this week, at least not like last week. I guess last week there were a ton more skaters, double or triple what are here this week. I'm feeling like this is going to be a tough week to get through. I don't know, it could just be the weather. Regardless of the rain, it was as hot and as humid as Hell today. I sweated through my clothes hard, like I'd just jumped in a pool. Felt good.

6.13.00 2:06 am

Really good vert session tonight...

Rain and lack of excitement just draining me, I feel like I'm wasting my time here now. Last week was so productive, I was such a major part of what was going down but now I feel useless. Makes me homesick.

Went out to "The Lounge" tonight, talked story with Mike Frazier and Brian Howard, good stuff, good guys.

6.14.00

Woodward is an amazing place... but it's not what some of the staff here think it is. It's not "the training grounds for the pros of the future," Hell, most skaters here can barely roll. This place is merely skate camp. A place where kids who skate or who are interested in skating go for a week or two instead of some other camp. This camp just happens to be centered around the one thing in their lives they care most about right now: skateboarding. And for that, this is a great place. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here and think that because this facility exsists that skateboarding is somehow being advanced by leaps and bounds.

Okay, so Andy Macdonald showed up this week and used the new 'ressy, foam padded half pipe' to learn 720's... that's Andy Macdonald. And sure, I used the same ramp to teach several campers to drop in but still, is that the advancement of skateboarding? No, and it never will be. What skateboarding needs is for the emphasis to be put on fun, individuality, self expression and camraderie, not on the evolution of tricks... Let skate camp be skate camp. Let the kids have fun.

6.15.00

After the campers mini-ramp contest tonight, Stacy Lowery and I unloaded our stock of product and the campers this week scored. Black Label and Santa Cruz boards, Etnies shoes, TSG helmets, t-shirts, videos, Accel. wheels, more t-shirts, griptape, trucks and stickers. Just about everyone got something and a lot of guys got hooked up a few times over. I enjoy being able to give that stuff out, it feels good to hook skaters up with gear. It's the passing of the torch.

6.16.00 10:40 am

I'm sitting in the cafe at University Park Airport in State College. My flight out is delayed, I'm just sitting here drinking a raspberry ice tea.

I'm glad to be heading home. My time at Woodward was good but not everything I wanted it to be. I feel I was effective and more than earned my pay but there was so much more I wanted to do out here... I really wanted to maximize and I can't truly say I did. This second week just took me out. I guess when I do come back it will be for a week at a time... I need to keep moving, to long in one place just drags. I'm scheduled to come back for a week later this Summer and it will be 100% go...

I can't wait to see my girls.