The Vernonia Incident
Use the map to follow the route
It all happened during the fall of my senior year of high school. Joe,
Barnes, Denny, and I were inline skating in down town Vernonia. It was
after a very strange Vernonia dance that was a city sponsored Halloween
event. All of the local inbreds decided to come dressed in logging
outfits and play twister. After about a hour of watching this from the
chairs on the sides of the room, we decided to jet. That was an
adventure in itself. They wanted to keep the CD's that I had brought to
enlighten the time warped village children. Metallica and Mega-Death
are not my idea of good dance music.
We went back to Dad's and strapped into our skates. We skated down to
the bridge. We were just skating around and doing a little grinding on
the curbs (sliding), when we were accosted by a group of filthy Vernonia
trash that appeared to be girls. We rolled down the bridge to hear what
they were mumbling (yellow line, eastbound). They were saying that we
were gay and that we sucked. They obviously had never been outside of
the canyon that the town resides. We just kind of took it in stride from
these girls and decided to go back to the bridge and keep skating. (yellow
line westbound) On the way to the bridge, one of us muttered the words
"white trash."
This comment sparked some resentment from the ally dwellers. They went
and got their boy friends. At this time we had resumed skating. The group
of villagers crept out from the shadows of the vacant buildings and began
to walk towards us. Just as an intelligence background, there is graffiti
on a building that reads "Whighte Power!" Believe me, that was not
deliberate. There were about eight of these gems of society. They were
walking quite slowly in our direction.
As a precaution, our group started to roll towards the other side of the
bridge (red line westbound). Keep in mind that the roads of Vernonia, at
their best, are horrible. There are all sorts of holes in the street, loose
gravel, and cracks galore. All of these characteristics are enemies of the
little wheels that we happened to be rolling on, especially due to the
grind enhancing anti-rocker setup.
The stalkers began to walk faster, we skated faster. They started to run,
we started to haul. Well, all but Barnes. He had a pride issue that he wanted
them to work out. When they were about ten feet from him, Barnes started to
haul. Denny did encounter some problems with the road. Numerous times he
appeared to be headed for a fall. Luckily he did not experience one, this
time.
They chased us all way to Dad's house, a distance of greater than a quarter-mile
away. We darted into the confines of the house and locked the door. They did
not proceed any further. Later that night, they drove by with their "car,"
going about one mile an hour. They stared in the windows, trying to see if we
were there. Luckily that is all that happened.
Back.