Posted on 12/29/2008 6:31:43 PM PST by Lorianne
We have more pools than we know what to do with,” said Mr. Peacock, who lives in Fresno, the Central Valley city where thousands of homes, many with pools behind them, are in foreclosure. “I can’t even keep track of them all anymore.”
Across the nation, the ultimate symbol of suburban success has become one more reminder of the economic meltdown, with builders going under, pools going to seed and skaters finding a surplus of deserted pools in which to perfect their acrobatic aerials.
In these boom times for skaters, Mr. Peacock travels with a gas-powered pump, five-gallon buckets, shovels and a push broom, risking trespassing charges in the pursuit of emptying forlorn pools and turning them into de facto skate parks.
“We can just hit them back to back,” said Mr. Peacock, who preferred to give his skateboarding name because of the illegality of his activities.
Skaters are coming to places like Fresno from as far as Germany and Australia. Mr. Peacock said his floor and couch were covered by sleeping bags of visiting skateboarders each weekend.
Some skateboarders use realty tracking sites like realquest.com and realtor.com to find foreclosed houses with pools, while others trawl through satellite images from Google Earth. On the Web site skateandannoy.com, where skaters trade tips about how to find and drain abandoned pools, one poster wrote about the current economic malaise. “God bless Greenspan,” the post read, “patron saint of pool skatin’.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
-—every cloud has a silver lining—
What is the bounty these days on Skateboarder pelts? Is it as high as on coyotes and mimes?
I’m always amazed when major newspapers do stories that glamorize idiots.
Ahm, somebody owns rights to those pools.
Without permission, access and use is not a healthy attitude in any case.
Last skateboarder I met couldn’t put three words into a sentence without saying “man”. Couldn’t hold a job either. Last I heard he went to mommies house out of state, so he can practice more......22 years old and worthless.
Worthless pool scum. These are the leaders of the future Democratic party.
....”On a recent morning, a 27-year-old skateboarder who goes by the name Josh Peacock....”
....27 years old and still a skateboarder....reveling in his ability to trespass on other people’s property....what a jerk...get a job punk.
They identify with them.
It’s better than doing drugs or alcohol. I doubt that you can skateboard effectively while stoned or drunk.
Lets see, the economy has melted down, trillions of foreclosed homes with empty pools, yet children and teenagers are traveling from all over the globe to go to Fresno to skateboard in an empty pools?
LOL!
I doubt that most could earn an honest living doing something legal and respectful while stoned or drunk either.
Professionals? No. The 3 million want to be's? It's a culture, not a sport. Go to your local skateboard park and take a look.
Yeah, but when the economy rebounds and there's a shortage of professional skaters, you won't be laughing then! /s
Leni
They’re cleaning pools for free. When they have water in them they are mosquito hatcheries.
This is actually a public service. ;-)
not to mention the skateboards beating the piss out of them
Good point. Every February it rains in California, bringing down lava-like torrents of mud from the previous year's October fires. This time, all those empty pools are going to float like little Noah's Arks.
Verily I say unto thee: gather ye together two lawyers, two gangbangers, two purse dogs, two liberal professors, a pool boy and a Valley girl. Gather ye in a pool forthwith, and await the great rains; then go ye forth in March to repopulate California.
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