Texas Two Step

Reminiscing over pictures of some of the pools I skated in Texas, it amazes me that I ever got to ride any of them. For some reason people out there let me in on a ton of rad pools, really for no other reason than to be cool. I'd often get an email or a phone call that went something like this: "Hey man, I'm headed through [my town] and there's some pool 300 miles northeast of there these dudes told me about. I'll pick you up and we'll go hit it, dude." "Uh, ok, sure." Many times I met people I hardly knew out in the middle of nowhere on blind faith and got rewarded with the chance to ride a killer pool.

One such pool was the "Outlaw," so named because, when I cruised through doing the very backside carve pictured at left, some total hayseed methhead watching over the fence exclaimed, "Aaaah! You're an outlaw!" I had met some dudes from Dallas out there after a four hour drive and the thing turned up empty and ready to go. $20 bucks and a Bud Lite or two got us into a help yourself session that turned out to be rad as fuck, as attested to by the lack of photos. We hit up a number of pool missions where we'd  get some lead from people we didn't even know and just say "fuck it" and drive for hours. When we got a pool to ride, it was sick. Interestingly, the same dude who originally clued me in on the "Broken Back" (see earlier post) was the same guy who tipped us on the "Outlaw." Two for two wasn't bad, but this dude became the crown prince of pooldom when he came up with the gem of gems a couple of years later (2005?), the "Hole in One."

The Hole was fucking unbelievable. Everyone who rode it will tell you that it was seriously better than a lot of skate park bowls and, while it may not be everyone's all time favorite, no one I know claims to have ridden a better pool.

I got told about this one, as usual, as it was about to get dozed. Riding it, I found it hard to trust at first because the finish and the trannies were so ridiculously perfect it was hard to believe. I eventually got to ride it twice, leaving both times in utter disbelief... "That thing wasn't built to skate?" Seriously, it was that good. And of course years later you look back at the lone picture (which I had to steal off some web site!) you have of the thing and ask yourself, "Why don't I ever take any good pictures?" But I guess that's the point. No one's gonna stop in the middle of a good Texas two step and take a picture. You're either in or out; skating or spectating. And, considering the circumstances, I'm just stoked I had the chance to get in on these two dances. They don't build bath tubs in Texas, that's for sure.