Dropping In columnist David Jasper does an ollie as the sun sets at a skate spot in Bend.

I hate the saying “change is the only constant” partly because it’s constantly being proven correct, and partly because I’m not a huge fan of change.

Regardless of how I might feel, impermanence is a fact of life, one that’s baked right into my favorite thing, skateboarding.

Equipment wears out fast, and tricks come and go. There’s a kind of grind — that’s where the board’s trucks grind the coping, if you don’t already know — that I had on lock for three decades until I tore my right rotator cuff trying to bail out of one five years ago. I couldn’t get away from my board, stepped on it (yes, that happens, more often than you’d think) and my right arm caught on the coping. My body, or rather my brain, tenses up when I attempt them now. Bye, smith grinds!

Much as the rotator cuff injury hurt, what’s worse is when friends stop skating. That’s been true since I was a kid. Life and interests change for everyone. Now, that I’m 57, my peers are seemingly leaving in droves, whether due to injuries or moves to other towns, other interests, or life circumstances. So long, and thanks for the fun memories.

What got me thinking about this is the way skate spots come and go, or more to the point, the way they go. That can even be true of skateparks. An indoor private park I helped build in a Miami warehouse in 1992 was finished on July 4 and demolished by Hurricane Andrew two months later. In Bend, the indoor skatepark The Truckstop was open from 2003 till 2014, a good run, but we’ve been without one for going on 11 years, so it wasn’t nearly long enough of a run. Fortunately, there are folks like those at The Board House that are trying to change that.

When I talk about losing spots, I’m talking about the other kinds of skate spots that also play a role in a vibrant skate community: backyard ramps, DIY bowls and street-skating spots. When I helped my friend Jeff build a ramp in southwest Bend in 2015 and expanded in 2016, it was the spot for our crew for a few years. It had lights! He put speakers and a stereo into it, and we could blast music as loud as we want. Then he moved to La Pine in 2018, the beginning of the end for that ramp. We rebuilt it, but it was a 30-minute drive from Bend, and few wanted to make the trek when there are closer spots. In 2020, Jeff donated the ramp to the city. It sits near the La Pine Library. When I saw it last summer, the ramp was taped off in need of serious repairs.

Right now, I’m grieving the loss of a spot that I frequented a lot the last few years. It’s only a mile from my house, a curb-skating spot where my friends and I would meet up on weekends or after work to practice tricks on curbs. Curb skating is simple and pure and raw, like coping without the need for a bowl or ramp. And this spot was reliable, even in winter, when the sun would heat up the concrete and pavement and melt off snow and ice. Sometimes the Tactics skate shop team would show up and put on a clinic.

It’s on a public street, but it borders a medical imaging facility that, at least at first, seemed friendly toward our occasional presence. Staff would exit the side entrance and sometimes watch and say hello. I distinctly remember one saying to me, “You know what we do here, right?”

You know, because they do X-rays, and we are skaters of a certain age.

I can’t tell you the number of fun times I had at the curb. It’s where I learned how to do slappies, which is where one rides directly up and on to the curb by slapping their board into it. Early one morning I was skating alone there and a trucker from California who was killing time nearby watched me skate for a while, then came over to shake my hand and say hello. Houseless folks would ask for a blanket or a few bucks. People driving by would gawk or give the shaka sign. One time a guy on a bike rode by and gave us the rest of a box of melting ice cream bars he’d just bought, wanting only one for himself.

Eventually, the imaging center’s employees park along the red curb where we would do boardslides. I don’t know if it was intended to get rid of us, but it worked either way. Now they allow parking on both sides of the street. I thought it was maybe the property owners who were repainting the red curbs gray — how often does that happen, a no-parking red curb converted to a gray one, where parking is allowed? — but it was the city of Bend. I saw a city truck there with painters one day when I drove by.

I can still occasionally skate a section or two of the curbs when there are fewer cars around, but it’s not the same as it was. The area is under construction with a new entry into the parking lot of a nearby business, which when completed will turn a formerly L-shaped corner into a T-shaped intersection — which strongly suggests more traffic to come and that it’s time to find a new curb-skating spot.

Over 40 years of skateboarding, I’ve seen more spots come to an end than I can even recall off the top of my head. I broke the first rule of skate spots by getting attached to this one. Now, friends and I talk about how our pal Thuan, whom we met skating there, moved away at the right time: He skated there every day when weather allowed, right up until he moved to Hawaii at the end of November, which is when the changes began to come about.

Column: Bet you miss your friends

Another dumb saying that’s too true is the one about how you shouldn’t cry because something’s over but be happy it happened at all, but we had it great for four years there. How do you avoid being sad when the good times are over?

The good news is that skaters are adaptable — even the ones who’d prefer good things last forever. We are already trading intel on other curb spots, and we’ll enjoy those for the time we can, too.

And some of us will just be sad when it’s over. That, you can count on.