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Dear Friends of the Kikar,
I am writing you from a far corner of the earth, several years after retirement, and with mixed emotions. Although I can still walk, I do suffer from a dislocating shoulder, two herniated disks, and a bad hip – chronic pain galore, and I’ve also been told that there is something wrong with my brain. I blame skateboarding for all of these. Yes, let us remember the Kikar’s medical costs. Who can forget those wonderful trips to the hospital? Hi everyone, I’m Ilan, and I’m a skateboarding addict. I didn’t have to suck dicks in order to skate, but not being able to walk more than two kilometres without pain is a big cost to pay. It is because of this that a part of me hates skateboarding, and the Kikar, which for me mean the same thing.
However, as with any recovering addict, I still miss the high. Going through what you fuckers wrote brought back a lot of good memories. The Kikar was my home after all – I too had the privilege of guarding its hallowed grounds. In those few years when my generation reined, I doubt anyone could have loved such an ugly piece of architecture more than we did. You and I were there for hours every day. When we had to go home to sleep, we would dream about skating there. When winters came and the Kikar was flooded, we skated on the higher ground, and between the puddles. We always guarded it. Its true, you could skate there alone. But even when there was nobody there, we had our guards. We could trust Arad to keep an eye from his watch-tower (also known as Mom’s kitchen, yum I can almost taste the pasta). Or else Ron would watch from Steven’s while munching on a couple of family-sized pizzas. The Kikar was the center of our lives – it had power and it changed us. For us the Kikar was sacred, it was our Axis Mundi, the literal center of our world, where heaven and earth meet. When the years passed, and time came to nurture a new generation to take the reins of power, we were happy, and we carried out our duties with love.
It would be impossible for me to recount all the special memories I have from the Kikar that survived my years of smoking. I would like to mention just a few. Where to begin is easy: RON. Ron was dipped in the waters of the Kikar just after birth. As he grew up he was fed on a diet which consisted of the sand, grass, and broken glass of the Kikar. Ron was never far away from the Kikar, and preferred to sleep there whenever possible on a nest he built on one of the trees. When all of us had to skate uphill to reach the Kikar, struggling against gravity and dangerous pedestrians, Ron’s skateboard would carry him there effortlessly, as if he was sitting on an invisible ski-lift. Ron scraped his flesh on every inch of the Kikar. His blood still sits there now. Ron was a true innovator in those days. He showed us that it was possible to skate without a tale. Or without four wheels: you could skate with three, or two, or even just one wheel. You could even skate with broken trucks, or a broken board. You could even skate with half a board, or even barefoot, without wheels or trucks, on a broken board! All this was second nature to Ron – a true skater if ever there was one. These lessons taught us that a skateboard was not necessary. Skateboarding is in the heart, in the mind, and in the blood. This lesson serves us well in retirement.
The Kikar was also an open but very distinguished club – a club of friends. To be a member there was only one requirement: you needed a skateboard. Even if you were a little piece of Lego playing shit, if you had a skateboard, we would accept you as our own and mould you in our image. I recollect several instances where a kid would arrive to the Kikar with his Mommy, his pants up to his neck, thick glasses, and snot running down from his nose. But – and this is a big but – he had a skateboard! Quickly we would bring him in and instruct him on Ollies and proper decorum. This nerd, who had a horrible life in front of him, was now given self-respect and confidence. He was cool, with a positive outlook on life, and a great bunch of friends. The Kikar saved him. I know this to be true: I too was one such nerd. There were others who will recognize themselves in my words. For us the Kikar meant family.
The Kikar gathered around it a very creative group. The Kikar was a creative outlet, which nurtured our creativity, and channelled it into positive directions, until we were free to unleash it on the wider world. We realized over the years that every one of us was creative, talented, and different. Many of us were good with drawing, painting and the like. Being able to practice our skateboarding art, sometimes in solitude, for hours a day, perfecting our skills and always attempting to break new ground, attempting to land the impossible; and being a part of a subversive subculture, all this kept our minds open, ready, and willing to be different, to create, to be who we are today. I doubt that our creativity would have been nurtured if we played soccer instead. Think about it, without the Kikar we would have all been frustrated wife-beating accountants.
The Kikar was a place of enormous joy. It was very hard not to smile in the Kikar. I think smiling was the normal facial expression there, even though, as we all know too well, it saw more than its fair share of contorted faces screaming in agony. When we were not skating we were having a laugh, or planning some ingenious ploy to have a laugh. I remember doing 101¼ rounds of non-stop driving around the Kikar with Arad just because Rafi did 80. Do you remember the Anti-Ars Association’s midnight raids? Blowing up the sprinklers with the firecrackers? Nothing was off limits. We were a depraved lot – living la dolce vita without a care in the world. You had no trouble when you were in the Kikar. The outside world with all its worries was erased. We achieved Zen in our wheelies – pure being. And when we rested, camaraderie kept us high. Skateboarding is not a zero-sum-game. There is no opposing team to win: no one to outdo. We were truly in it together.
The Kikar was a circus, and we were its performers. We often drew the attention of onlookers. Sometimes one or two, sometimes a cheering crowd of dozens – cheering us to further risk our life and limb. Young skaters beware: Injuries usually occur when there is a good looking Bettie watching! Do you remember the old man who couldn’t believe that the skateboard is not attached to our feet? We had to slowly explain to him the physics of the ollie, with several demonstrations, for him to believe us. And I’m sure you will all remember those annoying “show us a trick” kids. We all enjoyed a good performance. But that wasn’t what drove us. The leader of our sport calls it progression. But I always had problems with that term. It is hard for me to put it into words. No matter, we all felt it when it happened. When we landed something that we have been labouring on for weeks. When we did a long combination of tricks without screwing up. When we cheated gravity by staying in the air one fraction of a second longer. We knew it alright.
The Kikar was a place of pilgrimage. Like the great Olympia, distinguished athletes would come to the Kikar from all corners of the country in their search for skateable concrete. We would welcome them with open arms, with what we call skaters’ solidarity. Oh’ yes, another warning for young skaters: If you just bought a falafel and a skater is walking towards you with a big smile talking about skaters’ solidarity, but looking at your falafel, tell him you will leave him some at the end. Don’t fall for his trick. Spitting on the falafel doesn’t work: he will eat half of it anyway.
The Kikar was a house of pain. The spills that come to mind right now are Asi “ata ba la-rampa” Lubin’s half somersault from the launch ramp landing on his head. That was a good laugh (Asi don’t get me wrong, I love you man, but that was a fucking good crash). Ron’s triple or quadruple shiners. The time I landed on a little girl. Her poor dad must have shit his pants. There were numerous skateboards in the balls – that’s always a good laugh. The time I crashed on my shoulder. That was really too much. I think I repressed a lot here. Perhaps you could refresh my memory.
The Kikar was also a nuisance. Were you there when the old lady came down to beat us with her rod? She had some balls on her. We had a good laugh, but we should have been more sympathetic. I think we gave her a heart attack because I never saw her after that. The sad truth is that we were very noisy. We gave the neighbours of the Kikar a lot of grief, and we made the Kikar even uglier – a real eyesore. But we all know that these problems can be solved without banishing the skaters. A visionary town council would realize it, but even a normal one, full with the usual gang of dimwits, could be made to understand it.
We always knew that the Kikar was too good to be true. Several of us had nightmares where the Kikar was destroyed and made unskateable. Town councils came and went, but we were always there, if not in body then in spirit. Even today when I visit I always come to the Kikar. Even when I’m just driving through I check it out, looking out for skaters. I don’t care if I don’t skate it ever again. Today I look at the Kikar, perhaps like a gold-medallist would look at the arena where he stood at his moment of triumph. If that arena was now torn down, it will also tare a piece of his heart with it. The Kikar was my home, my family, my sacred space. It was where, for many years, I experienced my greatest heights and my deepest lows. I grew up there, met my friends there, and said my goodbyes there. I’m sure several of you would feel the same. So many of us were touched by the Kikar. So many skateboarding generations, for so many years. I would want this to continue. There are more kids who need the Kikar.
So should the Kikar be changed? To that I emphatically answer YES! It needs its sewage system cleaned so that it will actually work in winter, and it wouldn’t flood. It needs some holes filled, and some tiles re-laid. Some areas of sand and grass are clearly not functional for skating and should be changed. Although I do thinks that some grass to lounge on should be kept. It needs some shaded areas, and a water fountain. It needs cleaning more often because some neanderthals enjoy braking glass bottles on the floor. Generally, it needs more maintenance, like every good skate-park deserves. For all of these, I think skaters would agree not to skate between two and four in the afternoon and after, say, nine at night? Skateboarding is an established sport. There are numerous basketball and soccer fields in Ramat-Hasharon. But there is only one Kikar. I applaud you for fighting for it.
Best of luck
Ilan.
Dear Friends of the Kikar,
I am writing you from a far corner of the earth, several years after retirement, and with mixed emotions. Although I can still walk, I do suffer from a dislocating shoulder, two herniated disks, and a bad hip – chronic pain galore, and I’ve also been told that there is something wrong with my brain. I blame skateboarding for all of these. Yes, let us remember the Kikar’s medical costs. Who can forget those wonderful trips to the hospital? Hi everyone, I’m Ilan, and I’m a skateboarding addict. I didn’t have to suck dicks in order to skate, but not being able to walk more than two kilometres without pain is a big cost to pay. It is because of this that a part of me hates skateboarding, and the Kikar, which for me mean the same thing.
However, as with any recovering addict, I still miss the high. Going through what you fuckers wrote brought back a lot of good memories. The Kikar was my home after all – I too had the privilege of guarding its hallowed grounds. In those few years when my generation reined, I doubt anyone could have loved such an ugly piece of architecture more than we did. You and I were there for hours every day. When we had to go home to sleep, we would dream about skating there. When winters came and the Kikar was flooded, we skated on the higher ground, and between the puddles. We always guarded it. Its true, you could skate there alone. But even when there was nobody there, we had our guards. We could trust Arad to keep an eye from his watch-tower (also known as Mom’s kitchen, yum I can almost taste the pasta). Or else Ron would watch from Steven’s while munching on a couple of family-sized pizzas. The Kikar was the center of our lives – it had power and it changed us. For us the Kikar was sacred, it was our Axis Mundi, the literal center of our world, where heaven and earth meet. When the years passed, and time came to nurture a new generation to take the reins of power, we were happy, and we carried out our duties with love.
It would be impossible for me to recount all the special memories I have from the Kikar that survived my years of smoking. I would like to mention just a few. Where to begin is easy: RON. Ron was dipped in the waters of the Kikar just after birth. As he grew up he was fed on a diet which consisted of the sand, grass, and broken glass of the Kikar. Ron was never far away from the Kikar, and preferred to sleep there whenever possible on a nest he built on one of the trees. When all of us had to skate uphill to reach the Kikar, struggling against gravity and dangerous pedestrians, Ron’s skateboard would carry him there effortlessly, as if he was sitting on an invisible ski-lift. Ron scraped his flesh on every inch of the Kikar. His blood still sits there now. Ron was a true innovator in those days. He showed us that it was possible to skate without a tale. Or without four wheels: you could skate with three, or two, or even just one wheel. You could even skate with broken trucks, or a broken board. You could even skate with half a board, or even barefoot, without wheels or trucks, on a broken board! All this was second nature to Ron – a true skater if ever there was one. These lessons taught us that a skateboard was not necessary. Skateboarding is in the heart, in the mind, and in the blood. This lesson serves us well in retirement.
The Kikar was also an open but very distinguished club – a club of friends. To be a member there was only one requirement: you needed a skateboard. Even if you were a little piece of Lego playing shit, if you had a skateboard, we would accept you as our own and mould you in our image. I recollect several instances where a kid would arrive to the Kikar with his Mommy, his pants up to his neck, thick glasses, and snot running down from his nose. But – and this is a big but – he had a skateboard! Quickly we would bring him in and instruct him on Ollies and proper decorum. This nerd, who had a horrible life in front of him, was now given self-respect and confidence. He was cool, with a positive outlook on life, and a great bunch of friends. The Kikar saved him. I know this to be true: I too was one such nerd. There were others who will recognize themselves in my words. For us the Kikar meant family.
The Kikar gathered around it a very creative group. The Kikar was a creative outlet, which nurtured our creativity, and channelled it into positive directions, until we were free to unleash it on the wider world. We realized over the years that every one of us was creative, talented, and different. Many of us were good with drawing, painting and the like. Being able to practice our skateboarding art, sometimes in solitude, for hours a day, perfecting our skills and always attempting to break new ground, attempting to land the impossible; and being a part of a subversive subculture, all this kept our minds open, ready, and willing to be different, to create, to be who we are today. I doubt that our creativity would have been nurtured if we played soccer instead. Think about it, without the Kikar we would have all been frustrated wife-beating accountants.
The Kikar was a place of enormous joy. It was very hard not to smile in the Kikar. I think smiling was the normal facial expression there, even though, as we all know too well, it saw more than its fair share of contorted faces screaming in agony. When we were not skating we were having a laugh, or planning some ingenious ploy to have a laugh. I remember doing 101¼ rounds of non-stop driving around the Kikar with Arad just because Rafi did 80. Do you remember the Anti-Ars Association’s midnight raids? Blowing up the sprinklers with the firecrackers? Nothing was off limits. We were a depraved lot – living la dolce vita without a care in the world. You had no trouble when you were in the Kikar. The outside world with all its worries was erased. We achieved Zen in our wheelies – pure being. And when we rested, camaraderie kept us high. Skateboarding is not a zero-sum-game. There is no opposing team to win: no one to outdo. We were truly in it together.
The Kikar was a circus, and we were its performers. We often drew the attention of onlookers. Sometimes one or two, sometimes a cheering crowd of dozens – cheering us to further risk our life and limb. Young skaters beware: Injuries usually occur when there is a good looking Bettie watching! Do you remember the old man who couldn’t believe that the skateboard is not attached to our feet? We had to slowly explain to him the physics of the ollie, with several demonstrations, for him to believe us. And I’m sure you will all remember those annoying “show us a trick” kids. We all enjoyed a good performance. But that wasn’t what drove us. The leader of our sport calls it progression. But I always had problems with that term. It is hard for me to put it into words. No matter, we all felt it when it happened. When we landed something that we have been labouring on for weeks. When we did a long combination of tricks without screwing up. When we cheated gravity by staying in the air one fraction of a second longer. We knew it alright.
The Kikar was a place of pilgrimage. Like the great Olympia, distinguished athletes would come to the Kikar from all corners of the country in their search for skateable concrete. We would welcome them with open arms, with what we call skaters’ solidarity. Oh’ yes, another warning for young skaters: If you just bought a falafel and a skater is walking towards you with a big smile talking about skaters’ solidarity, but looking at your falafel, tell him you will leave him some at the end. Don’t fall for his trick. Spitting on the falafel doesn’t work: he will eat half of it anyway.
The Kikar was a house of pain. The spills that come to mind right now are Asi “ata ba la-rampa” Lubin’s half somersault from the launch ramp landing on his head. That was a good laugh (Asi don’t get me wrong, I love you man, but that was a fucking good crash). Ron’s triple or quadruple shiners. The time I landed on a little girl. Her poor dad must have shit his pants. There were numerous skateboards in the balls – that’s always a good laugh. The time I crashed on my shoulder. That was really too much. I think I repressed a lot here. Perhaps you could refresh my memory.
The Kikar was also a nuisance. Were you there when the old lady came down to beat us with her rod? She had some balls on her. We had a good laugh, but we should have been more sympathetic. I think we gave her a heart attack because I never saw her after that. The sad truth is that we were very noisy. We gave the neighbours of the Kikar a lot of grief, and we made the Kikar even uglier – a real eyesore. But we all know that these problems can be solved without banishing the skaters. A visionary town council would realize it, but even a normal one, full with the usual gang of dimwits, could be made to understand it.
We always knew that the Kikar was too good to be true. Several of us had nightmares where the Kikar was destroyed and made unskateable. Town councils came and went, but we were always there, if not in body then in spirit. Even today when I visit I always come to the Kikar. Even when I’m just driving through I check it out, looking out for skaters. I don’t care if I don’t skate it ever again. Today I look at the Kikar, perhaps like a gold-medallist would look at the arena where he stood at his moment of triumph. If that arena was now torn down, it will also tare a piece of his heart with it. The Kikar was my home, my family, my sacred space. It was where, for many years, I experienced my greatest heights and my deepest lows. I grew up there, met my friends there, and said my goodbyes there. I’m sure several of you would feel the same. So many of us were touched by the Kikar. So many skateboarding generations, for so many years. I would want this to continue. There are more kids who need the Kikar.
So should the Kikar be changed? To that I emphatically answer YES! It needs its sewage system cleaned so that it will actually work in winter, and it wouldn’t flood. It needs some holes filled, and some tiles re-laid. Some areas of sand and grass are clearly not functional for skating and should be changed. Although I do thinks that some grass to lounge on should be kept. It needs some shaded areas, and a water fountain. It needs cleaning more often because some neanderthals enjoy braking glass bottles on the floor. Generally, it needs more maintenance, like every good skate-park deserves. For all of these, I think skaters would agree not to skate between two and four in the afternoon and after, say, nine at night? Skateboarding is an established sport. There are numerous basketball and soccer fields in Ramat-Hasharon. But there is only one Kikar. I applaud you for fighting for it.
Best of luck
Ilan.
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