Event: Stoked Skate Jam
Location: Coleman Playground, NYC, NY
Date: July, 2009

Well, after all the background searches, interviews and training, the day had finally come for me to meet my mentee. Many questions were on my mind as I traveled that morning into NYC. Who would he be? What would be his story? Would I be able to help him in any way?

The “pairing” as they call it in Stoked Mentoring Land was to take place before the Stoked Skate Jam at Coleman Playground. The park lies beneath the Manhattan Bridge, on the border between Chinatown and the Lower East Side. Not far from a subway station, there was no reason to drive into the city for this event.

Interesting Fact: The land that Coleman Park occupies was once the graveyard of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. In the 1860’s two thousand bodies were exhumed from the cemetery, moved across the East River by boat and reburied in Cypress Hills Cemetery.

So, I’m meeting my mentee on the grounds of a former graveyard… Not exactly a great starting point… but not a bad place to put a skatepark.

Mentors and friends all arrived early enough to help Stoked set up for the event and then meet our mentees before the skateboarding competition began. A funny thing happened…

I was helping Zach Hibbs from Fuse in Burlington, Vermont – he was here in NYC representing Mt. Dew-AMForce drinks and needed 40+ bags of ice to cool down the drinks before they were given away to attendees.

With no van, no car, no hand truck, no wheel barrow on hand we walked to the local super market and loaded up two shopping carts, paid, and headed across the parking lot towards the park. It’s cool, it will work out just fine…

STOP RIGHT THERE!!

Shopping carts in NYC (and likely many other cities) have these electronic devices on them that lock all the wheels as they reach the perimiter of the parking lot. 

A guy from Vermont (Z) and another from Jersey (Me) never had any idea that shopping cart thieves are everywhere in a city that never sleeps…

So we each had a shopping cart full of ice, in 80+ degree humid weather, in the driveway of the super market parking lot, sun blazing down on us. Drip. Drip. Drip. Sweat. Drip. Ice. Drip. Sweat. Drip. Ice.. etc.

We grunted and groaned and muscled the frozen wheeled carts out of the driveway and pondered what to do. A guy in a lumber truck yelled, “Hey, where are you taking all that ice?” Coleman Playground was only 2 blocks away so the guy graciously offered to help out.

Seems Stoked has helpers everywhere, even if they don’t know they’re helping Stoked. I love New York!

We threw the bags of ice onto the dirty flatbead and went back to Coleman Playground. Everyone pitched in to move the ice the last 100 yards to the barrels full of Mtn. Dew cans –> icey cold, Mountain Dew  in about 45 minutes.

So here it was, probably not even 11:00am.  I’m sweaty, dirty and hot. Not really the way I  wanted to meet my mentee. I wanted to look like a reasonably-put-together-adult yet somewhat cool. Not an easy task for me on a good day but the ice-capades didn’t help any.

“Hope I don’t smell bad” I thought to myself. 

But today is the day….come stink, sweat or dirt.

Actually, when you think about many of the times my mentee and I will be together (surfing, skating, snowboarding) we’ll likely be dirty, sweaty and potentially stinky. 

Something tells me this is all gonna be just fine.