Geoff Rowley & David Gonzalez Attempt The Walnut High School 22

You read it right.  Walnut High School!  For those of you who don’t know, Walnut, CA is one of the most unique cities in the entire country.  It is like a little utopia of wholesome family goodness.  It was even featured in CNN’S best cities in the United States article a few years back.  Now before you go on saying how you know of Walnut and that you’ve been there, plus it kind of sucks there, then hold up a minute because chances are, you are mixing up the city with another lesser city with Walnut in it’s name.  First of all, everyone thinks that Walnut is Walnut Creek, which too is in California.  But Walnut Creek is in Northern Cali whereas Walnut is in Southern Cali.  It’s about 25 minutes east of Downtown Los Angeles.  Second of all, for those who do know where Walnut is because you live in a nearby city, (Diamond Bar, Pomona, Chino Hills, West Covina), just note that you city is nowhere close to being as awesome as ours.  The reason why most people in Southern California don’t know about Walnut is because there are no major highways or freeways running through it.  If in the past there were ever any proposals to build any business structures, our little socialist community denied access.

You see, as much as the citizens along with the elected officials of Walnut like to think they are upper class conservatives, they are actually very socialist.  It took many years until we saw a Vons Supermarket in our neighborhoods.  You think you can just buy land and set up a McDonalds on a busy street corner?  No chance.  That’s because Walnut and its citizens take pride in keeping our community small and exclusive.  You should see what great lengths parents go through just to get their kids into our SCHOOL SYSTEM.

And along with the exclusive community, you will see things in Walnut that you won’t see much of anywhere else.   Horse trails that line the streets.  A TEEN CENTER along with a SENIORS CENTER.  Wildlife like raccoons, opossums, and coyotes.  If you’re lucky, possibly a snake.

But growing up, my friends and I cared very little about all the amenities that came with the city of Walnut.  There was nothing in the city that we thought of as cool.  That’s until the pros started coming through.  In a short 2-3 year period, Walnut did major renovations on our middle and high schools, creating skate heavens for us locals.  Manuel pads, perfectly sized planters, rails, gaps, hips; you name it.  It was enough to get the likes of Daewon Song to come out.  And a single clip in one of his videos was the very first time I can recall Walnut being in a skate video.  It was a landmark achievement in the city’s history.

A few years later, Flip’s second edition of their SORRY series came out.  At the very end of Geoff Rowley’s part, you should remember one of the gnarliest rail slides ever recorded on video.  That rail slide took place on the campus of Walnut High School.  I wasn’t fortunate enough to be there to witness it but one of my friends was.  He said it was the best thing he had ever seen in his life.  You can actually hear him in the background cheering.

Now as time went by, Geoff felt as if he could do more with that set.  His attempt of the massive 22-stair gap is insane.  Those steps are no joke.  And now surface some footage of little David Gonzalez attempting to do the same?  Man that kid’s got balls.

Check out the footage on the FLIP website and witness what brings me so much pride when it comes to my home town Walnut.