Longtime Seattle rider, Fish Johnson, in 2011.
Since I'm a homeless guy, the stereotype is that I just sit around all day, drinking beer, smoking meth, asking strangers for money, and not taking showers. The reality is only the panhandling and not taking showers parts are true. I don't drink any alcohol, at all, and I don't do any drugs, legal or illegal. I don't even smoke weed when it's offered for free. I'm naturally weird enough, no drugs needed. And I don't just sit around all day. I'm actually busy doing something, reasonably creative, most of each day. I'm writing offline, blogging online, researching something for my writing, or reading. I just don't make enough money at those activities to pay rent in today's world. I should have written this post last Wednesday, but I got sidetracked with the other things I've been working on. Sorry for the delay.
On occasion, I make it down to H.B. Tuesday, where Martin Aparijo, Sean Ewing, and the crew of old schoolers ride flatland in a beach parking, every Tuesday afternoon. Last week I made it down to H.B., and hung out for the afternoon. Honestly, going down there is the highlight of my month. While Fate has pushed me away from the BMX world for a really long time, I'm still a huge fan of doing tricks on "little kid's bikes" (as people called them back in the 1980's). Yes, I got fat and haven't ridden in many years, but I still love BMX freestyle, and I'll always be a fan of riding, and action sports in general.
Last week I met a guy there named Fish, from up in the Seattle area. He was ripping it up with a bunch of rolling tricks, and backyards, frontyards, and sideyards. Watching Fish, I realized that I was an "apartment flatlander" back in the 80's. I had no front, back, or side yards in my trick bag. I had no yards at all. My scuffing repertoire was limited to Shingle shuffles and funky chickens on occasion. My main tricks were sliders, Switzerland squeakers, a bunch of tailwhip variations, back wheel peg spin variations (megaspins that weren't "mega"), high speed 180 bunnyhops to half Cabs, and a few other obscure tricks.
Fish was familiar with my blogging, and we got talking, while Martin and a few others were riding. It was great to just talk about Old School flatland riding for a while, with someone I'd heard of, but never actually met. We brought up David Morris, a Seattle area guy, really solid rider, who never got much coverage, but was the real Raleigh Factory Freestyle team, which I joined for a year in 1987. Fish had a cool story about meeting and riding David's team BITD. We also talked about the business, Seattle Bike Supply, Redline, and flatland over the many years since.
I told Fish how the whole rolling trick transition was when I clocked out of flatland, and he said that's when it really got fun for him. His style and skill set rocked in the forward rolling era, and he's still riding hard today. Anyhow, great to meet and talk a while, Fish. Glad we got to hang out a while and share some stories.
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