Despite their unkempt hair and slouchy black clothes, the boys came across as polite and knowledgeable. They also came across as naïve as they are approximately the 762nd group of people to ask Madisonville to build a skate park in the past 10 years.

As was always done in the past, the mayor and aldermen gave them some hope. Told them they would look into it, get some cost estimates, check with other towns, all that good stuff.
I can still see the groups that have come before them, all bright eyed and ready to go, visions of curved concrete dancing in their minds.

There was one guy, a few years ago, who wanted to not only put a skate park in Houston Park, but also wanted to put a waterslide in! He just up and disappeared one day. No one seems to know whatever became of him.

There are various problems with putting in a skate park, including finding the money for it (the town is already $40,000 in the hole for this fiscal year, according to Alderman Glenn Moser), a place for it (both city parks are crammed to the gills with playground equipment and ball fields) and the ever looming presence of liability insurance (can't have the town getting sued when some skater doesn't quite pull off that complicated half pipe move.  . . OK, I have no idea what any skateboard moves are).

One of the concerns in past years has been the town would put together the park and the kids would lose interest (move onto another fad) and the place would become a forgotten money pit.
Well, if they're still seeking out a skate park nearly 10 years later, that worry seems to be one the town can put away.

Are skateboarders a problem in Madisonville? To a certain extent, sure. If nothing else, they either skate on private property, irritating business owners, or they skate on public streets and sidewalks, irritating everybody else.

I've had very few encounters with skateboarders, but I'm usually long gone from the public streets and sidewalks by the time they get out of school and hit the road. But the couple of times I have ran across them, they've scooted out of the way or picked up their boards and walked until I was out range.

Only once can I recall one of them suddenly whizzing past me, but he was probably just trying to impress some buddy who was off in a corner somewhere, laughing at the old man who suddenly jumped 10 feet high.

The police have to occasionally confiscate a skateboard or two, but as I was told recently, it's been a few days since they brought one in. Either the skaters finally learned their lesson or parents got tired of driving them down to the police station. I can hear some mom or dad saying, "Do you know how embarrassing this is?"

I can hear some people saying now that if kids had something to do in Madisonville, maybe they wouldn't be bothering people by skating in town. I suppose. But if the kids don't want to take advantage of two parks, both with playground equipment and ball fields, and they get tired of sitting in the Wal-Mart parking lot and unnerving shoppers, then I suppose they really don't have anything to do.

They could stay at home (perish the thought!) and play those $300 video game systems they just had to have or goof around on that computer they had to have in their bedroom or they'd just die (and nobody else better touch it!).

Some goofball in that syndicated Wall Street Journal thing the Knoxville daily runs every Sunday recently stated he didn't want his sons to be "distracted," so he won't allow video games in the house and decided not to replace the TV after the old one tore up.

Well, I can pretty much guarantee those boys won't be distracted. They might die of boredom as they stare at the walls, but they won't be distracted while they're doing it.

Of course, the old "the kids don't have anything to do" argument is as old as the hills. Kids didn't have anything to do when I was a kid, the kids before me didn't have anything to do and now, well, all's the same as it ever was.

I suppose Madisonville could keep the kids busy by telling them to keep working on that skate park thing. Who knows? Maybe someday, when the town isn't already $40,000 down three months into the fiscal year, they'll start to pour concrete.
And I have some ocean front property I'm trying to sell in Tellico.

michael.thomason@advocateanddemocrat.com | 442-4575