I remember when everyone was so upset about skate-boarders in cities and neighborhoods. Even today, I have to be careful around some kid on a bike or skate-boarder not watching what they’re doing or being where they shouldn’t.

I remember thinking how silly it was to build skateboard parks just for the crazy kids who wore ski caps during the summer. Wanting to replace grass parks with empty swimming pools seemed to be a recipe for disaster. However, watching these kids defy gravity, and knowing that there is no way that I can do what they do, I think these parks have become a great idea.

Maybe we could try the same thing with graffiti. Graffiti has become a littering epidemic of our visual landscape. It’s costing businesses and cities too much money to clean up and it’s not worth the battle. Fighting graffiti is like arresting cancer patients for marijuana use. It doesn’t make any sense. Moreover, graffiti artists are like smokers in that they’re condemned to outdoor alcoves where we try to keep it all hidden, but it’s in plain view.

Now I don’t understand people who want to deface other’s property. I also don’t understand why these people don’t use a canvas as their outlet, or try working in a tattoo parlor which has become the fastest growing industry in our country besides selling pills. Maybe it’s the spray-paint huffing that turns them on.

What I do understand is these people are artists. They’re artists who need their own space, but there isn’t enough of it, so their frustration searches out other avenues to express themselves. Maybe if they had their own park, made of a mile-long cement circumference, 8 feet high, things would be different. Maybe we should build graffiti walls around the skate-boarder’s parks.

Ken Hopstad

Marysville