19 Years and Half the World Away

This is my friend, Duncan Ewington.  I met him 21 years ago when he was a foreign exchange student from Tasmania that ended up staying with our friend Jason.  This past weekend was the first time I have seen him in 19 years.  The minute I heard he was going to be in Austin for 3 days, I knew I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to catch up and go skate together.

I’ve always been amazed at the bond and camaraderie that skateboarding fosters.  Duncan has been traveling the United States with his girlfriend for a couple of months now.  From Northern California and through Death Valley, the swamps of New Orleans and the rough streets of the East Coast, he has been able to meet up with people and crash with them….all because of a skateboard and the common thread and love for 7 plies of maple attached to some urethane wheels.  It is mind boggling at times to consider that skateboarding, what most would consider a child’s toy, is capable of producing bonds between people so strong that even years and thousands of miles is incapable of diminishing.  We are both grown men, rapidly nearing 40, and the first thing we wanted to do together was to huck ourselves around on our skateboards for hours, pushing each other to land something, whether a new trick or an old comfortable one. I feel like I skated harder this past Saturday morning and afternoon than I had in years…driven by two friends I haven’t seen in years.

Welcome home, Jason.  And Duncan, I can’t wait until our next session together, sir.  Let’s not make it another 19 years, ok?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Until next time….