THE HEART BEHIND HAVØK
When I was twelve years old, a close friend of mine introduced me to two things that would forever change my life; a little known song titled “The Boy Who Destroyed the World” by A Fire Inside, and skateboarding. Some older skaters might remember the titular song from the soundtrack of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4. Both discoveries immediately took my heart by storm. AFI would go on to be my favorite band for the next two decades and counting. Skateboarding, however, was a different matter.
For three years after setting eyes on my first skateboard, I ate, drank, slept, and bled the sport. I didn’t pursue the passion alone either. A half dozen friends joined me in a near daily ritual of ripping and shredding. I would years later dub this group of friends “The Clay Street Gang" due to us frequenting a single block in front of my house. But like most good things in life, that era would quickly come to an end.
Friendship and community was so finely woven into my relationship with skateboarding, that when all my friends dropped the sport as we headed into high school, I sorrowfully followed suit. Although I very much desired to continue skateboarding, I was unable to envision myself doing so alone. The ambition of becoming a pro skater fell moot as I skated on an empty street. So I followed my friends in pursuit of other passions.
A long, hard reset
As I grew through high school, the expectation to choose a life path and profession that was more “palatable” grew with me. I eventually settled on marketing and graphic design as my profession of choice as I headed into college. I found mild success in marketing for over a decade, but I felt like something was missing from time to time. I didn’t do it because I loved it. I just did it because I was good at it.
Fifteen years after putting skateboarding behind me, I would still drive by local buildings and parks and see them as skate spots in my brain. I still missed the passion and dedication that skating fueled inside me. And enough time had gone by for me to see skating alone as acceptable, if not preferable at times. So I bought a new board and started skating again, now as a thirty plus year old man with kids.
I could now enjoy skateboarding in its purest form, free of the expectation of making it the path for me, becoming successful through it, or needing an entourage alongside it. Sure, all those things are excellent additions, but if skateboarding itself brings me joy, shouldn’t that be enough to warrant commitment? This sentiment can be said for most things in life, but how quickly do we forget it though and add qualifiers to our pursuits.
filling a need
Growing in Northwest Indiana, skate parks were hard to find and local skate shops were near non-existent. That unfortunately didn’t change in my fifteen year absence from the sport. Thankfully, Valparaiso’s Parks and Recreation Department saw the need for a place for skaters to pursue their passion and began work on a new skate park and planted it right in the middle of the city.
Nearly two years after skating again, I found myself laid off from my current marketing job the same week Flounder and Friends Skate Park opened. I had a choice. I could quickly look for another marketing or graphic design job, or I could make a hard reset. I chose the latter. I chose what I love over what made sense and met expectations. I made the choice I should have made seventeen years ago.
HAVØK Skate Haven is aptly named after Davey Havok, the front man of AFI. The name pays homage to when I was twelve years old, bright-eyed and pursuing what I loved. The tagline for HAVØK, “throw caution to the wind,” is not a call to disregard safety, but a call to put worries and doubts aside and pursue what you love. Whether it’s skateboarding or something different entirely, do what you love, regardless.
