During high school, we had a jock kinda kook friend as part of our small little group of stoner goons. Almost all of us skated so I guess he wanted to try his hand at it too. He picked up the very very basics pretty quickly. Little rocket ollies and shuvs and all that. He always looked very unstable with 0 board control but he'd just give everything his all and went as fast as he could. I remember we bombed this hill together once and he made it 98% of the way down and then ate shit so hard on the flat hitting a pinecone or rock. He was rocking a Discman and a backpack with a gallon of lime green Koolaid inside, all of which was scattered around the hot asphalt when he slammed. Every trick he tried looked like was narrowly escaping death. Very unnerving to watch indeed. Someone stole the football tackling sled from the field beside the skatepark and tipped it on its side and put it at the end of our long ledge/manny pad thing as an off rail. It didn't matter to him that he'd never done a 5050 on a curb/ledge/flatbar or anything but he'd just haul ass and somehow get on some ballerina-looking toeside bs 5050. He didn't land it, or a lot of his tricks but he'd still fully commit to everything. Ultimately, I think he was very lucky in the head to never hit his head, but he did break his femur skateboarding. He also survived testicular cancer and his parents won the lottery, so I think luck was definitely on his side in the end. That's what send it steve reminded me of.