Each and every one of us is responsible for ourselves. In the end run of things, its always going to boil down to Personal Responsibility.
The problem at hand today, and why I am bringing this up, is the TRASH problem at the skatepark.
Yes, its a MAJOR problem.
This morning I woke up at 6:30 with an intent to go to Dreamland and skate. I got there a little after 7am. The place was a nightmare. There was garbage everywhere.
I spent over an hour just picking up the filth. Powerade bottles, Red Bull cans, chip bags, McDonalds bags, and other crap, crap, and more crap all over the park.
I was stunned when I saw trash in the bowl!
Damn, this sounds like a broken record, but how much is it going to take to make you kids realize (I say kids because the problem is mainly with the kids in the 10 - 16yr old age bracket) that upkeep of the park is YOUR responsibility, and if the park is continued to be wrecked like it was today on a continuous basis… WE WILL LOSE THE PARK!
I have spent the last 6 years of my life skateboarding. I have never skated something of this magnitude. The park is incredible. I get completely stoked when I pull up and park my car. It hurts me on a personally level to see ignorant kids wrecking the skatepark like this

Small Time Skates and the City Of Hammond have busted ass to make this dream of ours a rather large scale reality, so now WHY in the hell are people neglecting the park so?

It baffles the mind. I thought and though yet could not figure it out.

Is it really so hard to go down to a trash can after you finish your drink and throw the bottle away? You’re all out there skateboarding, so I know you’re not that lazy. There is something like 10 trash cans around the park, so why can’t anyone seem to use one? We have professional skateboarders like Mike Vallely and Tony Trujillo making long trips to come see and skate our park. How is this going to make the Skateboarders of Hammond look? How will this make the city look?

Now, another issue that goes side by side with the trash.

Cigarette butts.

DO NOT THROW THEM ON THE CONCRETE!
DO NOT THROW THEM IN THE GRASS.
THROW THEM IN THE TRASH!
Me and many others will be very angry when we come to a screeching halt and a fakie backside faceplant because our wheels hit someone’s remnants of a nicotine addiction.

I feel that I could sit here and type pages about how angry this makes me, but typing and ranting simply is not enough.
Actions have to be taken. You kids have to start owning up to some amount of personal responsibility.

An irate skateboarder,
Josh Lowrey

We had been hearing rumors that a “new skate shop” might open up somewhere in Hammond, and it turns out that chatter was correct, partially. Although the shop that plans on moving in does indeed sell skateboards, they’re anything but a skate shop… they’re an “Action Sports” store, meaning that they sell blades, bikes, pogo sticks, dildos, or whatever else happens to be trendy at the moment.

     Let me back up for a second… I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll put out some facts first. Kerry at one time worked for the shop in question, and I myself was sponsored by them after my old local sponsor here in Hammond went out of business (Bike Zone). We always knew that the store was cheesy (catering to the !!!XTREME SPORTS!!! MTV-style retardedness), and we knew the owner was pretty harmless; he was a non skateboarding kook, but he was harmless. I say that because his shop, as corny as the place was, served its purpose… It was the only place close by to purchase skateboard equipment, so most locals skaters really didn’t have a choice… you had to drive all the way to New Orleans or Baton Rouge to get equipment (which I actually started doing after I realized that being sponsored by “that shop” was like being sponsored by K-Mart).

     After a long stretch, Kerry and Chris decided to go on their own and make something happen in Hammond… not to make money, but to support and maintain a healthy skate scene. They started off with Hammond’s first real skatepark with a full-on pro shop (no offense to Ribando’s, but they only had one real ramp). Not too long after that, Kerry and Chris busted their asses again to set up a kick ass shop in downtown Hammond… again, not to turn a big profit, but to invest into the skate scene… and that’s exactly what they did.

     Kerry, with the support of local skaters, started a program of sorts to get used skateboards and skate other gear in the hands of underprivileged kids and other skaters who were just down on their luck. I got news for you… skateshops don’t give away boards to kids because they’re trying to get rich, they do it because they want kids to skate. The same mentality went into the ‘Coop (Small Time’s Skatepark)… if you really wanted to skate but you were broke, you skated anyway. Why would a business do this? Because Kerry and Chris are skaters, and they don’t give a shit about anything but skateboarding, skateboarders and keeping the scene alive.

      As all of you already know, Small Time Skates had a direct role in getting the Dreamland park designed and built. The shop partnered with the city and got the job done, not once, but twice (with the inclusion of the street section). Now sit down and think about this… a skate shop that has a pay-at-the-door based skatepark fought to get a free skatepark built? Yes, yes they did. Everyone knew that a free skatepark would put a dent in the small amount of money generated by the ‘Coop, but like I said before, it wasn’t about money… it was about the skating. Since the Dreamland park opening, Hammond has become a haven for skateboarders… we have the places to ride, and the one shop in town wasn’t there to screw you over.

     All of this leads me to the point of this post… you know the cheesy-ass Action Sports shop I mentioned earlier? Well, they’ve decided to rent out the old Boy’s club building across the street from Dreamland and open a shop. Yes, you heard me correctly… a non skater-owned company is setting up a shop three blocks away from not only a skater-owned business, but a business that’s responsible for everything you like about skating in Hammond. By doing what they’re about to do, they’re not the harmless company that they used to be… now they’re here, stepping on our toes, and spitting in our faces. Make no mistake, not one dime of the money made by this new shop will go back into promoting skating. They’re parasites, they suck, and quite frankly, if you decide to use them as your local shop, then you suck too.

To the new shop in town, this is all I have to say:

Look, we love art/sport of vert and flatland bike riding as much as anybody (if not moreso than the average folks)… I know I personally watch it with astonishment whenever I see it on TV, and I even own a freestyle bike (although the only trick I can do on it is peddle to the store and buy milk). I also understand that a lot of biker-types are pissed off that our Dreamland park doesn’t allow bikes, but you have to remember, there simply isn’t a vert-riding bike community in Hammond, and as a result, no vert-riding bikers had anything to do with the OK’ing and construction of our park.
I know bikers like to sneak a session in when noone’s around… if I rode a bike, I’d probably do the same… the park is incredible, and probably a temptation that’s too hard to resist. There is a line, however, that must not be crossed. If you, as a bike rider, choose to ride our park and get busted by a skateboarder or by a random lurker looking out for the best interests of the park, you are in the wrong. If you get caught, you better leave. There is a city ordinace against riding bikes on the park, so you will be breaking the law.
If you’re a nice person, and a nice person catches you riding our park, you should leave. If a nice person catches you riding, asks you to leave, and you’re a dick, we will call the cops on your ass. Then there’s this potential scenario: If an otherwise nice but angry person catches you, and you’re a dick, or worse yet, you were to keep on riding, your spokes, chain, frame, sprocket, handlebars, seat post and cranks could be severely damaged when you are yanked off of your bike and it’s beaten to a point where it can’t be repaired. The skateboard that messes your expensive bike might wind up looking like this:

Now don’t get me wrong… we don’t hate you. We don’t dislike you. We don’t want to start shit with you. But we love our park more than we love you. If you choose to come to our park and act like a dick when you’re asked to leave, there’s a chance that you’ll be messing with the wrong person. To my knowledge, there are dozens of skateboarders and skatepark worshippers that live within spitting distance from the park itself. If, in some strange and bizarre circumstance, a young skateboarder were to feel threatened by your presence, it would theoretically be very easy to round up plenty of people to make sure that the rules and ordinances of the park are enforced.