Tell me about your Pittsburgh adventure.
So I went to Pittsburgh for the weekend with Willie (Stackus) and (Zach) Dykes. On Saturday, Dyke’s fuel pump breaks and we have to put the car in the shop. We skate Sunday and hope to be able to leave by Monday night, didn’t happen, turns out it doesn’t get fixed till Wednesday. We get to the shop and find out that a capture cam with a tape full of footage, cds, Willie’s backpack, and my EZ pass are missing from the car. Dykes confronts the owner of the shop about our missing things. The guy was bummed there were things missing but said he had nothing to do with it. We took the loss, packed what we had left and hit the road around 11p.m. About 45 minutes outside of Pittsburgh we hear something hit the right side of the car and get sucked under the back wheel. We were in denial, so we kept going. Thirty minutes go by and we hear the unforgettable sound of a flat tire. Sure enough the back right tire is flat. Dykes had roadside assistance so he called another tow truck out. We are on the turnpike, at the end of an S curve. Trucks are flying by close so we decided to wait behind a barrier. We shared one warm beer and a few smokes while we waited for the truck. The truck pulls up, and it’s a guy who looks to be in his late fifties. I spotted an Independent sticker on his back window and took it as a good omen. We climbed into his truck and took off. He tells us his name is Mark and that he has a shop about 35 miles in the opposite direction, but he could fix the car and we could get on the road right away. After not showering for five days and being worn out, we agreed.
So he’s driving further away from the turnpike. Real far out, no lights or street signs. He makes a turn onto an even darker road, and we drive another 10 minutes. Eventually he pulls into a driveway and announces our arrival. We see a house and behind that was a garage with some older cars in it. After taking another look at the tire, he says that his son may have the right tire, but that it would have to wait until the morning. We asked him if there was a hotel or lodge in the area we could stay at. There was not, but he offered us his basement. After a long pause we agreed. I’m not going to lie, we were sketched. After chilling with him for a little while and him showing us photos of him doing burnout contests back in the day, we realized he was actually really cool. We felt a little better about sleeping in the basement of a guy we met an hour ago. It also helped that this old guy smoked us out before bed! By 3 a.m. we wanted to get some sleep. When I woke up in the morning, Dykes had fallen asleep with a knife in his hand.
I wake up and hear an old lady (wife) asking Dykes who he was and why he was on her couch with a knife in his hand. He explained the story and she seemed satisfied. After that Mark came down the stairs and tells us he’s got coffee for us and that his son is on his way with the tire, which was the best thing we had heard in days. Somehow his son did have the exact tire Dykes needed and they put it on the rim for him and mounted it. We hung out for a bit and talked, but wanted to get back on the road. Dykes asked him how much we owed him. $20. We could not believe that this guy had saved us from the turnpike, taken us into his home, fed us and helped us get back on the road for $20. We did not know how to thank him. He said it was cool and that we needed to go. We got back on the road and made it back, in disbelief at the ridiculous change in our luck. Mark didn’t have to do any of that, but he did. Thank you Mark! Crazy way to start the summer off.
Woof, Favorite Manny story?
It was my friend’s birthday and we were in Philly. After hours of drinking, we decided to go to McDonalds around three or four in the morning. My friends order gets messed up and they accuse him of taking someone else’s food. This being Philly, the McDonald’s security guard got in my friend’s face. He punched him and they fell to the floor in a big ball. Several of the McDonald’s workers join in to help the guard. By this time, the guard has his hands around my friend’s throat and it doesn’t look good. Out of nowhere, Manny runs in and drags him out of the pile by his arms, which doesn’t make sense since there were multiple people on top of him. After running for a few minutes Philly’s finest caught up to us. They ran our ID’s and asked us what we were doing. I said skating, even though none of us had our boards. They ended up letting me and Manny go, but taking my friend in because he had a warrant. They let him out an hour later, and even gave him a ride to where we were staying. The best part was that someone filmed everything inside the McDonalds and it was all on Worldstar the next morning, including Manny’s heroics.
That clip never gets old. Let’s end with a Franco quote.
“She kissed me in ways which I never knew!”
Shoutouts?
Thanks to you, all the DC homies, and everybody in Pittsburgh that helped us out on that trip, especially Mark.
