Leeside

Soon after my son turned eight (he's now fourteen), he began skateboarding. His first board was a cheap piece of crap from a discount department store, but he soon knew how to strip down a board and rebuild it. He moved up to bigger and better hardware, started doing his own spraypaint artwork on his deck, and experimenting with longboards.

And then he started visiting Leeside with his skating buddies.

Leeside is a few blocks from our home, a massive tunnel under Hastings Street. It has tons of handbuilt ramps made from scavanged plywood, and the topology changes often as various skaters get the whim to try something new. The walls of the tunnel are filled with gorgeous spraypainted murals, and the whole place reeks with the anarchic atmosphere of the Vancouver skater community. Rebellious, hand-built, and wonderful.

Years ago, this tunnel was filled with garbage, but it was cleared out and transformed largely through the efforts of a local kid who attended the same high school that my son currently attends. This kid was Lee Matasi, skateboarder and graffitti artist. In his honour, the tunnel skate park has been known as "Leeside" ever since, and has been an important part of my son's recreational life.

Lee Matasi went on to graduate from high school, and then went to art school in Ottawa to further develop his talent. He recently graduated from there, having won the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts award, and returned back to Vancouver.

On the weekend, he was shot and killed in a pointless altercation outide a night club in downtown Vancouver by a gangster wannabe with an illegal handgun. My daughter, who used to know him, phoned me at 6 in the morning to tell me the news. She was shocked and saddened.

A memorial is being held today by his teachers, friends, and skateboarders in the Leeside tunnel at 3:30 PM. My son is attending with his skateboarder buddies, even though they never met Lee. They didn't have to, they've skated in his park for almost half their lives.

{UPDATE} Well, the boy was sad and muted when I got home. The Leeside memorial was large, and he was touched by the sadness of it all. Several of his teachers spoke, in addition to his family and friends. A huge mural of Lee is now in the Leeside tunnel, and his mother describes his life as "an unfinished painting." Beautiful, and sad. I'm so glad the boy attended this, it's only proper that he participate in the sending off of a true son of East Van.

Like the boy said, "Anyone who ever skated at Leeside owes him." And from the words spoken at the memorial, he knows that bad things can happen to even the best that we can produce.

Fucking handguns.