I was biking around the neighborhood and I cut into an alley, leading me behind a church. Propped against the wall was a piece of plywood. A skate spot. I immediately thought of you. Of us. Skating on Overbrook until late into the the heavy summer nights. The neighbors probably hated us. There was the one summer before we turned 16 when we built a box out of a pallet, an L-shaped piece of metal, and a couple trips to Home Depot. We’d drag that thing out into the road and Danny would come skate with us, the only one that could land a tre (or a consistent kick flip for that manner). On rainy days we’d rip skate videos off limewire- like Baker 3, Get Gnarly, or Almost Round Three. You’d be so excited to show me someone’s part and I’d try to identify the songs by digging through credits or searching the lyrics. Some days we’d hang on the tramponline until our legs ached. There was the summer before when we went down to the Outerbanks and surfed knee high waves because that’s all there was. We goofed around in the pool, still giddy in our boyish innocence, not understanding what would come next. There was night we were skating in the parking lot of the 7/11 up the hill, and the owner chased us down the street, all the way home where we hid for hours. There was one night we watched Hills Have Eyes in your basement and you invited some girls over and one of your friends and one of the girls went to the other side of the basement. I sat uncomfortably on the futon, avoiding the scary movie and scanning your wall of Grateful Dead cassette tapes, hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Then you got caught smoking weed and I felt lthat our paths were splitting. Your mom sent you away to a wilderness rehab camp out west and even back then I knew that the weed wasn’t really the problem. We were adolescent, and both fatherless, trying to find our path into manhood, to selfhood. Boys of that age are so curious, so uniquely delicate, finding the line between our childhood and our adultness. What would take us into the next step? Was it ritual, guidance, drinking, weed, girls, achievement, responsibility? We skated less, shared less Wednesday dinners together. One night I was busy doing homework and you got jumped by 9 guys just down the street. Girlfriends, drivers permits, and Cs on report cards. I never knew how much those years shaped me until now. Looking back at the skate films we’d make, the songs we would share with each other. When life is changing so much, there are seeds that plant themselves in our lives, offering a rooted foundation to understand one’s self. In those few years, my love for filmmaking was birthed. The inventiveness spawned from a lack of resource. We had nearly nothing, which in ways meant we had it all. A digital camera, eventually a cheap MiniDV handicam with a fisheye. The sounds of the wheels on the pavement drowned out the voice in my head that made me question if I was good enough. Our teacher was the hill down Overbrook that eventually flattened out, returning you to a safe speed. The wobbles kicked in, but we trusted that gravity would bring us back to safety. But then, another hill, and a busy road, and more risk ahead. We haven’t spoken in nearly 15 years, but I think we were meant to meet, to form a brotherhood in those times. I hope you remember those trying times, slipping our childhoods, one hill at a time.