Stories indexed with the term ‘Tony Hawk’

Ann Arbor celebrated the opening of its new skatepark on Saturday, June 21.

The facility is located on the southeast corner of Maple and Ann Arbor-Dexter roads on Ann Arbor’s west side, in Veterans Memorial Park.

Festivities surrounding the late morning ceremonial ribbon cutting were started off by remarks from Trevor Staples, president of the Friends of the Ann Arbor Skatepark.

He reminded everyone that the park where the skating facility has been constructed is not just named Ann Arbor’s Veterans Memorial Park. The entire park, he noted, was a memorial to veterans who served our country, and he asked for a moment of silence to reflect on their sacrifice.

The ribbon cutting ceremony itself featured several speakers who recited the history of the more than seven-year effort that finally resulted in the skatepark’s construction.

The day’s events included skating competitions that culminated in some demonstration skates by pro skaters – including Tony Hawk and Andy MacDonald. Although the half pipe facility is no longer there, MacDonald learned to skate at Ann Arbor’s Veterans Memorial Park, at a facility that had been constructed on the opposite side of the park.

Below are some photos of MacDonald, Hawk and other skaters who celebrated the opening. [Full Story]

The grand opening of the new Ann Arbor skatepark – at the corner of Maple and Dexter-Ann Arbor roads in Veterans Memorial Park – is scheduled for June 21, 2014 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The organizers have announced that Tony Hawk will be there.

Other names from the world of skateboarding who’ll also attend are Andy Macdonald, Alex Sorgente and Garold Vallie.

But I want to focus on Tony Hawk.

I imagine when some Ann Arbor Chronicle readers hear the name “Hawk,” they will reflexively think of Buteo jamaicensis or perhaps of high-intensity activated cross-walk beacons. That’s because I imagine many of you are hopeless nerds of some stripe, who don’t know very much about American mainstream popular culture, and might even take pride in that kind of cultural gap. I could be wrong – about you, but I’m not wrong about me.

I remember first becoming aware of Tony Hawk’s name in the early 2000s when I worked in the frozen foods department at Busch’s on Main Street. (At that time a banner hung over the department that read: “It’s Fresh Because It’s Frozen.”)

Jeff, the frozen foods manager, explained to me that I should be ready to re-stock frozen waffles through the week because he expected them to be very popular. He’d ordered extra. Now, it might have actually been some other food, because I don’t remember it all that well, but let’s say for the sake of argument that it was waffles. Anyway, Jeff expected that week to be selling a whole bunch of fresh-because-they’re-frozen waffles because there was a Tony Hawk promotion on the packaging. Kids could get some sort of Tony Hawk prize by sending in proof of purchase for some number of waffles, the exact details of which I don’t remember.

I do remember asking: Who is this Tony Hawk? Jeff explained that Tony Hawk was kinda famous – adding that his own kid was pretty into Tony Hawk. To me, Tony Hawk was just a guy I blamed for making my fingers just a little bit colder. I then forgot about Tony Hawk for more than a decade. [Full Story]