FROM AVON PAGE 3 Group aims to end violence
It was the scream heard around the camp site.
Mike Garvin came all the way from Ottawa, Canada to participate in a week-long inline skating trek from San Francisco to Santa Monica this week to raise awareness about violence, all to fall painfully on the first day of the expedition.
The result was a condition call road rash, his right leg skinned from the pavement, losing what he estimates is roughly a quarter-inch of flesh.
So when he took a shower at Lake Casitas on the eve of the last day of the trip, the pain of water hitting his skin was more than Garvin could hold inside.
“You can hear him in agony, the pain,” David Miles, who organized the skating trip, said on Thursday. “I felt the pain just from hearing the groans and moans.”
Instead of calling it quits shortly after he took the fall, Garvin got up, brushed off and continued.
“It was all manageable,” Garvin said. “Lots of sting, lots of painkillers, but it’s OK.”
Garvin was more than relieved to see the conclusion of the four-day-long excursion on Thursday afternoon when the team of 13 skaters arrived at its destination, the Santa Monica Pier.
The skaters, which came from around the world, were participants of Skate Against Violence, an effort first organized by the San Franciscan Miles to try and raise awareness about the increasing amount violence in the city by the bay.
“We skate through the night, through the mountains, through freezing temperatures,” Miles, the appointed godfather of skating, said on Thursday as the skaters were en route from Oxnard to Santa Monica.
Miles, a Kansas City native, organized the first skate in 1979, a cross-state trip that was sponsored by the non-profit organization The Hunger Project. The skating trips in the years following all were aimed at raising awareness, not money, about hunger until 1989 when Miles shifted the focus to addressing violence.
On Halloween night in 1989, Bruce Marshall, a long-time skater and participant of the trips, was shot and killed after thieves broke into his car to steal musical equipment. The first Skate Against Violence was dedicated in Marshall’s memory.
Since then, Miles has organized numerous trips from the San Francisco Bay to Southern California, trips dedicated in the memories of Shelby Graham, Patrick Hourican and Regina Lovings, all associated with Miles, all victims of violence.
To Miles, the trip isn’t just about addressing violence, but remembering the lost victims.
3F2,“This stuff happens every day,” Miles said. “You look in the paper and see a murder and a week later, you don’t remember the (victim’s) name.”
The trip kicked off on Monday in front of San Francisco City Hall, but the skating itself didn’t start until the participants crossed over to Oakland on International Boulevard, a notoriously dangerous street in Miles’ eyes.
The skaters continued down through I-580 and began their journey.
The team has lost at least two skaters to injuries but picked up one along the way on Highway 33 in Gustine, just south of Fremont.
The skate takes place 24 hours a day, but the members rotate, some skating while others rest in an RV.
“When you go skating, it is the most awesome thing,” Miles said. “It is great people, it is fun, it is inclusive, it is free.”
“It’s an escape from the things you see every day,” he said.
The team was a collection of rookies, like first-timer Garvin, to the veterans like Robert Wurgaft, who took part in his fourth trip since 2002.
Wurgaft said he got involved because of what seemed like an alarming amount of crime in San Francisco.
The San Mateo native developed a half-dollar-sized blister on his left foot about 20 minutes into the trip on Monday.
“All along there have been people supporting us,” Garvin said. “It’s very rewarding in that way.”
Garvin first learned about the trip a few months ago on an online discussion forum for inline skaters.
“I thought it would be a cool adventure in support of a good cause,” Garvin said.
He’s among several international skaters, including one from France.
The team plans to spend a few days in Southern California before taking off in the RV back to San Francisco. The reason why Miles chose Santa Monica as a destination was because of its reputation for being a green city.
“One of the things we’re trying to put out there is skating is a green form of transportation,” he said.
While the trip is about ending violence, Miles recognizes that the group can’t save the world. He just hopes that their actions will pay it forward.
“If everyone did something to make life easier for someone else, then these things could change,” Miles said.
Jump hedline: Group aims to end violence by skating
Suggested pullquote: “If everyone did something to make life easier for someone else, then these things could change.”
David Miles
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 18, 2008. Read the original PDF.