It’s not easy skating into middle age

Every so often, nature and fate conspire to remind me that I am no longer 17. I hate it when this happens, because as a rule I’m comfortably delusional and able to convince myself I am a young man, and not—as the mirror would suggest—a geezer.

It’s easier to fool yourself into believing this sort of nonsense if a) you have teenage kids still living at home, b) your wife is cute, and c) you still have all your hair. I do, she is, and most of it.

My youngest child, James, is the only fledgling who has yet to leave the nest. The older two beat cheeks as soon as the law and financial circumstances allowed. James I’m going to have to pry out of here with a crowbar.

But that’s still a couple years away. For now, he’s living at home and doing all the things teenage boys do. (Which is why I’m so anxious to see him gone.)

At any rate, one of the things he does—or rather did do before he got his driver’s license—is ride a skateboard.

In the two summers he was skateboard crazy, he got pretty good on the thing. He could do all sorts of terrifying sidewalk gymnastics with no regard to possible injury, certain death or my mediocre health insurance.

Now, I hate to brag (actually, I love to brag—ask anyone who knows me) but I used to know my way around a skateboard myself. Back in sixth grade, every little old lady on my block knew to jump off onto the grass when she heard me rolling down Grand Street hill.

I was one of the few kids in the neighborhood who could “hang ten,” which in those pre-Tony Hawk days was considered a real accomplishment.

That’s probably why, when I saw James skating back and forth in front of the house last summer, that delusional gene kicked in and I decided to show him how we used to kick it old school. (Note to hip people under 20: If that “kick it old school” thing is no longer cool to say, I apologize—I’m elderly; don’t ask me to keep up with the trendy vernacular.)

It was a beautiful summer’s day and the whole neighborhood was out mowing lawns, riding bikes, planting flowers … plenty of witnesses. It’s been my experience that, if you’re going to do something really, really stupid, you should do it in front of as large an audience as possible.

“Lemme show you a few tricks on that thing,” I said to James. He handed the board over willingly, somehow sensing that his moment of sweet revenge for all the times I had grounded him had come ‘round at last.

I sat the board on the sidewalk, noticing peripherally that most of the neighborhood chatter had ceased. A moment before the air had been filled with the sound of kids yelling, parents chatting and hedge trimmers buzzing. Now all was now deathly quiet.

An electric charge of anticipation hummed and pulsed through the neighborhood as I placed my right foot on the board and pushed off with my left.

You might not think a man of 200 pounds could fly, but let me tell you, he can. But only briefly. It is a testament to the quality of the concrete work in front of my house that it did not crack when I reconnected with the sidewalk. It is further testament to James’ self-control (and survival instinct) that he did not laugh, at least not until I had hobbled back into the house and was out of earshot.

It took me a long time to feel 17 again.

To contact Mike Taylor with your questions, comments, or the number of a good chiropractor, e-mail mtaylor325@gmail.com or write via snail mail to: Mike Taylor, c/o Valley Media, Inc., PO Box 9, Jenison, MI 49429. Miss a week? More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com/advancenewspapers.