Eh, I don't know what exactly did it down at that park that night.
As soon as we parked and got out, we were met with shady reception.
This has never happened to Kenny, or me before. Which is something the
security guard said he "highly doubts."
It was weird how we were never given specific rules at first, but were
called out so early on by the man. He told us not to "linger," which
could mean any number of things--and didn't make much sense, considering
a kids baseball game was going on at one end of the park, and a city
band rehearsal at the other end.
I'm 19, and I was with the two ten-year-olds--and Kenny's twin was on a
skateboard.
I asked if it was okay if we road around the park, and that we just
wouldn't stay in one particular area too long. He said okay.
As time went on, when we did get kicked out, the reason wasn't clear. I
wasn't even approached, it was my ten-year-old companions. The two
guards acted cocky, and were pulling rules out of a magic hat somewhere.
Because all of a sudden, when I asked why, they said "skateboards
aren't allowed down here."
My town is a small town. Some police don't care, some do. Some
security guards care, some do. In that park, there is one guard in
particular who hates skateboarders flat out. There are some cops that
hand out $100 tickets, and some that tell skaters to move on. And in
accordance with the small town mentality, things do become biased. Some
of the city's comissioned security guards do, sadly to say this, have
power trips. People in this town brown nose each other one minute, and
talk behind others backs the next. Some are buddy-buddy and do favors
for each other. This is no joke. Never move to this town! It's goofy
and socio-political like this. Everyone knows each other. The people
with money, really run things around here, and it's funny to watch
others suck up to them, because if you have money in this town, you
control its operations.
Bah, anyway. They didn't even mention the unicycles. I was angry and
spoke in a polite, but straight forward manner with both of the guards
for automatically assuming we were going to be trouble makers.
The guard that spoke to us when we arrived at the park, was at a bench
staring and not only that but glaring at us hard, incessantly. The
other fellow was smiling. The one on the bench got the other fellow to
tell us to leave. He practically escorted us out, and the kids said
that while I was loading our equipment into the car, he was carefully
writing my license plate number down.
Over a week and a half ago, these gentlemen never spoke a word to us
three. Never! They just watched what we were doing the whole time with
that glaring blank expression.
I feel that we could have been approached more straight-forward, and
professionally from the get-go. It was as if we were targeted. I
understand about being a liability. That's fine. But they were never
upfront with rules. There are no signs in the park, either. It was
like they were purposefully and personally trying to get rid of us,
because they needed a little drama for their shift.
Evan
PS: Lesson learned: "I've had no trouble here in the mornings"
--"That's because no one's down here then"--Then I give the guard a
smile, thinking 'that's the only time I'm ever coming down here, again.
You won't see me.'
--
TrialsUni - Urban Trials Rider
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TrialsUni's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/7986
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/41261
