I'm kind of sad writing this post. Since the whole of Utah county is under construction, BYU didn't want to skip a beat, and they're giving their campus a new face lift this year. They already took out that perfect 9 stair rail, knobbed a bunch of others, and, now, they've finished by taking out this epic double set rail, and all the other rails in the stair case. They just ripped them out. They're building a fancy new science building or something and just ripped out everything on this hill. And thus is the final score with Bolts of Thunder and this rail. Dave is the only person I know that ever tried to grind the rail. Maybe someone else has tried, but to my knowledge, Dave is the only one. So this spot will forever go down in Bolts of Thunder folk lore as crazy, and Dave will go down in legend for being the only one that tried it.

Man, this reminds me of this time we were looking at the rail. Dave was rolling up to it to see if he wanted to try it. He didn't put his board on the rail, he didn't do anything except ride up to the rail. Some BYU student walking by got super offended that we'd be desecrating the sacred handrails of BYU campus, so he took it upon himself to do the civil thing to do and called us out on it, "I pay money to go to school here! You're ruining the campus I pay for!" Me, Nick, and Dave, who were all present, were at the time all BYU students as well. I don't my pocket book hurt when I ride up to a handrail on campus. Or even when I grind a rail on campus. It doesn't hurt. So we told the kid that we were students too. "Then why are you destroying the school?!" "We're not destroying the school, man. What have we destroyed?" To demonstrate that we weren't destroying anything, Dave rode his board on the sidewalk up to the rail and said, "See, the sidewalk's still there!" Seeing that this was going nowhere good, and it could likely end with the kid getting beat up on the steps of BYU, I told the kid to just get out of there. When he saw Matt standing in his bouncer arms folded stern face temple clenched stance, and when Matt told him to shut up and beat it, the kid cooperated. Nick finished him off with calling him a fag. A final, crushing blow to our fellow student who prizes himself on being heterosexual. Anyway, I wish I could track down that kid somewhere on campus, if he's not off to med school already, and show him the pile of rubble that was once his sacred set of stairs. I would explain to him that we rode our skateboards too much on the sidewalks, and this is what happened. Then I would ask him if he was happy about his tuition being wasted on skaters ripping up the very foundations of buildings, plants, and stair cases. I think he would probably be upset, and he might even shed a single tear. No more though, because he'd be too busy studying at med school and focusing on his own millions before he'd really care too much about the paint being scratched off of a hand rail or an entire city block of school getting uprooted.

Anyway, Dave, our hat goes off to you, and our deepest respect goes out to you. Shine on, you crazy diamond...