Well, here we are, mid-march and I am well into my winter hibernation. Going out only to eat, drink, and stretch my muscles once and awhile at the skatepark. This is my very first column for hardflip, so most of you don't have a clue who I am (others know all to well). I am what you call a BADGER (baj 'er)n. 1. A small burrowing, nocturnal, carnivorous mammal, with a broad body, short legs, and long-clawed toes.- V.T. to worry or persecute persistently. I am a skateboarder and have been for a 11 years. First started with a bunch of older vert guys from my area (Scissors, Bob Bogama, Will Styles). They took me around, showed me the ropes, but I never really got into the transition. Then the park died out ( R.I.P Skate Oaisis); Skateboarding was in decline and we were left to fend for are self.

The summers were no problem, the city is dope, but the winters were horrid. Any nook and cranny we could find we would skate ( Koffman Union, Rosedale Commons, the parking garage downtown at fifteen degrees). There were a few glimmers of hope throughout the years, Pat's skateshop/skatepark (Idea sound familiar?) was located deep in the warehouse district of St. Paul. I look back at it now and there really wasn't that much to skate. There was a mellow hip, a quarter pipe with no platform, a box that was 2'' tall, and a steep as fuck flat bank. Though it had it's moments; 4 in the morning sessions, air hockey, stunguns, Star Wars, paintball. Soon it moved to Minneapolis, cut the skatepark idea out of the picture and then eventually died out. Only to be resurrected in April of 95 by two devoted heads of the skate scene of the time, Dave Flanigen and Todd Brown.

Badger's Den 6 out of 8 gets a hardflip t-shirt, all right gets a hardflip hoodie. (Click pictures to enlarge)

One of my favorite skate cartoons. Here we have a rare color frontside ollie in a ditch. Name the cartoon and name of the character.

Cartoon? Character?

A fat stalefish from a Mpls native. Who is this skating at the Oasis and for what company is this an ad for?

Who is it? Company?

Now: a super dope team manager for a super dope shoe company... Then: He was doing super shitty flatland tricks with super shitty style. Who is it and what is he doing?

Who is it? What's he doing?

The most outspoken of the Mpls vert head. Known to have outrageous fits of anger. Who is he and what trick is he doing?

Who is it? What's he doing?

The shop was located in the old Salvation Army building( Getto as fuck!). I remember that some bum literally lived in the shop for over a week! Shit started to go really bad when Corporate Skate America (a.k.a. all the other skateshopes in the area) came down with the iron fist and tried to blackballed Todd's shop from ever getting any product. By calling the distributors and telling them that they will pull there orders if they continued to sell to Todd's. This was a threat because Todd's was an up start business and could not order nearly as much product as the established stores. We put up are fight as long as we could, but it just proved to be overwhelming. So who cares, we still had are boards and are crew (Turkey, Dolo, Action Jackson, Marty, Carps, Chips, B-show, Cards, crazy Alister, A-plus, Wayne, 1-6, Zed, getto Fred, Nesser, Jr., blind Mole, Jesse, pooh, Mcguiness, Hubert, D navs, Dooner, Buttlint, The Asian Equasion, etc..).

Skateboarding in the early to mid-nineties in Minneapolis was not recognized at all like it is today. It was looked at as a bunch of big pants wearing clowns, that were being loud and breaking things( now it is super new wave, X-games "athletes" creative expression!). We were hunted, literally, by a bunch of cops. These were not ordinary cops but cops with names like RJ Thunder and Officer Bully. Their whole purpose every day was to round us up like a bunch of cattle. We were treated like first rate criminals. Here is a good example: one day I was at the Federal just skating for a little bit. Asked a friend ( Chad Ottastrom in fact) if I could have one of his sodas that were in his car. He said yes and gave me his keys. I skated across Nicollet to his car and skated back. Right when I was about to sit down and enjoy my refreshing beverage, a padywagon pulled up onto the sidewalk. Two cops jumped out and immediately start yelling and running at me. I didn't really like where this was going so I pulled a "we out". Wrong decision, Minneapolis' finest ran me down, maced, and beat me. Only to further ruin my day by keeping me in jail. Oh, and this would not be the last time I would have beef with the local blue and white. Seems, once mid-summer rolls around, any skater rolling around downtown is fair game. This will leave one Badger very jaded!

So there is a brief glimpse into the life that is my own. This is what I would like to bring to this column. To be able to share my personal experiences with skateboarding in the city of Minneapolis. Let me remind you that there are some views that I will voice that are only my own, so take what you will. In the words of Ol'dirty, " I'm doing it for the kids!". There are a lot of little gromits out there rolling around on their boards and have no idea of the history behind that piece of wood (most of them are so caught up in trying to be the freshest that they forget the one essential part: style). So how are they going to learn with out a teacher? Every month I will give you a little trivia to see what most of you know. This month I selected four old school photos. Your job is to answer the two questions that go alone with the pics. If you answer six of the eight right you will win a Hardflip T-shirt. If you get eight of eight right then you get hooked up with a hooded Hardflip sweatshirt. E-mail your answers to the address posted. All the answers will be posted next month. This should keep you busy till next time.