alternative hippopotamus

Over the years I’ve noticed that I’m a leading indicator of various trends. Biking to work, for example. I started biking to my job in Lexington, Mass in 1987. In those days that meant a ten mile trek along Mass Ave in traffic roughly that of Wisconsin Ave, DC, in rush hour. My legs cramp up just thinking about it.

Within a few years, bike trails had sprung up all over Boston, and biking to work became de rigeur. A friend of mine, another leading indicator, began skating to work, just before rollerblading mania took hold. It got to be such a huge part of life in Boston that they shut down Memorial Drive on Sundays to give all the rollerbladers a place to do their thing and socialize.

I’ve also been part of some bleeding edge trends that I always knew were too good to ever catch on as mainstream. I remember the first time I saw an Apple Newton, for instance. These days we take mobile computing for granted. There was a time, long, long ago, when there were no laptops. I was traveling to Belgium every couple of months, and that meant that I had to get email on a DOS machine using a French keyboard. Awkward! The Newton meant that I could plug a handheld device into a phone jack, get my email, and even dial into a BBS service for the latest news and gossip.

(historical note: a long, long time ago, before Al Gore invented the internet, the closest thing was a BBS. Leading indicators, such as myself, would dial into a central Vax 11/780 on their VT 100 terminals. Alternatively, you could use your Commodore 64 and lightning fast 2400 baud modem and dial into Compuserve.)

These days I see the kids (a kid being anyone ten years younger than myself) surfing the web using their touch screen iPod. It’s times like these I remind myself that suffering is good for the soul.

But back to the Newton. This was way before its time, and it surprised me not at all when Apple discontinued it. I knew that the world would have to wait years until there was a handheld device that did anything useful.

I think I may be a leading indicator on skateboarding. But there’s a point or two of clarification that I need to make. There’s a very talented pool of athletes who have come up with amazing feats on a skateboard. I’ve seen kids on the street who can do things that are the equal of the best Olympic gymnastic events. As an example, there’s something called a grind trick. The skater ollies (leaps using the leverage of the board) onto a rail, and then grinds (slides on the trucks of the board) recovering with a manual (landing on the front or back wheels). The Metro has a regular guard at the Metro Center stop just to keep skateboarders from doing this trick. Sadly, I saw one skateboarder put into plastic handcuffs for doing just this.

Now, here’s the point of clarification: I’m not a talented athlete. Chance that I’m ever going to do a grind trick: nada. I skateboard the same way I do cross-country skiing: with extreme caution. I’m a tortoise, not a hare. I skateboard for the aerobic exercise, to take in the sights, and if I get a nice downhill run, that’s part of the fun. I’ve got to the point where I can confidently stop when I’m going too fast, and can go a fair distance without getting tired. That I will never ollie doesn’t bother me.

This afternoon I skated the Friendship Heights area, just on the border between DC and Maryland. The east side of Wisconsin Avenue, between Chevy Chase plaza and Saks has this fantastic neauveau brick cobblestone surface that makes every move you do a deft glide. As you glissando past Clyde’s restaurant and into Bethesda, watching the admiring gazes of shop owners as you swoop past their doors, it’s impossible not to think to yourself: “this is not too shabby.”