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Friday 15 May 2015

City Skateboarders on Footpaths



I had a mini-battle today with a young skateboarder outside the Central Library in Auckland.  The husband had suggested going to Le Garde Manger (French restaurant at 466 Queen St on the hill) for a late lunch and we were on our way back walking quite properly on the footway outside the library.  The miscreant was about nine years old and urgently needed to upskill because he very nearly lost control of his board and was in danger of crashing into me at some speed.   When I remonstrated with him (quite forcefully it must be admitted)  he seemed to find it very amusing though that might have simply been bravado.  His older friends politely apologized on his behalf and so I stopped short of explaining that aggressive pensioners such as myself often have problems like osteoporosis and being hit in the lower legs by an out-of-control skateboard could lead to crippling and life-long injury.
However, just as I had decided to accept the apology and move on a furiously important looking male of middle years rushed up noisily telling me to `leave the little lad alone’.    Aha, I thought, using my intelligence, this must be the boy’s father.    Imagine my surprise to find that he was not related to him in any way but merely someone looking for causes to support and good deeds to do.   He advised me that I should have `got out of the little fella’s way and not walked into him’.   Well as you can probably imagine I disagreed with his point of view quite vehemently.      Still projecting his voice (he might have been an actor) he shared with me the fact that he had been hassled by people like me himself when he was a boy and it was no joke – something should be done about the elderly who can’t be stuffed to move off the footpath when they see a kid heading their way on a skateboard.   I’m afraid I was then really quite rude to him and to his credit he did not respond in kind but merely observed, still in tones reminiscent of Richard Burton on stage at the Old Vic and with an extravagant right hand flourish, `You see – people like you always resort to bad language’.   That was undeniably correct.
By this time the young reprobate had grown in stature and was swaggering a bit and as we moved on I was left wondering how we ever became a society where the elderly are reprimanded in public for not giving way to nine year old skateboarders on footpaths.     

2 comments:

  1. So that's where you were, when I thought you would be at the Writers' Festival with the rest of us!

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    1. Well I cannot be everywhere CT - was the festival worthwhile? We had a rather nice lunch at le Garde-manger in upper Queen Street preceding the skate board incident. YOU should have been there!!!

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