Keep Calm and Skate On; Sammamish Skate Park & amazing moments

Graham Berkwitt
2/17/13
Draft 2

Keep Calm and Skate On
The feeling of cruising around your favorite skate park. The feeling of familiar ground skated over hundred of times yet each one is so different then the others. The feeling of all your friends getting so excited and getting so hyped off of a trick you landed. These are the feeling I get every single time I am at the Sammamish Skate Park, My favorite place and one I consider a home to me.

After skating for over three years and spending literally spending hundreds and hundreds of days at the Sammamish Skate Park, it has done so much for me. It is somewhere where I can go to blow off steam. Somewhere I can go on any given day and find friends there doing the exact same thing I am doing.

I remember the very first time I went the skate park. I was in ninth grade and never really knew how to skate. I had a skateboard but couldn't do anything else but ride on it. Two friends from school asked if I wanted to come to the Sammamish Skate Park with them and honestly I did not want to go one bit. I was scared that I would be made fun of cause I had no clue how to skate and was going to a skate park filled with good skaters who I thought would for sure make fun of me. When I ended up going it was unlike anything I ever thought it would be. What I saw was just a bunch of friends all hanging out cheering each other on and having a great time. After just a couple minutes I felt comfortable at this place and could then go along at my own pace without anybody bothering or judging me. This was the start of something great.

Three years later and still going to the Sammamish Skate Park almost everyday, little has changed but at the same time so much is different. When I was younger I used to skate up hill for 45 minutes straight just to get to the park. By the time I was there I was already so tired but it was still worth it. There has been numerous times where I would go to the park early in the morning and stay there to late in the night just hanging out with a group of friends and skating non-stop. This park is where I learned to skate and every time I go there I am still learning all these new tricks and getting better. That's the great thing about skating. There is no winning, there is no losing, you skate and you skate more. It is something that stays with a person for their entire life. The memories of the times you and your friends spent entire days skating at the park just hanging out, skating, and having a great time.

To me the Sammamish Skate Park is more of a hang out spot then anything. Every day there will be somebody I know there. Half the time I don't even make plans with my friends and I just head to the skate park because I know at least one of them will already be there. Even if I am injured and can't skate at the time I still enjoy going to the park and talking to people and hanging out. Almost all of my friends that I have, I have met through skating. It is so great to have that basis of friends where each and every one is just as passionate of skating as I am. I meet a ton of people there too. If I arrive at the park and there are a couple of guys I have never seen before I always start talking to them and getting to know them. Find out where there from, how long they been skating, and pretty much become friends with them on the spot. It makes for a really good time for both of us.

It is hard to describe the feeling skaters get from skating. Whether it is cruising around the streets or at a park it is always a good time. Flying through the park at high speeds not even knowing where you are going with the wind blowing against your face. I would say the best feeling for a skateboarder is landing a trick you have been trying for hours and sometimes even days. After falling and hurting yourself almost every single try then that one try comes and you roll away from the trick has got to be on of the most amazing feelings in the world. The adrenalin rush, the feeling of accomplishment and relief is something almost unexplainable. There is nowhere where I have felt these feelings more then the Sammamish Skate Park and I couldn't have asked for a better place to do it at.

I am always going to remember all the amazing times I have spent at the Sammamish Skate Park. It really is like a second home to me. For how many days on end I have spent there and everything I have gone through at this place I am so glad it is a part of my life. All the falls I have taken, all the tricks I have landed and most of all, the friends I have made and memories I will cherish forever.

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