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.