Aint That A Ditch — Rust Magazine

The Davis Ditch Contest…er, Jam

Words + Photos: Mike Blanchard

In the beginning, the “olden days”, before cell phones or the interweb, there were no curbs or rails or massive gaps or skateparks. There was no credibility or acceptance. There was none of that shit. We walked uphill both ways through the snow in the blazing heat to find the most meagre of banks or gentle inclines to practice our Bertlemann turns and 360s. We would hunt all day through the gullies on the outer limits of town seeking out the cement troughs where the runoff of California was funneled toward an angry ocean; the fabled ditches.

In the beginning, land owners and city officials had no idea they were supposed to snarl at us and tell us to get out and never come back. There were no savage recriminations, for a while, but later that changed. Oh there were a few stray proto Karens who would occasionally come and yell at us for for smoking or drinking beer or some such. We were after all just snotty kids. It was a time glazed over in a golden haze of memory.

Even now when there is so much legal concrete for a skater to roll around on those long gone days seem halcyon and epic like a Norse saga. We had to earn it the hard way. How punk is it to go skate with all the groms on their Razor scooters? In this era of pablum skateboarding in the Olympics and legal pot the whole thing just seems so neutered and weak sauce.

Katherine Folsom showed the boys how to grind. And then she split. Later suckers!

Out on the edge of the college town of Davis there is a ditch; where exactly? Go find it yourself bucko, earn it just like we did, I have already told you too much. Have you ever pushed yourself around on your skateboard for miles and miles all damn day without a sporty designer water bottle to keep your candy ass hydrated because your grandmother was tired of driving your sorry ass out to godforsaken places that no Christian woman would be caught dead? No? Eh, whatever kid.

As I was saying, there is a ditch, shallow with no vert, about the size of a very small swimming pool between two corn fields where a prick cyclist, dressed like he thinks he is in the Tour De France, rides by every Sunday screaming obscenities at the skaters because he is a small minded Karen who thinks he alone (or his ilk) has a right to the road. Again, I digress.

At this ditch, on Sundays, grown men with families and jobs gather and roll around, awkwardly for the most part, on their skateboards. They drink beer and smoke dope (not all of them it should be noted. Some hold positions of responsibility and it wouldn’t do for their handlers to get a wiff of impropriety. I will not name names.) and they skate. Cold, mild, heat, it doesn’t matter the weather as long as it aint raining. They have fun, relive their youth and revel in the now. Sometimes they get hurt badly, but it is all worth it. The light emphasizes the dark as they teach in art school. This has been going on for a while under the belly of polite society.

Eventually these skaters got to thinking; hey let’s have a contest, or maybe a jam. Ditch jam is tasty. And thus it was made so. At the Ditch, where skateboarding was hatched and nurtured, there would be a jam. At the heart of this plot, rightfully, were the N-Men. What are the N-Men you ask? Watch N-Men The Untold Story on Amazon Prime and learn. I don’t have time to go into it at the moment. Suffice it to say the Men of N made it so. The BBQ was erected; Easy Ups, coolers and a boom box brought forth, Judges were appointed and made to stay in one place and actually watch the enfolding fiasco; and lo the skaters gathered in their multitudes, and the passing cyclist anointed it with his anger and vitriol.

It should be noted that wives, for the most part, avoid these things for the childish courtship rituals they are. A husband who is a skateboarder is, after all, like having a beer swilling, cigarette smoking junior high aged kid who drives a big Chevy truck and disappears for eight hours every day; or a retarded pet who likes punk rock music. Too many trips to the hospital have dulled their enthusiasm.

El Vaquero jumped right in chasing his shadow.

There had been a slalom race (another ancient form of skateboarding from the before times now resurgent) the day before so there were lots of skaters ready to go. Some were happy just to grind. Some did fancy tricks. Some ate shit. Some there were whose runs were comedy acts. It was unsanctioned and possibly illegal, which makes everything better, as any teenage punk will tell you. There were no hand rails to grind or board slide. There was a ditch, some sketchy wood banks, a refrigerator and some parking blocks; get to it pal.

All gave some, some gave all and one person passed out from the heat, but she was ok. People came from as far away as Brazil and San Diego and gloried in the competition. Despite the amazing efforts of Collin Kruse from S.D., Luke The Impaler won the whole shootin match and well deserved for the lad from Davis. He might have received a prize, or maybe a cheap-shot to the nuts. I’m not sure if it even matters who won. If I’m being sappy, everyone was a winner at the Ditch Jam. Not the BS participation award style winner but actual winners. No one was hauled to the hospital and shoved savagely out the car door to fend for themselves among the red tape and tweekers crowding the emergency room. Although, the blood tax was paid by more than one reprobate.

I took photos of the wing ding which I sent to a famous skate magazine in hopes of arousing interest. But said magazine saw no gap jumping or hand rail sliding or 980s or Olympians and brutally dismissed the effort out of hand. So much the worse for the gutless swine of the mainstream media. And so much the better for you dear reader of Rust. Cast your eye on these photos and think of a hot fall day, in the valley, where a bunch of, mostly, grown men, and a few women. relived a youth long since passed.