Of Axes, Cacti and Rakes

by Don Redondo

When I first moved to Phoenix, I didn't know anybody and usually went to the old “High Roller” skatepark. The park had some killer pipes with flatwall, a couple of good snake runs and a really nice reservoir (with a vert bowl in one corner) but the pools were kinda weak so when I finally met Brian and Michael C. from JFA and my long time skate buddy Danny Moped I was stoked to ride my first Arizona back yard pool.

The first pool I skated in Arizona was in Scottsdale right off Camelback rd. and was called “Howard's.” Howard's was named after some guy (probably named Howard) that allegedly burned down his house for insurance money. Well, legend had it that Howard eventually got out of jail and would show up at the vacant lot where his house once stood, but now was reduced to just a field with a left hand pretty much “one hit” kidney. Eventually we did figure out a quickie line in the shallow end and if you carved the deep end right, you could hit the deep to shallow end hip/transition, but it was still pretty damn tight and therefore still would be categorized as a one hit. Danny Moped had his signature line (which was the frontside grind over the light). It didn't matter if it was his first ride or his last, new spot or old…frontside grind right over the light. I asked him one time if he could carve or go backside at all…his reply was “why would I do that… frontside grinds are better”

The “Howard legend” goes on to say Howard finally did come back one day, was pissed his former home had become a graffiti strewn skate spot and actually attacked some kids as they skated his pool. The story goes he used an axe to break out the headlights of their car and then came after them, splitting one kid's board right in front of him as he attempted to use it as a shield. Either because we respected the legend, or because you have a better chance of running and getting away from the cops by stashing your car in some other remote location, we never did park next to the pool. We always parked off the main street and around the corner…just in case. The pool (and the owner) were later immortalized in the song “Axed at Howard's” (HACK HACK HACK!) on JFA's first album.

Axed at Howards by JFA Axed at howard's hack hack hack axed at howard's by a fucking maniac we were skaing it was fun I saw him coming on the run he had an axe he was pissed he swung it hard I'm glad he missed He got my friend he hacked his stick chopped in half by a maniac prick I got away cuz I was running fast that trip to howard's was almost my last

Besides pool skating, there were also some good hills to be had. One such hill was called “Desert Jewel.” The beauty of this hill was that you could go as high as you wanted and therefore as fast as you wanted. It was a pleasant, out of the way (not too many cars), double hump descent where you could see the whole valley. The really neat part was unlike most hills where you see people skateboard really fast, this one featured a one lane 90 degree turn at the bottom that you really had to have your act together to make at speed. Like I said, not too many cars, but in the event that one did show up, there was not room for a skater doing 40+ and a car in that turn…and it was IMPOSSIBLE to see the cars coming from the top of the hill.

All of this is really leading to what most skaters have never experienced: going so fast that “stepping” off the board no longer becomes an option. You only step off at high speed once…after that you instinctively know by the sound of the wheels that you are going too fast and you just plain have to make the line. The Desert Jewel “two step” went something like this: you bomb the upper part of the hill, setting up for the curve on the outside at the top and then aiming for the apex (like an indy car) as you went through the corner. Somewhere right about here is where you see the car for the first time and then decide to bail. After that things are pretty simple. You get a 10 foot step followed by a 20 foot step (as your torso decelerates from 40), hug a cactus still running approx 25 MPH and then start either cart wheeling or just ride the cactus in and skid to a halt. Either way it makes a really nice dust cloud. By the way, the “cactus hug” really happened to Todd “Layback Air” Joseph, one of the best vert skaters to come out of AZ. In the late 70's early 80's.

Across the valley from Desert Jewel is one of my favorite ditches from “back in the day.” The ditch was big and fast and ran downhill splitting a housing tract of new homes. The best part of the ditch I never got to ride as the top part, which led under a bridge and formed a perfect 15 foot halfpipe. This section of the ditch was “parking blocked” at the bottom by the time I found the ditch and started riding it. I did hear Kevin Staab and Sam Esmoer (also both really good AZ. vert skaters) got to ride it, telling me it was only a one or two hit deal. Still, this section of ditch remains one of the best halfpipes I have ever seen “in the wild” (that was not connected to a full pipe).

Like the half pipe at the top section, the other 2/3's of the ditch was pretty perfect. It was about 15 feet high at the top and tapered lower the further down you went. It was downhill, the cement was perfectly smooth and it had a rounded bottom and sharp top (perfect for grinds all the way down). The rounded bottom was key as a lot of AZ ditches have the sharp “clack clack” bottom good for snapping baseplates and rattling fillings out of your teeth. Overall one of the best ditches I have seen outside of New Mexico (Trust me on this, they know how to make PERFECT ditches in N.M!)

Like other perfect ditches, you get bored and start looking for funny transitions, variations in the lip, or something “different” to grind even if it means dragging a rock or board to the edge so you can ollie up on it, over it or grind it. The one thing that did end up being a “feature” was the fact that there was an 8 inch or so gap to cinder block walls on both sides so you could invert up on the vert wall or wall ride up there as long as you could do the hang up/disaster re entry. Oh yeah, there were also two smaller “feeder” ditches that ran between the houses on both sides so you could get a running start and then carve into the main ditch at speed. It was because of these small “feeder” ditches that the spot eventually got its name.

One day Brian, Michael C., Mike "Bam" Sversvold and Jon Haas and I were riding the ditch, starting from the feeder ditch and as Jon was taking off (with Brian and I walking back up) some homeowner guy decided to bear hug Jon from the back catching him totally by surprise and knocking him off his board. The homeowner was thinking (and later yelled at us) of holding one of us until the cops could come and give all of us tickets, arrest us or whatever. Well, he grabbed the wrong guy! After breaking the hold and muttering “what the fuck are you doing” and at the same instant picking up his board and wheeling around to drop whomever jumped him, Jon instantly figured out what the guy was up to and stood his ground. Turns out the homeowner's kid (10-12 years old) was also there backing his dad up by trying to look/be menacing with a garden rake. So there was five of us with our skates in our hands converging on the dad and the kid. Jon shot the kid a look (you want a piece of me?) and I swear the kid was gone so quick, the rake ended up standing there, on its end, for a couple of seconds, before falling (and startling the dad in the process).

Long story short, the dad, no longer with the element of surprise, lost his composure backed way off and was ordering us to stick around long enough for the cops to come (we didn't). We went back many times to ride that ditch, using the feeder ditch connected to the other side of the neighborhood as a take off point. At one point we even saw the kid (brandishing a BB gun), but he never fucked with us again. In fact, we made sure to wave hello and goodbye as we drove up his side of the neighborhood when we came to skate and happened to see him. It was during one of those follow-on trips where we were doing a photo shoot with Fran Richards (from Kryptonics at the time), where we saw the kid and were laughing as we told Fran the history of the place. In that very next Kryptonics newsletter, there were photos of me and Brian riding, amongst other spots, “man with rake ditch.” I guess Fran combined the characters into one and coined the name of the spot. I often wondered what happened to the dad and the kid. My guess is the dad was a “dog kicker” and probably ended up getting fired from his job for having kiddie porn on his work computer. The kid probably ended up a “meter maid” or (worse) an Internal Revenue Service guy or something. Too bad, he had one of the best ditches I have skated, right in his own backyard, but was too big of a knob to take advantage of it.